The Septembers of Shiraz: A Novel (P.S.)
by Dalia Sofer
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Book Reviews of The Septembers of Shiraz: A Novel (P.S.)
Book Review: Tribute to Pain
Summary: 3 Stars
The author, being an Iranian of the generation that was too young to clearly remember the revolution, has wisely chosen to write a fictionalized memoir.
Isaac Amin, a gem dealer in Tehran, who has pulled himself up from a very modest slums of Khoramshahr, a southern oil district of Iran, to the wealthy upper class Tehran's society, is arrested shortly after the Revolution. His son, who is studying in New York, his wife, a vocalist, and his young daughter, are devastated and overwhelmed by the sudden changes for which they were unprepared.
Even though the story is related in the third person, I still have the impression that Shirin, then nine years old, is telling us a true story long after she and her family landed safely in the United States. I think the author in her interviews reinforced this impression, though I'm not sure that she intended to.
There are three distinct settings in the novel: jail, where Amin is, the family home in Tehran, where Farnaz and Shirin (Amin's wife and daughter) are living, and New York City, where Parviz (Amin and Farnaz's older son) studies. The most vivid description of these lives is the Amin's jail experience, which stands out among them. Next to his life in jail comes Parviz's life in New York, which we learn more about. Farnaz and her daughter are notably ignored until the last chapter of the book, in which we feel their presence when they are given the best seats in the front of the truck over the boarder to Turkey. Amin had made sure to pay extra for their safety and comfort.
The book's blurb says, "The September of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not just for a spouse or a child (the father is the protagonist of the story) but for the unnameable, uncountable sights and sounds of the places we call home." If this novel is about love and identity, it was totally lost to me. While it has just a casual acquaintance with love, it has much more to say about the pain, though of a particular kind. It is about the abuse of human rights, arrest, confiscation, torture, bribing, smuggling, corruption, and lawlessness. It is the recording of pain in the solitude of jail, where colorlessness and hopelessness cast a deeper shadow on pain and turn it into a horror. Those of us who have had dear ones in and out of Evin Prison know very well how daring it is to learn about the pain and suffering there. As far as I know, those who have experience it don't voluntarily sharing it either. Dalia Sofer, with amazing courage, dares to look into this abyss and freezes everything into words; delightfully, she does it without rage or anger.
The book was a tribute to the pain and suffering of those whose suffering was not in retribution for their wrongdoings, but merely to their slipping into the wrong side of life by sheer chance. It is a heartbreaking tale of a man who happens to fall out of favor when society goes through changes. Amin's suffering in jail is the most elaborate and the most vivid part of the book. It is the life in those smelly, blood-smeared, insect-infested, moldy cells, smeared with blood cells which works on our heart, rather than those outside of the cell, except for those breath-taking pages when Shirin is steals some files and again when she buries them in the garden.
In contrasted to Amin's experiences in his enforced solitude, which comes to us so sharply and vividly, Farnaz's experience is passed over. Even her identity remains obscure to the reader. There is not even one incident in the book in which a friend visits her or any occasion for her to visit anyone. There are no Sabbath dinners with friends or relatives, no friends calling, no one dropping by; she is all alone while Amin is in jail.
Though the book is about suffering, there is none of the Farnaz's pain depicted in it. Given the impression I have regarding the story's point of view, I'm puzzled by the absence of Farnaz and the indifferences of the author to her.
New York City gives life a better chance to display itself. We know more about Parviz than Farnaz and Shirin. Since the book was published in the United States, we need something for the local reader to connect to. But that aside, a parallel runs through the story, if not a connection. Briefly, Parviz, adopted by a Hasidic family, discovers how unyielding is the space between connection and interruption. One false move, one misspoken word, and you find yourself on the wrong side of things.
It is this thin wall which is the most frightening aspect of our modern life, this unreliability and unpredictability, this living by chance, by a flip of the coin, this unexpected "all of a sudden" which turns Isaac Amin's life upside down and sends Parviz to the wrong side the wall. The only difference is that by pure luck, Parviz is better suited on the wrong side, but Isaac is not.
Clair Messud, in her very favorable review, holds out the hope that this book will become "a classic," alongside The Great Gatsby. But, there is a long way to go for the September of Shiraz to become a classic, for a novel in which two of its four characters do not find a chance to appear fully or even to develop at all and whose subplots have no connection to the main plot except through the blood relation. Why are we are in such a rush? The author is too young and has just started, it is her first novel. Let's do not go that far. It takes a bit more than one review in The New York Times to make any book a classic.
Yes, Sofir's story is very good for a novice writer. A work in the progress, I would call it. Let the story to be read and judged by its readers, and not friendly critic, and let's see if it withstands its readers' demands. Let's see if it answers reader's questions. Then, in due time, it will become a classic disregarding the capricious market.
Book Review: Iran after the revolution
Summary: 5 Stars
An insight into the post Iranian Revolution, beautfully written. A subject such as this could have been difficult to read but the author has a wonderful light touch. The Amin family, well to do non-muslims, fall out of favor with the regime and suffer many consequences. A wonderful new writer has emerged. Book Review: A thoughtful, compassionate tale
Summary: 5 Stars
To say that this book is set in the days after the Iranian revolution seems to me to be a bit misleading. It is certainly true but it lends the impression that this is a political book or a book that is filled with tales of misery and oppression. While the author doesn't flinch from the unsavory details, that's really not what this book is about. What it is about is how a family does their best to deal with their reality.
Isaac Amin is the obvious victim of the story. While doing paperwork one day, he is unceremoniously arrested. The details of his life in prison are harsh and matter-of-fact but are presented in such a stark way that it makes the horrors all the more real. Sofer doesn't need to get into the gory details because simply writing about how this man survives his trip into hell is all the vivid detail a reader could possibly need. The atrocities committed in the prison aren't prettied up but their presentation as mere facts of life makes the telling of them all the more chilling. How terrible to have to live through such an ordeal.
Equally compelling, though, are the details of Isaac's wife Farnaz's daily struggles. She is in a prison of a different sort, one in which she has to try to carry on with some sort of normal life, all the while knowing that her husband's fate hangs in the balance. She must deal with questions that are all too natural for someone in such a situation, wondering if those around her whom she has trusted the most have perhaps betrayed her in the most fundamental of manners. She is also forced to reckon with her own missteps, with the many past occassions during which she has taken for granted the service and loyalty of others, as we are all wont to do. Both Farnaz and Isaac must face the sudden realization that their sense of entitlement may very well be their undoing.
While I found the tale of their son, Parviz, less sympathetic, he was an interesting character nonetheless. Forced for the first time in his life to make his own way, he stumbles and occassionally falls. He must deal with his own realities, with the sudden understanding that the life of privilege he has always known has suddenly dissolved.
The most sympathetic character, for me, was Shirin. She is an adult trapped in a child's body, forced at a very tender age to deal with some very frightening realities. When a hasty act of bravery comes back to haunt her, she must deal with the burden of knowing that her own small act of heroism might be the undoing of her family. Her tale is one of small actions that have large consequences--sometimes good and sometimes bad--that underscore how the small ripples that we create in the pond of life can sometimes have the largest and most widespread rings.
This novel is really a masterwork, one that is haunting and thought provoking on so many levels. It is a tale of human fralities and contradictions, of the tyranny of both the privileged and the have nots, and of the dangers of taking ones life for granted. Sofer's prose is lovely, her images vivid and full of life. She is truly a gifted author who will hopefully have more tales to share.
Book Review: A novel that reads like great non-fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
Fascinating, superbly written novel which read like non-fiction. Not knowing much about Iran, I found this book informative, yet very sensitive. I look forward to more books by this talented young woman.Book Review: superb read
Summary: 5 Stars
I've never read the last sentence of a book and burst out crying but I did over this book much to my surprise and I don't quite understand why one reviewer didn't care for the ending which I thought was perfect. I loved the characters especially through the growth of each one. This is not the typical fall of the Shah novel though it could have been but fortunately the author kept this from happening through the daughter and the growth of the characters. I was just enchanted with the book. Pure literature among all the garbage out there. I rank it right up with Reading Lolita in Tehran though that one is non-fiction. And I'm not that enthralled with books written about this area of the world but somehow women authors are doing great work and I look foward to the next great find.