The Septembers of Shiraz

The other day, I was listening to an interview with a professor living in Gaza who said the real fear is not knowing where the bombs will fall. He said that at first it was easy to know what areas were dangerous--The Israelis were targetting specific places such as police stations, but after awhile, they began targetting individual houses. He said something like, you don't know who the leaders of the cells are, so you don't know if it is your neighbor's house that will be hit.

This statement really struck home because I had just begun reading The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer about the overthrow of the Shah and the revolution in Tehran. There is that same sense of not knowing when the danger might come to you. You don't know who will be arrested (and tortured) next and the characters don't know which of their neighbors might turn them in and for what reason. As one character puts it: At least with the Shah, you knew why you were being arrested and tortured.

I found this a very powerful book, nicely paired with Marjan Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis. Fiction can be a good way to access history or confusing political events and if anything is confusing, it is the Iranian Revolution and the overthrow of the Shah. I was particularly confused about how to feel when I read Persepolis. Okay, so was the Shah good or bad? Clearly the revolutionaries went too far, but were they wrong to overthrow the Shah who seemed to have been a despot, or at least an extravagant and thoughtless leader? In Septembers of Shiraz, it's a little easier to understand because there is less ambiguity to the characters. Isaac Amin is a successful Jewish (?!) family man in Iran when he is suddenly arrested. Basically, the charge is being successful--and having once made some jewelry for the Empress (wife of the Shah). Oh yeah, and being Jewish, naturally he works for Mossad somehow...His wife starts a terrifying journey to find her husband--or news of him-- as well as making forays into this new world where her maid's son has more power over her than she has over her own life. Isaac's daughter starts stealing files from a friend's father in an effort to save lives of enemies of the revolution. His son is moping around in NYC, falling in love, and failing to move on with his life.

This character, Perviz, was an incredibly irritating character. His father is being beaten and terrorized in jail, his mother is lost and desperate to protect her family and lifestyle in a crumbling society, and Perviz can't quite get it together...to pay his rent.

It's interesting that the main characters are Jewish (though non-practicing). First of all, I had no idea that there would be Jews in Tehran. Dumb of me, I know. Second, it's a nice "Outsider" view of the revolution. In NYC, Perviz finds himself attached to an Orthodox family and there are some weird parallels to the chosen life of the Orthodox and the enforced religion of the Revolution. The Orthodox family is very nice, very kind, so it's a little creepy to see some of these parallels.

The father, for example, talks a lot about how he sees his role in the world. His 'job' is to repopulate the Jewish faith after so many have been destroyed over the years. He does not matter as an individual because everything he does is for the greater good of his religion, his people. This is a nice image of believing in something greater than yourself, but it's downright alarming to have that juxtaposed with the revolutionary guards back in Iran telling Isaac Amin that he must lose everything (even if he is a nice man) because he represents all the bad of all the elites. That is, he is the symbol of many and not an individual at all. He pays for the mistakes and perceived cruelty of all.

There are some very hard moments to read in this book, but I found the family quite believable. Yes, they are changed by the end of the book, but just as you cannot really live every day as though it were your last (even if you think you should), so too do the Amins resort to some of their past habits. Farnaz, Isaac's wife is a little bitter because she realizes that her husband now has a monopoly on grief, and she will never again be allowed to complain about something. Isaac is still wealthy (enough) at the end and reverts to caring about material things, though at least he feels guilty now. Perviz, well, I didn't like him enough to figure out if he'd changed or not. I guess he woke up, at least.

This is the kind of book that makes me feel both smarter and dumber about the world and I'm glad I read it.

Now I'm reading a nice, fluffy book, Kissing Games of the World.