persian mirrors - book review

bargeboo: i have been reading a most interesting book on iran. perhaps i may be realy very naive in how much i really know about history of islamic revolution of iran and the way economy works or iran's international policies. reading the book sure has made me believe that.

the book is "persian mirrors, the elusive face of iran" and it is written by "elaine sciolino" of new york times. sorry to ruin the surprise for you but if you don't know her, she was the only woman journalist among a host of them who accompanied khomeini on his flight back to iran from paris back in 1979. i got a nice jolt out of that one.

the details, the people she has had access to and the accuracy of her descriptions where astonishing to me. i am down to the last ten pages and i stand in awe of how much she has actually "got it". again i may be naive here - due to living a rather sheltered life while i was growing up in iran - so to those well-informed, well-read and well-connected friends out there who know much more about iran, i would love to hear your opinions on her book.

the only thing that bothered me was her clear bias towards the jews in iran. she devotes an entire chapter to religious minority and a full section of that chapter to jews. her tone which up till then has been clearly straining to remain objective, becomes emotional and angry at the mistreatments of iranian jews. quite well deserved i am sure but not so detached as the rest of book. in fact she writes a whole lot less on bahaies and even less on armenians. zoroastrians don't even get a paragraph.

however, she redeems herself when she goes to great lenght explaining how even the most mis-treated bahaie, jew, kurd and turk calls himself iranian and would rather not live anywhere else but in iran. i also really enjoyed her understanding of iranian society and how she tried so very hard to explain the multi dimentional culture that is iran today with its so many obvious contradictions. the name of the book could not have been chosen better: "like the mirror mosaics found in iran's royal palaces and religious shrines, there is more to the whole of the country than the fragments revealed to outsiders".

Its a shame the book has been published 4 years ago. I would have loved to hear her comments on the last four years of iran. so much has happened since.

you should read the book really. i would even go as far as suggesting you recommend this book to those close friends of yours who have been patiently listening to your political and nationalistic rants about our beloved land, trying to half understand the source of all that passion. :)