Julia Slaughter

Posts Tagged ‘Far Away Places’

I have always liked to read book that give me a little peek into another time or another culture. I admit that I like reading Jane Austen just because it amuses me to hear terms like “countenance” and talk of cousins marrying without a crack made about being from Alabama or Mississippi. (After all this was British gentry!) However, I have to admit that books set in faraway places are also intriguing to me, particularly the Middle East. I suppose it’s because an area of the world that I know so little about and that seems so different from our own.

In was my desire to get a peek into the Middle East that caused me to pick up – Reading Lolita in Theran which I was less than impressed with. I think that the book was trying so hard to be one of the great works of literature in discusses and dissects in the book that it failed to entertain me. I was very impressed by how smart the author was, but my understanding about things in Iran was hazy at best. The meat of the story – the women and their relationships, left me feeling empty and unfulfilled.

My next attempt was Kabul Beauty School which was entertaining but it was the voice of an outsider looking in, and so I still felt like I didn’t quite get the inside view I really wanted. (I also though the author was a little off her rocker – marrying a man she could barely communicate with who was married to another woman but that’s a whole different issue all together.)

Finally along came Mahbod Seraji’s Rooftops of Tehran, here is the book I waited for!

First off this book is Fiction so there can be no shocking expose later to reveal that characters were fabricated causing me to question what else might have been fabricated, (Ala Kabul Beauty School) but the story was beautiful. I lived on that alley, and I laughed at the rash of pranks that erupted amongst the kids there, I cried at the loss of innocence and the loss of love. I carefully considered my own culture as it was reflected to me through the storyteller. (Seriously there have been times I wanted to wail with grief, why is that frowned on here?)

I took my time and cherished this book, I savored the highs and I mourned the lows. I almost wish there was a sequel so I could find out what happened to these characters that I grew to love but the ending was so perfect that perhaps it’s best to leave well enough alone.

This is a book I will reread and every time I expect to laugh and cry, just the way I did this time. What a fantastic book!