Double Iranian

Film Review: 3 Faces by Jafar Panahi
Book review: The House of the Mosque by Kader Abdolah who writes in Dutch, his adopted tongue

Last Sunday, while my house sank to the bottom of the marsh which is Brittany, I went to see the latest film by one of Iran’s best modern directors.  Like his other work, it was a social commentary on living in Iran today and told with what I would consider great affection for the people and the country.  I’m amazed he has so much trouble with the authorities there.  His criticisms are not strident or vicious and what country expects to be shown only in a positive light. Altogether a lovely piece of work.

Seeing it put me in mind of a book I haven’t mentioned at our meetings so I dug out a review I wrote of it some time back.

Kader Abdolah is a pen-name, constructed from the names of two of the author’s friends murdered in the troubles surrounding the Islamic Revolution in Iran.  This is my second experience of his writing, the first being Cunéiforme (My Father’s Notebook) and I predict he will come to be recognised as a great and subtle writer.  Right now his books are slow to appear in English.

This is a book by an exile who loves the country he fled.  He writes with a light touch, spanning decades and giving us a view of the country during both the Shah’s reign and the Khomeini years from the point of view of the peaceful head of a household who is repeatedly drawn by family members into confrontation with the authorities.  The disgraceful conduct of America in supporting the Shah’s regime and in supporting Saddam Hussein’s savage chemical war gets a restrained and honest airing in the book.

It’s so easy to dismiss Iran, based on the country as reported to us in the evening news.  Read this book for an entirely new perspective on a dignified and cultivated people living under consecutive intolerable regimes.

This in turn reminds me of Frankenstein in Baghdad, which I mentioned on WhatsApp last week, which doesn’t come close to matching these two gems.