{"id":34886,"date":"2017-12-18T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34886"},"modified":"2017-11-22T13:49:46","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T00:49:46","slug":"what-im-reading-something-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2017\/12\/18\/what-im-reading-something-new\/","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019m Reading: Something New"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>To lead into the holiday season, and quite possibly to bridge the old and new years, I\u2019m taking a look at four of the more interesting books I\u2019ve read in 2017.<\/p>\n

And yes, you guessed it, the series is titled \u201cSomething Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue.\u201d Original? Yeah, nah\u2026Nonetheless, I hope you\u2019ll find something of interest therein.<\/p>\n

For \u201cSomething New\u201d the book I\u2019m featuring is Us & Them<\/em><\/strong> by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani<\/a>, published by Redwood (264 pp; Stanford University Press) earlier in 2017\u2014which I feel counts as new enough, particularly when last week\u2019s entry (The Sea Change<\/em>) hailed from 1959.<\/p>\n

Firstly, I\u2019d like to say that this is a physically beautiful book. The quality of the paper is a delight to touch and the dust jacket has a velvety finish that reminds you that this is \u2018book as object\u2019, not just a vehicle for the story within. No question, though, the story within repays your commitment to getting past the physical delight of the book.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s it about? The dust jacket describes Us & Them<\/em> as \u201cA story mirrored in fragmented lives\u2026[that explores]\u2026the ludicrous and the tragic, the venal and the generous-hearted aspects of Iranian life away from home\u2026a poignant story about migration, one of the vital issues of our times.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I do take issue with the jacket on some points and this is one of them, because the \u201clife away from home\u201d is that of those who fled the Iranian revolution, so in that sense it is a story of exile and exiles, with all its permutations. Exile, imho, is not directly analogous with migration, which in many cases will be voluntary and economic or familial, rather than involuntary and political.<\/p>\n

Splitting semantic hairs over the jacket summary, however, is not the same as taking issue with the book, which I loved overall. I did approach it with some diffidence, because it\u2019s not my usual sort of read, but within a few short chapters I was hooked and wanting to just read on. I didn\u2019t, because I had my own book to write, but I wanted<\/em> to\u2026<\/p>\n

The story is told in two main streams, one of which uses the first person plural point-of-view, aka the story is told from the point of view of \u201cwe.\u201d The reader is also told that this is a convention of the Persian literary tradition, for reasons that are a clue to the function the \u201cwe\u201d sections form in the book\u2014which to me felt like (very successful) storytelling via the medium of something resembling the chorus of ancient Greek theatre. I loved these sections and thought they were both illuminating and really \u201crocked\u201d the book.<\/p>\n

The second stream is told from the more traditional (in Western European literature anyway) third person singular point of view, which is this case shifts between the female members of an Iranian family, some of whom live in exile while others have remained in Iran. The story is about the way in which the revolution and either exile or staying behind has changed the women\u2019s relationships with each other and their dealings with other family members and the world, although outwardly it may appear focused on the fate of the son\/brother who disappeared during the Iran\/Iraq war. I was engaged in this half of the story, but it did not absorb me as completely as the \u201cwe\u201d sections did.<\/p>\n

Overall, though, I believe Us & Them<\/em> is an interesting and enjoyable read that addresses the social and cultural aspects of the Iranian exile, which I suspect many people\u2014like me\u2014will know little of. The themes of exile and family relationships, however, are as old as the human race, which makes Us & Them<\/em> universally relevant storytelling.<\/p>\n

Did I like it? Yes, I did and recommend Us & Them <\/em>to anyone who can get their hands on a copy\u2014and because of the beautiful presentation as well as the writing, with the season of coming up, it would make a superb gift.<\/p>\n

I believe Us & Them\u00a0<\/em>may appeal to readers who also enjoyed\u00a0Louis de Berni\u00e8res Birds Without Wings<\/em>, Jumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake<\/em>, and Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By way of disclosure, my copy of Us & Them <\/em>was a gift from my friend and fellow author, Mary Victoria<\/a> — and as well as being a fine author, Bahiyyih Nakhjavani is Mary\u2019s mother. Beyond that connection, however, she is not personally known to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To lead into the holiday season, and quite possibly to bridge the old and new years, I\u2019m taking a look at four of the more interesting books I\u2019ve read in 2017. And yes, you guessed it, the series is titled \u201cSomething Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue.\u201d Original? Yeah, nah\u2026Nonetheless, I hope you\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34886"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34892,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34886\/revisions\/34892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}