Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
The best book on Iran I've ever read, 19 Sep 2003
The Ward family go back to Iran in the late 1990s, looking for Hassan and his wife Fatimeh, who had been their employees when the family (Mum, Dad and four boys) were living in Tehran during the 1960s. I say 'employees', but that doesn't quite fit the bill: the Iranian couple have become abiding memories to the American family, especially the boys to whom they gave so many memories they have cherished. The story is told by Terry Ward, one of the sons. All four are now into middle age, while their parents are sprightly but a tad frail. They embark on a family trip, seizing the opportunity of a thaw in Iran's Islamic regime, to seek the village of Toodesht, the home place of Hassan and Fatimeh. This is all they have to go on.
It is not giving away the plot of this lovely book to tell prospective readers that they find Hassan and Fatimeh. They also 'find' Iran to be rather unchanged by the Mullahs in important respects. It is still richly hospitable. Rich too is the ancient culture, the crafts, etc. The landscape has not changed. The Mullahs are just one more invasion. And Iranians take invasion in their stride and roll with the punches.
Apart from the search and the glorious find, the Ward family in the person of Terry takes the reader through a really very astute history of the country. We learn a lot about the poet Hafez, the founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great, Persian cuisine, the history ancient and modern that led up to the takeover of the mullahs. And, defying all expectations, there is little or nothing in the way of 'horror' (save that for Fox and CNN) apart from some hair-raising car-rides.
As someone who was in Iran during the seventies, teaching English as a Foreign Language in Isfahan, I find it hard to express the effect this super book had on me. I have Hassans and Fatimehs in my life, too; people I would love to go and see before too much more time has passed. The Wards made me believe it was possible. There must be many thousands of people who visited and loved Iran. The Wards, though American, were never abused, never taunted as 'The Great Satan'. The Iranians they met greeted them in the old, elegant way and sat them down to anything they had to give.
Terry Ward manages to remind readers of the things in Iran that are most wonderful: the Call to Prayer from the Shah (now Khomeini) mosque in Isfahan, the bridges spanning the Zayandeh Rud; the magnificence of the hospitality; the glories of the landscape. Also, Qom, the religious capital, does not seem to have changed a jot. It is still an ordeal for foreigners to pass through, probably for Iranians too. Worth a visit only for its Gaz, a wonderful pistachio sweet.
The climax of the book is the finding of Hassan and Fatimeh, and there were several pages there that had this reader weeping. It is a book everyone should read. When you've finished you view through a sceptical lens all the so called 'truth-tellers' on the media who paint such a negative picture of country after country. Writers do this too of course. Mr Ward does not go down this route. He is to be applauded for finding another way. And that way has led him to the heart of Iran - and the heart of this very grateful and consoled reader.
The author is a credit to his parents and to the lovely Iranian couple who so enriched his childhood. Had I written such a book, I should feel that my time on the planet had been justified.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Appreciation works wonders, 23 Mar 2005
By A Customer
The best feature of this story is the author's sense of appreciation. Returning to the land of his childhood after 30 years, Ward is filled with appreciation for all places, characters and canundrums he meets. Where suspicion commonly reigns between Americans and Iranians, Ward's infectious appreciation opens door after door -- to enjoyment, insight and friendship.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Appreciation works wonders, 25 Jan 2008
The best feature of this story is the author's sense of appreciation. Returning to the land of his childhood after 30 years, Ward is filled with appreciation for all places, characters and canundrums he meets. Where suspicion commonly reigns between Americans and Iranians, Ward's infectious appreciation opens door after door -- to enjoyment, insight and friendship.
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