Customer Reviews

The Crazy Dervish and the Pomegranate Tree

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Here is a collection of stories by an author who is known in this country primarily as a novelist, but this eclectic collection of short and long stories indicates that she has equally mastered the art of writing short stories.

Several of the stories in this collection deal with the fate of the political prisoners in Iran as do two of Farnoosh Moshiri's novels, At the Wall of Almighty and The Bathhouse. If you have read those novels, you'll find that the common theme, a leitmotif perhaps, of the "wall" returns in her short storey by that same title. Here again she takes us to the wall where innocent people are executed or tortured, all in the name of God. And, in another story in this book, we meet the "Bricklayer" who is the ever present witness of the execution of the innocent people everywhere.

Some of these stories deal with the plight of newly arriving immigrants in the U.S. However, these stories don't just talk about the loss of status, financial and social, that the first generation immigrants often face in their new country. The refugees in these stories fled their countries after wars, revolutions or for fear of prosecution. So, in addition to what other immigrants experience, they also have to deal with the memory of their horrible experiences and the deep sense of loss of their homeland.

Farnoosh Moshiri's stories are as always full of mysterious images and symbols that often create an exotic atmosphere and the fairy-tale like story of The Crazy Dervish and the Pomegranate Tree is an example of how she can tell a story that can read like an old Persian fairy tale, but refer to the present time. Reading Crazy Dervish will take you to another time and place, but at the end you'll realize the story is about now and here. It is a timeless story, as most good fairy tales are.

I recommend this book to everyone.

These are not stories about the atrocities of the Islamic government that seized the power after the popular Iranian revolution of 1979. These are timeless stories about the injustice and brutality of man against his own kind for greed and power that has been happening since the beginning of time. The Dickensian "Gas City" versus the utopian "Raz City" in "Crazy Dervish..." is a metaphor for any city in the world ruined by Capitalist exploitation and injustice. The Orwellian tortures in "The Wall" are deja vu to anyone familiar with the brutality of the "Death Squads" in Latin America. Moshiri's stories are amazingly picturesque. She is master of painting in words. Her recurrent use of the timeless "Bricklayer" and the "Wall of the Almighty" (where the executions take place) reminds one of Dali's sceneries. A fascinating reading. Highly recommended.