In the Walled Gardens: A Novel [Hardcover]

Anahita Firouz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002

Set in the exotic, seductive world of pre-revolutionary Iran, IN THE WALLED GARDENS tells the nostalgic and moving story of Mahastee and Reza, who loved each other as children but have not seen each other for 20 years.Mahastee, who has become trapped by the privileged society she has grown up in, is struggling to keep her identity in the face of the increasingly empty role she inhabits. Reza has grown up to become a Marxist revolutionary, leading underground meetings and living on the edge. When chance brings the two together again, their encounters are a portrait not only of an ill-fated love, but of two worlds at odds, moving ever closer to a doomed collision.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The underlying corruption of prosperous prerevolutionary Tehran provides the backdrop for this stilted first novel, alternately narrated by Mahastee, a wealthy, unhappily married woman whose husband is one of the business elite, and Reza, a Marxist underground revolutionary who is the son of the groundskeeper at Mahastee's father's estate. As children, Mahastee and Reza harbored a forbidden love for each other. Now in their 30s, they are thrown together in their attempt to free an acquaintance imprisoned unfairly by the Shah's secret police. Despite their common cause, their differing loyalties Reza's to Marxism, as embodied by Jalal, an uncompromising revolutionary, and Mahastee's to some more nebulous idea of justice and personal freedom pull them apart. A wandering narrative leaches some of the drama from the plot, as do the characters' desultory musings. The narrative voices of Reza and Mahastee are virtually identical despite their differences of gender, class and politics, and both report on the life around them with much description, but little sentiment. Because they do not seem emotionally engaged with their complex situations, the reader does not engage with their stories, despite the urgency of the characters' plights. The parties, gossip, affairs and drinking of the Tehran "B+" list are well drawn, as are the relationships of masters with servants, but the story is hollow at its core.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Firouz's debut novel is set in Iran in 1977, just a couple of years prior to the revolution in 1979. Told from two points of view--that of Mahastee, a wealthy young woman, and Reza, the son of an overseer--the story revolves around the world of privilege and the revolutionary underground. Mahastee and Reza knew each other as children, when Reza's father worked for Mahastee's family, but their lives have taken different courses. Mahastee is married to a wealthy businessman, whose personal and professional practices disgust her. Reza is involved in the leftist movement that protests the government's treatment of the majority of its citizens. Both Mahastee and Reza are seeking missing men: the son of one of Mahastee's colleagues and an associate of Reza's. As Mahastee learns of the sadistic secret police system, Reza discovers traitors in the midst of his group. Gradually, their two stories merge, and they are torn between their rekindled attraction and their obligations to their friends and families. Firouz expertly brings to life the tense atmosphere of the years before the Iranian revolution. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; First Edition edition (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316608548
• ISBN-13: 978-0316608541
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #730,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful story about a different edge to revolution, October 8, 2002

By 

B. Bauer "Brandita" (Somewhere on the 38th parallel N) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Walled Gardens: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've read several novels that are set against the backdrop of the Iranian revolution, and typically they're characterized by straightforward good vs. bad mentalities, and in the end, the two protagonists always end up in each others' arms. Not so with this masterpiece by Firouz. Don't be fooled by some of the editorial reviews and book jacket comments...this is not a romance. It's more a story of exile, of what happens when a country's politics end up shutting out an entire generation of people. And that's the book's power and beauty.

Mahastee and Reza are both smart enough to recognize that ultimately they have chosen their fates, and to realize that whatever they might do, by virtue of social class, revolutionary association, etc., their fates are now out of their hands. It's what makes this book profound and tragic, and ultimately, the most realistic book you'll ever read about 1979 Iran.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the walled gardens, October 28, 2002

By 

Samit Ghosh (Bangalore India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Walled Gardens: A Novel (Hardcover)

The book paints a very perceptive picture of pre-revolution Iran through the eyes of a sensitive upper class house-wife and a left wing radical. The love story though poignant is almost incidental.This novel has resonances in many countries of the region both in the Middle East and Asia of that period. The author has done an outstanding job. In the walled garden( or is it pairi daeza?) is a book difficult to put down.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragic tale of history's web, October 14, 2002

By 

B. Bauer "Brandita" (Somewhere on the 38th parallel N) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Walled Gardens: A Novel (Hardcover)

"Exile is its own country," Anahita Firouz write in this, her debut novel. Set in the brewing years of the Iranian revolution, it follows two people's lives, Mahastee and Reza, friends as children, who have now been inextricably tied in to the politics of their land. Warning to all who may have a mistaken view of where this is going: this novel is definitely not a love story! It is much more about the history of a place, and its people, about how much we can and cannot control our own destinies.

Reading this novel you can almost feel the wind rush off the Alborz mountains, feel the sense of impending doom that is about to crash down on these characters and their countryside. While it takes a few chapters to get truly involved in their story, you'll find it hard to put down once you are. And believe me, it's worth it...this book as the most heartbreakingly realistic ending I have ever read.