I am not finish with the whole book yet. In fact, during our January meeting, I was the one furthest into the book at 200 pages. It is a higher level of reading than previous books we have read. Covering difficult social topics, Azar gives us an insiders view of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A female perspective.
Let me start with a couple of quotes:
pg 31; "[Yassi] was the little cinder girl, living in the shadows of an inaccessible palace, in love with the unseen prince, who would one day hear her music."
pg 38; "Throughout, from start to finish, I observe that they have no clear image of themselves; they can only see and shape themselves through other's peoples eyes--ironically, the very people they despise."
pg 109; "We in ancient countries have our past--we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future."
also pg 109; "The revolution Gold desired was a Marxist one and ours was Islamic, but they had a great deal in common, in that they were both ideological and totalitarian. The Islamic Revolution, as it turned out, did more damage to Islam by using it as an instrument of oppression than any alien ever could have done."
pg 215; "Feel, feel, I say--feel for all you're worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live, especially to live at this terrible pressure..." quoted from Henry James
pg 216; Lucy Clifford, "We must for dear life make our own counter-realities."
Reading this book has deepened my confiction of two things:
1) We must be free to truly worship God, by whatever name we choose.
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 69).
In Iran the people were 'required' to demonstrate their faith, wearing the vail and chador. Where was the sacrifice? Where was the faith? Here, in America almost anything goes. How much more faith is displayed by the individual who refrains from sexual activity, using drugs,...when so many around them expect them too.2) I am not alone in my afflictions.
For various reasons I have moments when I feel I am tried more than others. Circumstances, socio-economic expectations... combine and make a measuring stick I often feel short of. Reading this book reminded me I am not alone in my feelings of cultural or self-imposed repression. Our inward natural man may ask, why mee?
Why not mee? should be the question. This is life on earth. A proving ground, not a vacation stop.
