A penetrating account of a series of journeys to Iran. . . . Jason Elliot is a travel writer of the old school: untethered to an itinerary, eager to be led astray, and as ardent an observer of the experience of traveling as of his destination.” —The New Yorker
“An important look at the forces at play in a region starting to dominate the Middle East.” —The Star-Ledger (Newark)
“Armchair travelers will enjoy moving with Elliot through both fabled cities and remote corners of Iran.” —The Christian Science Monitor
“A work of profound thought, imagination, passion, and ambition. It should be widely read.” —The Guardian (U.K.)
“Whatever stereotypes we may have crumble in the wake of Elliot's encounters with ordinary Iranians. . . . Mirrors of the Unseen takes us into a very different Iran, and the journey is fabulous. . . . Elliot writes like an angel.” —The Providence Journal
Every decade or so, Iran pops onto our front pages, but for many of us, this faraway country remains as mysterious as ever. Jason Elliot, the author of The Unexpected Light, has spent four years living and traveling in Iran, visiting towns and villages where Western visitors are seldom seen. Mirrors of the Unseen illuminates the complexities and contradictions of this emergent yet insular society. His interviews with Iranians are interspersed with telling reflects on Iranian history, culture, and social norms.
Elliot (An Unexpected Light) traveled to Iran and returned with this finely detailed, timely portrait of a country and culture precariously balanced between East and West, dark and light, integration and Armageddon. Whether careening around the smog and traffic clogged capital city of Tehran in a battered cab or crawling through the rubble-strewn ruins of Persepolis, capital of the ancient Persian kings, Elliot's keen eye, supple mind and compelling way with words captures the rich, complex, contradictory essence of Iran, its history and people. Everywhere he travels, Elliot explores a central question will Iran, a country with a deep and abiding history of scientific innovation, fine art, high culture and beauty, step into modernity or will the revolutionary mullahs, the guardians and promoters of Islamic fundamentalism, take the country further down the road of isolation. In the cities, a culture of duality exists behind closed doors, liquor flows freely, music is enjoyed and women are free to express themselves fully. On the streets, however, religious extremism rules, manifested by squads of bearded enforcers looking out for infractions of their version of Islamic law. With Iran so central in the news, this is a good read for the armchair traveler and amateur geo-political strategist alike. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Elliot's first book, An Unexpected Light, was an account of his two sojourns in Afghanistan and was widely acclaimed as a new classic in travel writing. Despite the shared border, Iran is extremely unlike Afghanistan; it has been a world cultural center where exquisite arts, poetry, and philosophy flourished for centuries. Elliot gamely splices references to this heritage into his narrative and acknowledges (but does not cite) the many travel writers who have already covered this ground. Except for his particular enthusiasm for the geometric secrets of Isfahan, however, Elliot's heart does not seem to be in history. He is in his element when having sincere, often witty conversations about everything from faith to foreign policy with a remarkably wide range of people. These conversations are interspersed with a running gag about the diverse methods used by taxi drivers to overcharge him. Elliot offers distinctive portraits of Iranians living in complex political times. Recommended for public and academic libraries with travel collections. Lisa Klopfer, Eastern Michigan Univ. Lib., Ypsilanti Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Does Iran belong on the list of rogue nations? Absolutely not, British journalist Elliot urges in this virtuoso work. True, its government is wacky. But Iran, despite mullahs and religious police, is not monolithic, as the author discovers early on in his four-year journey across the vast nation; says one weary beauty he meets (one of many), "Here in Iran we lead a double life. . . . Understand that, and you will understand everything." Yet younger Iranians born long after the Khomeini revolution seem less and less inclined to toe the line, and even older ones with long memories of repression now seem intent on securing azadi-freedom. Elliot (An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan, 2000) cannot help but address politics, for political matters are on everyone's lips. But his real interests lie in the culture, in the sense of both everyday life and the finer matters of history and the arts. One of his explorations takes him into traditional art, which he puzzles out at different turns ("it is difficult to suppose that an art as prolific and expert as that of the Islamic world was driven by no more than a desire to impress the eye alone"), eventually linking it to the mysteries of mathematics, at which the Persians once excelled. Though fascinated by the past, the author has a knack for meeting characters, often eccentric, who tell just the right stories: an American expatriate quietly breeding miniature horses thought extinct; a brilliant conversationalist recalling the day an Iraqi missile crashed through the roof of her Tehran kitchen; assorted taxi drivers, hoteliers and intellectuals revealing essential aspects of the national character. What the reader learns of Iran is mostlypositive, but by no means sugar-coated; some of the adventures presented here are for the stout-hearted only. A tempering treatise, one hopes, for those rushing to make war on Iran-and an education for those trying to stop them.
