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The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree: A…
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The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree: A Novel (original 2017; edition 2020)

by Shokoofeh Azar (Author)

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23911111,521 (3.54)74
This started off great, with a family that fled Tehran for a very rural village before the Revolution. Then it went downhill with ghosts, a mermaid, and so on and so forth. I finished, but really all the fantasy/mystical stuff just did not interest me. I was interested in the family and their real, believable experiences. ( )
  Dreesie | Dec 25, 2020 |
English (10)  French (1)  All languages (11)
Showing 10 of 10
This is a remarkable novel about a family during and after the Iranian Revolution, but told in a magical realism style that often makes it difficult to know exactly what is happening. One has to suspend logic, and instead ride the waves of myth, magic, and metaphor. The story is narrated by the ghost of thirteen-year-old Bahar, who has the ability to make herself visible to her family and intervene on their behalf.

When the Revolution begins, Bahar and her family were wealthy intellectuals who lived in a beautiful home. After a tragic attack, the family moves to a very remote village where the mullahs have little sway at first. But even here they cannot escape the effects of fundamentalism, war, and sorrow. Ghosts, mermaids, black snows, jinns, and wildly growing plants symbolize various emotional tolls that the Revolution has taken. Only at the very end of the book do we learn what really happened to the mother and sister, Beeta.

I found the author's ruminations on death to be interesting. At one point Bahar says,

...I'd made a mistake. I had been wrong to think that death only marked the end of some things. No! Death was the end of everything. The end of my body, my identity, my credibility. The end of everything that had meant something to me in life: family, love, trust, friendship. Yes...death was the end of all these things.

A fellow ghost comments, "Death hasn't made humans any happier."

I also enjoyed the passages about the importance of books. Although the Revolutionary Guards had burned most of their books, they slowly collect more, and later Bahar's father returns to his family home which still has a large collection.

Every book he touched was more than a book. It was a memory. His entire destiny. It was longing.

Another interesting metaphor is the River of Oblivion. An entire village falls into a deep sleep, because "sorrow brings oblivion." The being responsible for the stupor says, "I'm not the one who goes after people, it is always the people who come after me." When reality becomes too overwhelming, oblivion is the escape, but resolves nothing. When Bahar's father eventually returns to Tehran, he is forced to confront reality and to analyze his own role in allowing the mullahs to take over the country.

He bought the newspaper every day, and though he knew that much of it was devoid of truth, he wanted to know what had become of the rest of the population while he had been away—after the war, after the mass executions, after the flight of the educated and wealthy from the country. He still didn't have the courage to leave the house, to walk among people in the streets who, either through their silence of their ignorance, had practically killed others to take their places. He still couldn't forgive: not others, and not himself.

Although not always an easy book to read, [The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree] is an interesting way to look at the Iranian Revolution and its effects. When the world goes crazy, magic realism doesn't seem so farfetched. ( )
1 vote labfs39 | May 6, 2023 |
I picked this up because of the gorgeous cover and because the premise of a story of magical realism but set in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Iran seemed too good to pass on.

Having finished, the book, I really am not sure what to make of it. I certainly did not enjoy it. However, how can anyone enjoy a book that reads like a long list of atrocities committed against people who should be be neighbours and friends. How can one enjoy a book that cannot give credit to the translator because listing their name would put them in mortal danger? How can one enjoy a book that, despite it’s colourful cover, is nothing but bleak and full of hopelessness and despair?

Still, I had some issues with the writing also: I liked how the author intertwined folklore and magical elements with a straight narrative in this story. I liked how we get to follow our narrator and Khomeini (at least for a while). However, this change of POV also made the book feel disjointed. At the same time, I am not sure I could have actually read much of the book if it had not been for the magical elements because, as I said, it just reads like a never-ending list of torture and killings. And while I understand that this is kind of the point of the book, I would rather turn to non-fiction for this. I need something else from fiction. Something that leaves room for imagination. Something that makes me want to find out more. Not something that makes me want to put the book down and move on wishing I had not read it.

So, while I understand that this is in a way an important book because it strives to tell of the living and dying conditions in Iran after 1988, including the mass killings and religious persecutions leading to tortures and … more killings, and while I understand that the book itself is also a huge middle finger raised towards the current Iranian regime, I felt left out as a reader. There was little in the book that I could connect with as someone who has no links to the history and people of Iran. And once the major twist in the story was revealed (not much of a twist as I expected the revelation somehow – without it, the POV would not have made sense), there was just little to keep me reading. And while I finished the book, I feel like a vould and perhaps should have abandoned it much earlier because there was not much more in the way of story development that was added after the “big reveal”.
  BrokenTune | Feb 12, 2023 |
Sorrowful and mesmerizing stories. A heartbreaking magical realism journey of a family during the Iranian revolution. Beautiful imagery juxtaposed with ugly human cruelty - a completely absorbing read. ( )
  UnruhlyS | Oct 26, 2022 |
This book is about life in Iran following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. We follow the destruction of an upper middle class family that had done well under the leadership of Pahlevi, but whose education and wealth attracted the attention and persecution of Ayatollah Khomeini and his thugs. Like others, I was interested by the notion of a family narrative with interwoven Persian tales: magical realism, mythology, historical events, etc. Sadly, the wandering storyline was too hard to follow, and I was never vested in any of the characters, probably because of the utter absence of cohesion. I kept reading on, hoping the story would improve, but eventually quit @ 53%. Note: It's been years since I haven't finished a book. ( )
  skipstern | Jul 11, 2021 |
This was one of the oddest of bittersweet books I've read. I found it often delightful, sometimes disturbing, occasionally forgettable. That last bit sounds harsh--it is due to the structure. The book seems to be a halfway point between a standard novel and interlocking short stories, which is intriguing in concept, but I also didn't necessarily feel compelled to keep on to find out what's next. Honestly, it's not necessarily a criticism. I did like this book! ( )
  LibroLindsay | Jun 18, 2021 |
I struggled a bit with this one, taking nearly a week to go through its scant 250ish pages. Magical realism works for me sometimes and doesn't work for me other times, and I guess it didn't work for me entirely in this book. Parts of it were neat, but so much of it felt sort of randomly strung together to me that I had trouble staying interested. I was most interested in the Iranian history. The last fifth or so of the book landed better for me than much of the middle. So, it had some parts I enjoyed and some parts I read sort of glassy-eyed and mostly wanted to grit my teeth and get through. It was neither especially good to me nor especially bad; a two-star rating would feel stingy, though a three may be generous. ( )
  dllh | Jan 6, 2021 |
This started off great, with a family that fled Tehran for a very rural village before the Revolution. Then it went downhill with ghosts, a mermaid, and so on and so forth. I finished, but really all the fantasy/mystical stuff just did not interest me. I was interested in the family and their real, believable experiences. ( )
  Dreesie | Dec 25, 2020 |
This is a fantastic journey. A recommended read.
It's not your usual writing style but once you let yourself flow along and be carried (by the excellent translation), there is a story that will teach you, make you happy and sad, enlightened and grateful.
Definitely recommended.
( )
1 vote mmmorsi | Aug 24, 2018 |
It’s a stunning novel. It’s written in a lyrical magical realism style, which seems bizarre at first – until the author’s purpose becomes clear. This style is both a tribute to classical Persian storytelling and an appropriate response to the madness of the world she is describing. The novel tells the story of a family living through the turbulent period of Iranian history when the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war brought them overwhelming grief. While there is no solace to be had in the real world, the mystical world conjures it instead. When the eldest son Sobrah is arbitrarily arrested and executed along with thousands of others, the child narrator who was immolated when the Revolutionary Guards came to burn her father’s library, is there as a witness. She is there to tell the strange story of her mother Roza’s disappearance, the attacks on her sister Beeta, and the destruction of everything her father Hushang holds dear. The presence of ghosts everywhere seems almost realistic when the entire country is plunged into mourning by the Islamic regime. It is the regime which seems unrealistic because it was responsible for the execution of thousands and thousands of its own people: dissidents and conscripts in the senseless eight-year war…

The regime orders book burnings, the destruction of ancient Persian cultural artefacts, and arbitrary arrests and executions without trial. Roza will not set foot outside the house because she refuses to cover herself in accordance with the new rules, rigidly enforced by the Morality Police. Music is banned; any manifestations of pro-Western attitudes brings brutal punishment. The family leaves Tehran for the small village of Razan, hoping that its isolation will allow them some freedom. But sorrow follows them there too, along with all kinds of strange fantastical beings: fireflies that live in Roza’s hair; Jinns who avenge themselves on Beeta’s lover; and dragonflies which portend the future. The more I read, the more strange it seemed, and yet it made sense when the all powerful Ayatollah Khomeini goes mad in a mansion of mirrors and dies alone, haunted by the spirits of the dead. This is the magical world delivering the justice that this evil man evaded in the real world.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/08/01/the-enlightenment-of-the-greengage-tree-by-s... ( )
  anzlitlovers | Aug 1, 2017 |
Did not finish ( )
  lesleynicol | May 6, 2023 |
Showing 10 of 10

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