The House Of The Mosque

The Story: Based in Iran in the 1950’s, Abdolah tells the fictional story of the family of the mosque who live their lives blissfully unaware that they are on the brink of tragedy and revolution. Its story is difficult to regurgitate because there are so many interwoven stories and characters each carrying their own significance but I’ll try my best. It is centred around Aqa Jaan, a carpet merchant and head of the city bazaar and his family who have lived in the house of the mosque in the Iranian province of Senejan  and have done for eight generations.

Although largely fictional, Abdolah throws in some non-fictional characters in i.e. Sadam Hussein and follows through a pivotal period in Iranian history as the reign of the hated Western (specifically American) backed Shah’s reign comes to an end under the fanatical reign of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Abdolah begins by ingratiating you into the family in a sense. You get to learn of Aqa Jaan’s love of his renowned carpets whose patterns are based on the plumage of emigrating birds his wife, Fahkri Sadat, traps on the roof. The two grandmothers who sweep the compound daily and dream of visiting Mecca before they kick the bucket. Blind Muezzin who always knows the time of day. Fahkri Sadat’s love of silky underwear. Sadiq, Aqa Jaan’s daughter, who sits and waits for a suitor to come and ask her hand in marriage (little does she know she will marry a crazy fundamentalist and bear him a deformed child, Lizard, I liked him, he seemed sweet). Shahbal’s yearning for a television set from which he can watch the landing on the moon. Everything is seemingly idyllic and you wish you could awake to the muezzin call, visit the bazaar and sit and smoke some opium with Nosrat under the watchful eye of the storks in that reside in the minarets.

Like a delicious broth, he sprinkles in a few embellishments here and there which render the story even more interesting. These flavours come in the form of KhalKhal who comes to marry Sadiq. He later becomes “Allah’s Judge” under Khomeini’s rule and see’s to the execution of many wretched souls with complete sangfroid.  There is also Ahmad who becomes the mosque’s Imam after Khalkhal’s departure, characterised by his opium addiction and lust for women. Crazy Qodsi always full of portent, who ominously prophesies to Aqa Jaan, “You won’t die. You will stay until they’ve all gone and come back again”. Nosrat, Aqa Jaan’s wayward brother of many vices who later becomes Khomeini’s proverbial court jester (this leads to his demise). And let’s not Zinat Khanom, a harpy who later meets her end with her flesh about to be gorged on by vultures and the like by a salt-water lake.

Using these characters, Abdolah explores fanaticism, tribalism and Islamic fundamentalism. As the story continues to unravel, the consequences of political unrest in Iran begin to trickle into Aqa Jaan’s peaceful household. Small trickles to begin with but these soon become a downpour and everything that Aqa Jaan and his ancestors built begin to crumble around him and he is powerless to stop it. The fall of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini destroy the established order of the house of the mosque. The world turns upside down: Shahbal backs the Islamic revolution, while Aqa Jaan’s other nephew, Nosrat, a westernised film-maker, becomes a member of Khomeini’s inner circle. The characters you thought you knew become totally unpredictable, gentle becomes callous and kind becomes cruel.

As the Persians say, ‘our story is over, but the crow still hasn’t reached its nest’.

Rewa’s take on things: I was drawn to this novel because of the photo on the cover. The little boy just screamed of culture, history and running through the saffron-smelling streets of the bazaar. I must say, initially I found the story a bit confusing because there were so many characters weaving in and out, so many names to remember, so many Imam’s whose stories drew in the crowd etc. I found it difficult to keep up. I picked up this novel to read about 3 weeks ago but put it down to read “Never Let Me Go” and “Let Me In”. I finally returned to it last week and finished it over the weekend (I was too excited by my new Kindle and reading stories on there). By the time I returned to it, I had sort of lost the cadence of the story and just wanted it all to be over (sorry Abdolah :-S). The story only really starts to spice up when Shabal smuggles a television set into the house. I found this quite interesting as the t.v. set in my opinion symbolises the West and after its entry, things start to go topsy turvy, just as Qodsi predicted.  

My favourite character by far was Aqa Jaan as I think will be the case with most readers. I found him to be honourable, compassionate and all in all a good man. After the death of his son Jawad, you felt like being his best friend – poor man! In this complex novel, while things around him are changing, Aqa Jaan and the house of the mosque remain unchanged and it is interesting to see how it pans out as they try to resist both the influences of the West and the clutches of Islamic fundamentalism.

 For all the ebb and flow in my interest levels, I was grateful for its many offerings. For a start, I was totally ignorant to the Iranian revolution. You see wannabe-cool people saying “peace in the middle east”, throwing up lame peace signs without stopping to think of the meaning behind it and what it meant. I got to know a bit about what it was like for Iranian denizens living under the rule of the Westernised shah and then the fanatic rule of the Ayatollah. How your neighbour could easily become your enemy after listening to the Ayatollah’s aphoristic-filled frenzied speech. I also got to read some beautiful sulahs that were extracted from the Quoran. My wonderful boyfriend is muslim and though I got to know a bit more about the basics of Islam and the messages of peace that it seeks to perpetuate, this was the first time I had ever had any sort of emotional connection with it. It was alsi a great insight into how people can be brainwashed by the fundamentalist ideologies of one man.

 In summary, I would describe the novel as enlightening. For me, it was most certainly ‘putdownable’ but I am grateful to Abdolah for giving me the insight into why the beautiful religion of Islam is so lionized (when practised as intended). Needless to say, while I may reach for my boyfriends english-translated Quoran to learn a bit more about those poetic sulahs, I will not be donning a chador anytime soon…

Island Beneath The Sea

I am a huge fan of historical fiction; the image on the paperback of the girl running through what appears to be cane fields on a plantation had me in a state akin to that of being let loose in a Marc Jacobs store! I just had to read it!

The story:  Set in 18^th century Saint-Domingue(now Haiti), it spans four decades and follows the lives of plantation owner, Valmorain and that of his slave, Varite (Tété) through the French revolution.  It begins at a time when Saint Domingue was the richest French colony in the new world due to its hefty profits from sugar, indigo and coffee exports. It then follows the character’s lives from Saint-Domingue through the slave rebellion that resulted in the banishment of whites, to Cuba and finally New Orleans.

Valmorain arrives on the island of Saint-Domingue, wet behind the ears, ready to take ownership of his father’s fledgling plantation in Saint-Lazare. He assumes it will be a fleeting, financially gainful experience and he’ll return to France eating croissants and wearing Louboutins sooner rather than later. This doesn’t happen – c’est la vie. He marries a crazy Spanish chick – think Mr Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre.

Violet Boissier, a beautiful mulatto high-class v-jay-jay exchanger purchases Tété for Valmorain’s new wife. From very early on, Valmorain repeatedly rapes Tété (as every plantation owner seemed to do to their slaves) and she bears him a child, Jean-Martin, whom we hear nothing of until later on the book. Tété continuously tries to find little joy and solitude in the things around her; she finds some of this in Gambo, a young slave who eventually becomes a respected advocate of liberation for the slaves. Valmorain also has another legitimate son, Maurice, with his demented wife. Maurice is the polar opposite of Valmorain; he is effeminate, compassionate and totally against slavery. Maurice grows up with Tété’s second child, Rosette (sired again, by Valmorain) whose beauty defines her as she doesn’t seem to have much else going grey matter-wise.

To summarise, Maurice and Rosette have loved each other since childhood, what started off as harmless philos turns into incestuous eros once the teen hormones start raging. Maurice is disowned by Valmorain because of his love for Rosette and refusal to
bear the slavery mantle and the evil influences of his second Lady Macbeth-esque wide. Rosette gets a gut full of Maurice seed during their night of passion but dies soon after childbirth after a stint in prison (due to Valmorain’s jealous wife) makes her weakened and incapacitated.

Rewa’s take on things: I loved many aspects of this book. Dipping into magical surrealism at times; her ability to weave real and fictional characters into a complete and colourful whole is masterful.  Allende definitely scores major points there. The mystical way she describes the island, the people, the scenery; I felt I was actually there breathing in the smells of the island, feeling the heat etc.

By far my most likeable characters were Violet and Sancho – I imagine Violet looks something like the actress, Denise Vasi. I also admired her savoir-faire and strong-will. Tété had a hard life but I couldn’t empathise with her much because I found her to be a bit spineless at times. Even when she was set free, she still seemed to place herself under Valmorain’s thumb.

If we look at the novel this way, Valmorain represents Slavery and Tété represents Emancipation. As Valmorain’s character develops, what started off as powerful and invincible slowly degenerates into decadence and deterioration. In parallel, we see the slow decline of slavery in Saint Domingue. Tété’s character starts of weak and abject but steadily develops into something hopeful and heartening. Using Tété as a conduit, we start to witness the slow but sure liberation of the slaves of Saint-Domingue.

The novel offers a gruelling eye-opener to slavery; Allende sends a bolt of horror and revulsion down my spine with every description of the condition in which the slaves were kept and the brutalising of the women. It’s HORRIFIRC.

While Allende drew in characters from all ranks from petit blancs, grand blancs, and affranchis to slaves, it is clearly the latter she finds the most compelling. Her characters engage in a dalliance around African drum rhythms, spirits and animistic deities. Sometimes it seemed that Allende was more interested in divulging all she learnt whilst conducting her research than in engaging the reader. She jumps at any opportunity to showcase what she has learned about voodoo, medicine and the mélange of European and Caribbean histories. Such a grandiose display of savvy sometimes renders the novel as inert as a history textbook and removes the empathy required for tackling a
subject as delicate as slavery. The references to African spirituality and animism sometimes seem superficial and token, unfairly presenting Allende as yet another writer too entranced by the myth of African cultural primitivism to see the brainpower behind it.

I found the denouement to be a bit of an anti-climax. I was curious to see what would become of Maurice and Rosette around whom the story seemed to gravitate. I found that for all the hoo-hah made about her, Rosette seemed quite vacuous and dull. Also, for all the weeping and wailing Tété did over her first child, Jean-Martin, I thought the story sidelined to the periphery.

Allende dabbled in forbidden love, insanity, violence, voodoo, incest, betrayal and many more with this novel and yet, with a title like that, the story still feels lacking. And this is fair enough, because in order to reach this Island that lies beneath the sea, the reader would have to dive deep Allende barely seems to skim the surface. Shame really, as past works suggest she is a writer with durable snorkel gear.