Saffron Sky: A Life Between Iran and America

Rating:
Summary: Not a very good writer, I say
Review: After reading the other reviews, I thought I was in for a wonderful read. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. It seems there is a tale here, but this author should have gotten a real writer to write her story for her, as she rambles around and leaves the reader hopelessly confused. The truth of the matter is that her effort ruins the story. She should find herself another job and leave the writing to other well known writers. For readers interested in the topic of women in the Muslim world, I highly recommend other books: Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan is quite nice, and Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil is another, as well as Not Without my Daughter and a recent book, Mayada, Daughter of Iraq. These are books that will entertain and educate. Sorry I can't say the same for Ms.Asayesh's work, which is plotless, rambling, and she doesn't seem to know all that much about Iran, but is someone looking for something to write about, despite the fact she is Iranian.

Rating:
Summary: Not a very good writer, I say
Review: Asayesh has written a soul-searching and engrossing book. It is part like a diary, part like a travel book. In seeking to balance her inner and outer lives her return to Iran after many years becomes a journey both spiritual and temporal.

Especially touching are her descriptions, both past and present, of her favorite aunts, Khaleh Farrah and Khaleh Mina. Along with other small vignettes featuring people she meets in the street, and old time acquaintances and relatives, we get an itimate glance into the lives of everyday people of Iran.

A lovely book that promises more from this talented and sensitive author. It would be interesting to learn about her life as her children grow. As second generation Americans of part Iranian heritage, it would be interesting to see how they combine the lessons their mother is trying to impart to them. And the impact of life in the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural America upon them.

Rating:
Summary: A Sensitive Immigrant Woman Seeks Balance Between Cultures
Review: Asayesh has written a soul-searching and engrossing book. It is part like a diary, part like a travel book. In seeking to balance her inner and outer lives her return to Iran after many years becomes a journey both spiritual and temporal.

Especially touching are her descriptions, both past and present, of her favorite aunts, Khaleh Farrah and Khaleh Mina. Along with other small vignettes featuring people she meets in the street, and old time acquaintances and relatives, we get an itimate glance into the lives of everyday people of Iran.

A lovely book that promises more from this talented and sensitive author. It would be interesting to learn about her life as her children grow. As second generation Americans of part Iranian heritage, it would be interesting to see how they combine the lessons their mother is trying to impart to them. And the impact of life in the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural America upon them.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: I enjoyed every minute of reading Saffron Sky. The author has managed to not only draw a magnificent picture from her childhood in Iran, but also has managed to analyze the common delimmas that immigrants face when leaving their home country behind and starting a new life in a brand new culture where every aspect of life starts over again. I can highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Immigrant Experience
Review: I immigrated from the East (Israel) to the West (Amerika) in 1973. I tried to keep in touch with family and culture, and have not been successful. I do read a lot of good literature in Hebrew and stay in touch with cultural events and the events of the day. My children have very little facility in speaking Hebrew, although they can pray in Hebrew. We were able to raise our children "Jewish" as supposed to "Israelis", which captures at least part of my heritage.

I am also sure that Ms. Asayesh would agree with this statement: "in America you are Iranian, and in Iran, you are American."

I am looking forward to future books from this sensitive, insightful and honest author.

The book touched briefly on the political history of Persia, and the decline it experienced. I'd like to read more about how the Persian decline created the Islamic revolution, how the sense of inferiority created "martyrs", and hopelessness made the young Shibab easily exploited by ruthless Ayatolas and Immams. The author can be a strong advocate for both sides, and maybe help create a bridge of understanding between the two cultures.

Rating:
Summary: Immigrant Experience
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It brought back memories and helped me analyse many situations and issues that I have been confornted with. I recommend reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother--it will only irritate you
Review: I was extremely interested in the subject matter since I dated a really nice Iranian man in college and had an interest in Iran, but this author came across so arrogant that I could barely finish the book. When I finally managed to plow through it, I felt like taking out an ad against the book in the Washington Post, where I believe the author is affliated, as I have seen her listed as a book critic of all things--she generally attacks other writers & their books in reviews she writes--a lot of nerve under the circumstances. A boring book that only irrtated me. I never return books to stores, but in the case I really felt like it. I'm not surprised this book in the 100,000 rating. Word gets around!

Rating:
Summary: A Reader in New Jersey
Review: Saffron Sky is a book about the immigrant experience. It is a profound and touching examination of the author's struggle to gain acceptance in her new home, and at the same time stay true to her heritage. The book also paints an accurate picture of the huge gap between the East and the West, and the at times impossible task of reconciling the two. The author has managed to examine the U.S. and the Iranian cultures, with respect for both and without offending either. The book also represents a personal and candid examination of issues that are sometimes painful to face, but that are central to an understanding of the sense of malaise that afflicts many immigrants. The prose is very descriptive and at time poetic. The author has a rich memory full of details and conveys those details to the reader with simple but lyrical language.

As an immigrant, I not only enjoyed the book very much, but I also found it an invitation for me to examine my own immigrant experience and thoughts and feelings that I had suppressed for many years. I highly recommend the book, and especially to immigrants and those who have loved ones who are immigrants to the U.S.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow But Typical
Review: Saffron sky is a shallow tale of the discontinuous life of the immigrant. It also speaks to the perspective of the female identity among the Iranian upper class. It depicts a traditional female identity, shaped by the internalized rules and restrictions, customs and traditions, and the immense weight of the family ties and classist values. The author is simply too attached to her unexamined heritage which is inherently patriarchal, power-oriented, contemptuous of lower social classes, and opponent of female individuation beyond the parameters of father's morality.

A big chunk of Gelareh's emotional turmoil is about becoming an adult, be it in America or in Iran. So, when the author wails that while working as a journalist, "there were no buffers between me and life's harsh realities, no cocoon of familiarity and routine to shelter me, no one's love to anchor me."(p.120), the reader wishes to point out to her that this is what growing up is all about, that this has nothing to do with the immigrant's anguish and affliction.

The author's lack of critical examination of her roots frustrates the reader. The historic role of her feudal grandfathers in keeping women, peasants and labourers under wraps are simply not perceived. Gelareh despises the notion of Westerners' superiority over Iranians; she remembers the contemptuous attitude of a British family who came to rent their house in Iran; but she does not feel "diminished" by the "subtle arrogance" and "patronizing kindness" her family showed towards people of lower classes in Iran.

Gelareh's travels to Iran, from 1990 to 1999, coincide with the beginning of a feminist movement within the country that manifests itself through many clandestine feminist gatherings and study groups as well as the publication of progressive women's magazines and many public speeches for the women's rights in Iran by secular women activists. Yet, the author only contacts an organ of the Islamic Regime and talks about women in the Parliament and a single friend of hers who has embraced the world of Mullahs.

Saffron Sky does not bring the reader to a new understanding of the life between Iran and America. Instead, it is an invaluable document on the arrogance and unreliability of an Iranian social class that has very close roots in feudalism, flirts with communism, is alternately for and against the Shah, produces Ayatollahs, pretends to be for feminism, feels inferior to Westerners and then challenges them for their arrogance, and finally reinterprets all thoughts and social events under the Sun.