Foreigner

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Although this book is fiction, the details of the way of life that Nahid describes in her book is incorrect.

Rating:
Summary: Prayer calls from the Mosque echo as you turn these pages
Review: Foreigner is a remarkable story of a young Iranian woman who, as a child, is left with her father when her mother runs off with another man. Her name is Feri, and the beginning of her life urges her to see the western world, and its differences. She decides to study in America - where she ends up settling and becoming a biologist. She marries, buys a house identical with the ones next door- when she should feel complete, she feels emptier than ever. Feri realizes she needs to go back home to Iran.
While in Iran, she reconciles with her family, yet feels uncomfortable with her short hair and slacks among the women in the streets wearing chadors. Upon attempts to leave Iran, she needs a written consent form from her husband, calls and cannot reach him; and goes on a search for her long gone mother. She travels hundreds of miles to see her, and while there meets a doctor when she falls ill - and falls in love with the eastern man. When her husband comes to claim her, Feri must decide between two worlds, and two pieces of her heart.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting with many layers of complexity
Review: Foreigner traces the tragic first visit, after a period of 10 years, of an Iranian lady(Feri) living in America to her birthplace. This is an interesting novel, which captures quite well the intellectual and spiritual confusion she falls into during her visit as she struggles to reconcile the two worlds she knows and decide where she is comfortable. We can feel the breakdown of the secure safe world that Feri has built in America, as she is confronted by her childhood memories, old relatives and knowledge of her long gone mother. The conflict is real, and most of the characters are convincing(though some of the ancillary Iranian characters like Feri's cousin and her family seem to be there only for shock value) The author does not take the easy way out by presenting clear cut old Iran v/s rational modern America opposites. All is not well with both the very modern American husband Tony's life as well as Feri's American life. But this is a personal story as well as a cultural one(and the issues dealt with are personal as well as cultural), of a woman finding and connecting with her long lost mother, one she has pined many years for.

The civilizational conflict of the main character is well depicted(for example, Feri starts to see her American work to be empty, yet is happy to have modern American facilities in the hopital she visits). But the dichotomy we see on the surface through all this is false, there are more layers of complexity in the book. This is not an either/or situation, and one does not have to completely reject the modern for tradition or vice versa. The author acknowledges this; Feri knows her renunciation can only be temporary, the future is uncertain and could be tragic because of the renunciation. And in this we recognize the character's tragedy, an undeveloped sense of Self, a tragedy faced by many making the transition from traditional to modern. The novel captures this beautifully. And ironically this appears as a parable for her country, which itself is emerging after many years of 'renunciation' to a new yet unclear life.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most well written books I've ever read
Review: Foreigner, the novel by Nahid Rachlin, explores the cultural differences between the United States and Iran in a very thoughtful and interesting way through the eyes of her characters. Ms. Rachlin's development of the main character, Feri, is brilliant. Her character is so fully illuminated that you feel that you know her as well as a close friend by the end of the book.Once you start reading Foreigner, you can not put it down. You should certainly start reading it. I would even like to give the book more than 5 stars!!!

Rating:
Summary: FOREIGNER
Review: I am a Sophomore college student, and this book was actually assigned for my ethics class. I didn't really have a strong urge to read it, but seeing as it was assigned, I read anyway. I started reading it yesterday, and finished it today. As other reviewers here have said, I didn't want to put it down. The writing style had enough "hooks" to keep me wanting to see what would happen next or what I would discover about Feri and her relationships. It is a very easy and quick read, and gives me a much better understanding of a culture that I'm sure few Americans know about.

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Summary: An Iranian reader
Review: I found this book in many ways deep, showing the complexity of immigrant's lives. Although this is a snapshot from Iran before revolution but many on the facts are still true. The image is from a foreigner point of view which finds herself belonging to that foreign culture. This is actually a story about people living in that area picturing believes and thoughts in depth. Those people that have not been influenced by western culture, I found this an interesting point of this book. Old culture and old people surrounding the writer. There are few signs of youth and happiness which is contradicted with the nature of that society, One the youngest countries in the world.
Another fascinating point of this novel is the story of immigrants that have chosen to leave Iran and find themselves empty inside after they become successful in their life and carrier in west.

I hope to find her contact address in order to invite her for speech about her novels and meet with Iranian immigrants with almost same feelings as Ferri's feelings in Toronto.
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: You never quite leave home
Review: More than about Iranians and their customs, or the constrasts between Feri's American and Iranian parameters, this book is about a complex psychological discovery -- the acceptance of self. I read it twice because the story haunted me, not unlike the way Iran haunts Feri. The bonus comes from a portrayal of Iran from the inside, a knowledge precious to me an arm chair traveller. This is a thoughtful, extremely concise and well written book, introspective and beautiful. A quiet adventure.

Rating:
Summary: a modern dilemma..
Review: The first novel in English by an Iranian, Foreigner was published in 1978, while the Shah still ruled, and yet it avoids political comment. Its protest is more oblique; the political constriction drives the passion deeper; and the novel, with all its air of innocence, is a novel of violation, helplessness and defeat.

Feri is an Iranian woman living in Boston. She has studied in the United States, is married to an American University teacher, and works in research. On an impulse she goes back to Tehran for a two-week holiday. The city's life reflects the country's thuggish backwardness. Her family is broken apart. Feri decides to cut short her holiday and return to Boston's clarity and light. But she falls ill and is taken to the local hospital, where she meets an Iranian doctor who was trianed in the United States. He explains to her that he preferred to come back to Iran because in American he felt unsettled.

Feri reflects on her life in the United States and is half-seduced by the doctor's quiet renunciation to the commitments and pressures of an American career. When Feri's husband arrives to take her home, she sees him as an stranger and decides to stay in Iran on her own. She will lay down the anxious and committed life of work and the intellect. She will do as the doctor did, visiting mosques and putting on the "chador".

In the emotions of their Shia religion, Feri and the doctor will rediscover their wholeness, and be inviolate. They will no longer simply follow after others, not knowing where the rails are taking them. They will no longer need to prove themselves in competition. And life will go on. Other people in America will continue to produce the equipment that they will be proud of possessing, and the culture that they will keep on consuming, as enlightened Iranians.

This gravity that pulls non-Anglo-American cultures down to an entombed life with no work, no inventions, no civilising mission... is one of the dilemmas of our times. The great flaw, in the view of V. S. Naipaul, in this act of renunciation, is that we are forcing other nations to carry the burden of making progress while we become parasites feeding from their advances while blaming them for the empowerment that is the result of hard work.