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The Trampled Rose Garden
Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins
A review of the book by Christopher De Bellaigue
In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs:  A Memoir of Iran (London:  HarperCollins, 2004.  283p.)

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This is the story of experiences during and after the Islamic Revolution In Iran in the 1970s.  De Bellaigue is a British journalist married to an Iranian woman.  He relates his own experiences thorugh a period of turmoil in modern Iranian history, and the stories of many friends and acquaintances.

He has an engaging and artful style that details his own experiences, his interviews and encounters with leaders and victims of the Islamic Revolution.  He also provides an almost incidental wealth of cultural observations.

His insights and stories brign to life the people of Iran and the struggles with the competing ideologies that have torn at the country's heart for the last several decades.  He reveals these as people like us — struggling with real life, and most caught up in a complex stream of events and religio-political mosaic where the many suffer because of the few and their ideologies.

The reader will be able to rise above the political stereotypes and empathize with what some of these individuals go through.  Likewise most readers will also grieve and seethe with anger at the insensitivity of political power-grabbers and ideologues who seem to give no thought to the ordinary citizen whose lives are destroyed by their demagoguery.

A great value for westerners — and especially Americans — is a portrayal of how the United States looks to an Iranian, aside from any political ideologies.  Iranian history and culture come alive in a practical way, beyond the ordinary academic study of culture or religion you might read about Iran.

This author's skillful and expressive command of the English language will mesmerize the reader with his delightful, artistic turns of phrase.

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OBJ

First reading notes written 17 November 2007
Review article written and Posted on Thoughts and Resources 15 August 2008
Reviewed on Amazon 3 March 2009

Orville Boyd Jenkins, EdD, PhD
Copyright © 2008 Orville Boyd Jenkins
Permission granted for free download and transmission for personal or educational use.  Other rights reserved.

Email:  orville@jenkins.nu
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