Disoriental
by Négar Djavadi, translated from the French by Tina Kover
I lived in Iran from 1975-1981 and left under difficult circumstances. But to this day I continue to share a passion for my husband’s homeland and as a result am always excited to learn of novels and/or memoirs that reflect what I lived through during that time. Sadly, I know of only one, Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Shah of Shahs, that truly captures the spirit behind the Revolution as I lived it.[1] Until I read Négar Djavadi’s “Disoriental”.
Published in France in 2016, it was translated into English by Tina Kover and published by Europa Editions in 2018. Though it was reviewed by The New York Times, I’d never heard of it. A good friend and I were sitting on her couch—it’s quite nice, a restored antique—talking about books and sipping tea, when she asked me if I’d ever heard of this book a friend had lent her, it was about Iran. Her friend was lending her copy to as many people as she could so that they would read it too. (Wow, isn’t that the kind of recommendation every writer wants?) So, I thought okay. I’m game, and I dug “Disoriental” out of her couch-side stack.
The back of the jacket had the usual promises of a family saga and Scheherazade-like tales but then this line caught me “…her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them.” I went straight home and ordered the book. (My friend was getting ready to take her copy on vacation with her.)
The story opens with Kimâ, our narrator, a young woman seated in the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic in 2015, a throughline that is interesting in itself. The IVF process, in fact, carries half the story as Kimâ goes through the French medical system in the hope of conceiving a child. A process that involves hours of boredom in dreary waiting rooms, which is when Kimâ begins to recount the family history and political circumstances that brought her to this place.
There are some fascinating characters: Augha’eh Montazemolmolk, Kimâ’s paternal great-grandfather who as a wealthy feudal lord in Mazandaran (the province by the Caspian Sea) who owned a large home with an andarouni where he lived with his fifty-two wives and twenty-eight children. There is also Nour, Kimiâ’s paternal grandmother, born a few minutes after her twin sister and the only child of Montazemolmolk who possessed blue eyes. And one of my favorites, Emma Aslanian, her maternal grandmother, an Armenian whose parents escaped the 1915 genocide and who can read fortunes from the dredges of Turkish coffee. (In Iran, the Armenians also own the best pastry shops. Or they used to, back when I lived there.)
For me, however, “Disoriental” was above all a political novel. Nour had seven sons and the fourth, Kimâ’s father, Darius Sadr, was one of a generation of young men who acquired advanced degrees at the Sorbonne during the years just before World War II, and then returned to Iran full of dreams of social democracy. (My own father-in-law acquired his law degree at the Sorbonne, though he would have been some years older than the character Darius.) Darius, ardent admirer of Mosaddegh, is an active participant in the fight against the Shah and much of the novel is an account of how the revolution’s political left was overwhelmed and eventually subsumed by the Islamic movement. Hence, Kimâ distinguishing herself not as an immigrant, one journeying to the West for economic reasons, but rather an exile, a person forced to flee their homeland for political reasons. It’s a rich novel. One I highly recommend.
As so to pair it--which actually wasn’t that hard. My first try failed, a Syrah from the Northern Rhone. I chose this one because there is a myth/belief in Iran that the Syrah grape originated there, hence its name, they claim, a French bastardization of the word Shiraz. (The grape, when grown in Australia is marketed as Shiraz.) But the wine was too light, too pedestrian, without character. Not a good match. I realized I needed to abandon my literal ideas and jump into metaphor. I then searched my cellar for ideas. The wine needed to be French which I don’t have a lot of in my haphazard cellar, an affair of racks and boxes piled on top of one another, not any more orderly than my overcrowded bookcase.
But I got lucky, discovering a very nice bottle of Gigondas. (Which about a year ago, cost me around 30 bucks.) Gigondas is also a wine from France’s Rhône valley, but Southern. I invited my friend over, the one who had introduced me to Djavadi’s “Disoriental” so that we might sip wine as we discussed the ins and outs of the Iranian Revolution and Négar Djavadi’s incredible work. The match was perfect.[2]
[1] For a detailed non-fiction account, I recommend Nikki R. Keddie’s “Roots of Revolution”.
[2] I apologize for the poor image. I was tired. The day was long.
Sounds like a really interesting book. Thanks for the review.
Gigondas is one of my favourites! Violet and leather flavours. I will look for this translation too - sounds really interesting.