Guest-blogger Andrew Dayton on 5 Books to Get Your Head Inside Iran

Guest-blogging today is Andrew Dayton, co-author, with his wife Elahe, of The House That War Minister Built, a most unusual epic historical novel that is attracting showers of praise.

From the jacket:

"In the crumbling days of the Qajar dynasty, Nargess's fate seems sealed as the upstart Reza Khan Shah sends his army to surround her husband's palace. She does not know that the greatest threat lies within! For the next three quarters of a century, Nargess and her family will endure the conflicts between a medieval religion and a modernizing population, between emerging nationalism and foreign manipulation. Contending with betrayal, arrogance and moral dissolution, they search for redemption, which only one of them will find - on a deathbed in a strange land.
An epic saga with iconic characters, abundant cultural insights and surprising historical details, The House That War Minister Built covers the Iranian experience from the end of the Qajar dynasty in the 1920s, into the post 9/11 era."


Still married after thirty-one years, the last 8 of which involved writing their epic saga of Iran, they live on a mountaintop retreat on Maryland Heights, near Harpers Ferry. Both are scientists who picked up writing later in life. Andrew was educated at Princeton, then the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. He has previously published short fiction in The Potomac Review and currently leads a research group in molecular virology on the NIH campus in Bethesda. Elahe was educated at the University of Tehran, then at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. You can find out more about them and the novel at their website www.aidayton.com.

–––––––––––––

Five Books to Get Your Head Inside Iran
By Andrew I. Dayton

If you want to feel, smell, taste and generally get your head inside Iran, here are a number of books that will get you there:

Garden of the Brave in War, Recollections of Iran, by Terrence O’Donnell is undoubtedly the most evocative. It paints a vivid tableau of the Iranian character: tolerant, generous, mirthful, capricious and devious – from beggars to voluptuaries a people far removed from the puritanical fanaticism portrayed in the West. In these memoirs you will encounter a range of characters, from servants whose intrusiveness derives from caring, to feudal princes who adopt peasant children to raise as their own. You will learn the truth to the old Persian saw that a missionary once complained of spending fifty years in Iran without a single convert. “Don’t worry,” an Iranian friend consoled him, “Mohammed didn’t get any either.”

In Blood and Oil, Memoirs of a Persian Prince by Manucher Farmanfarmaian, a scion of the country’s most famous family and one time Oil Minister under the Shah examines a considerable chunk of modern Persian history through the prism of oil politics, in which his family played a major role. Much of the information is surprising and counter intuitive. Did you know, for instance, that the hue and cry raised by the British over Iran’s nationalization of their oil company in the 1950s (leading to a CIA-sponsored coup) masked crocodile tears? Did you know that only a decade later President Kennedy’s well-intended populist policies first raised Ayatollah Khomeini to national prominence?

Speaking of the 1953 CIA coup, which toppled the democratically elected regime of Mossadegh, did you know that it was led by our man in Tehran, Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy? Find out more by reading Stephen Kinzer’s All The Shah’s Men, An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Operation Ajax was the first time the United States Government toppled a Middle Eastern government. The resulting restoration of Mohammad Reza Shah to the Peacock throne allowed a tyranny that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and much of the Islamic terrorism that plagues the world today.

On a lighter note, to savor the visual pleasures of Iran, browse through the splendid Persia, Bridge of Turquoise, a coffee table masterpiece featuring stunning photographs by Roloff Beny, and an interesting forward by Seyeed Nasr on Iranian culture and religion. This book is out of print, but worth tracking down for the photographs alone.

Finally, for insight into the tragic general failure of Islam (including Iranian Shiism) to keep up with the West, you can’t miss Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East This renowned Princeton scholar examines the multitude of forces that led the once dominant Islam, for centuries the vanguard of world power and learning, to tumble into an abyss of backwardness. Not the least of their errors was one to which we may fall victim ourselves: failure to learn from those we disregard.


-- Andrew Dayton

+ + + + + +

--> For the archive of Madam Mayo guest-blogs, click here.

Recent guest-blogs include Jim Johnston on Mexico City; Gerry Hadden on some spectacularly remote places; and Richard Jeffrey Newman on sites to learn more about the Shahnameh.

Guest-blogger Claudia Long: 5 Delicious Links on the Food of Baroque Mexico

Growing up in the United States, I never once, that I can recall, heard of Sor Juana. But once in Mexico—- I arrived some 25 years ago-- I found her to be ubiquitious, literally. She's on the 200 peso bill right now. You cannot visit a bookstore in Mexico without finding something by or about her. Back before Mexico was Mexico, that is, when it was still a Spanish colony, Sor Juana, which means "Sister Juana," was a nun and a literary prodigy taken under wing by the vicereine, and given a provocatively promininent place in court. One might imagine how this went over with the grimly-bearded Church fathers who were, now and again, busying themselves with burning people at the stake. Once the vicereine returned to Spain, things did not go swimmingly for Sor Juana. Hers was one of the great intellectual tragedies not only of Mexico but, one could argue, of humanity.

Josefina's Sin, by Claudia H. Long, is a story of love, poetry and the Inquisition. A sheltered land-owner's wife goes to the vice-royal court in colonial Mexico, in 1687, and meets the famous poet, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Sor Juana teaches Josefina about the terrors and joys of writing, loving, and living life to the fullest, under the cruel and watchful eye of the Holy Office.

Claudia grew up in Mexico City, and lives in California. Her book has received critical acclaim and can be bought at bookstores, and the usual on-line sources, including Amazon.

As an historical novelist myself (The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, set in the 19th century), I can well imagine some of the struggles Claudia must have faced in getting the details just right. And because, in Mexico anyway, Sor Juana is such a major figure, anything inauthentic, ayyyy ... No doubt every historical novelist loses sleep over this (I know I did).

Over to you, Claudia.
+ + + + + +

5 Delicious Links on the Food of Baroque Mexico
By Claudia Long

When I was writing Josefina's Sin, which takes place in Mexico from 1687 to 1690, I thought feeding one's literary characters would be a simple task, but that's far from the case! Did you know that rice did not originate in Mexico? It was brought during colonial times. Sometimes, what seems so "typically" Mexican is really an import.

Josefina goes on a picnic with the ladies from the court. A tree with large, dark green, glossy leaves and hanging green fruit provided shade. Ah, a mango tree, I thought. Not so fast, said the editor at Simon & Schuster. Mangoes weren't introduced into Mexico until 1775! My mistake—- it was a papaya tree!

It's not hard to find out what food was available to the indigenous people of Mexico before the European colonization:
www.foodtimeline.org/foodmaya.html

And it's not hard to figure out which foods were ultimately imported to Mexico:
www.backyardnature.net/m/food/foodhist.htm

But it's really a question of "When?" What did they have? And what could they have had? If the first mention of mangoes was in 1775, they could well have had them in 1750, but there wouldn't be a mature tree sitting conveniently near my ladies in 1687!

Once I had the ingredients, I had to prepare them. Some of our favorite Mexican foods are easy to make, and were likely done the same way.

Take "agua de jamaica," or hibiscus tea. Jamaica flowers originated in Africa, and came to Mexico during the colonial era. The refreshing tea became popular for its great taste and medicinal value.

Here's a fun, timeless recipe for jamaica water.

One ingredient we know with certainty was native to Mexico: Chocolate—- amazing, wonderful, and powerful.

In 1519, when the first Spanish conquistadors entered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, where today Mexico City stands, they found chocolate. Today, we may sweeten it with sugar (sugar cane came later. . .) but we enjoy it as much as Josefina did.

And now, back to our papaya. Papaya is native from Southern Mexico through the Andes of South America. We love it cut up, sprinkled with lime. But some things have definitely changed since Josefina's day. Enjoy this entertaining suggestion for preparation of a papaya for modern times:
www.mexconnect.com/articles/1055-magnificent-mexican-papaya

"First, you need to soak the outside of the papaya for 20 minutes in water with "microdine" iodine drops to kills any latent bacteria." I know Josefina never did that!

--Claudia Long

+ + + + + +

Further surfing:

> Claudia Long's Shelf Awareness profile

>Claudia Long's page at Simon & Schuster, which includes an informative brief video.

>Octavio Paz's book, Sor Juana Or, The Traps of Faith, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden.

>Sor Juana's Poems, Protest and a Dream, selected and translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, introduced by Ilan Stavans.

>Sor Juana's The Answer / La respuesta, translated by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell

>Guest-blog post here at Madam Mayo by Russell M. Cluff to celebrate his musical CD of Sor Juana's poetry.

---> For the complete archive of Madam Mayo guest-blogs, click here.
Recent guest-bloggers include midwife and memoirist Patricia Harman; traveling (to some strange places) reporter Gerry Hadden; and spiritual reporter Mare Cromwell.

Guestblogger Midwife and Author Patricia Harman on 5 Sites to Help You Go Green

To the average reader this might seem silly, but we writers tend to obsess about publishing-- so should it be any suprise that what first caught my attention about Patricia Harman's books was that they are published by Beacon? For those of you don't know Beacon, it's one of the finest small literary presses in the U.S. (it also happens to be the publisher of my amiga Sara Mansfield Taber's splendid Bread of Three Rivers.) So I knew Patricia Harman's memoirs, based on her many years of caring for women as a lay-midwife and later, as a nurse-midwife, had to be something very special. Harman's first book, The Blue Cotton Gown, is about her patients; her second, the recently published Arms Wide Open: A Midwife’s Journey, tells the story of growing up during one of the most turbulent times in America and becoming an idealistic home-birth midwife.

From the dust jacket text:

Drawing heavily on her journals, Arms Wide Open goes back to a time of counter-culture idealism that the boomer generation remembers well. Patsy opens with stories of living in the wilds of Minnesota in a log cabin she and her lover build with their own hands, the only running water being the nearby streams. They set up beehives and give chase to a bear competing for the honey. Patsy gives birth and learns to help her friends deliver as naturally as possible.

Weary of the cold and isolation, Patsy moves to a commune in West Virginia, where she becomes a self-taught midwife delivering babies in cabins and homes. Her stories sparkle with drama and intensity, but she wants to help more women than healthy hippie homesteaders. After a ten-year sojourn for professional training, Patsy and her husband, Tom, return to Appalachia, as a nurse-midwife and physician, where they set up a women's-health practice. They deliver babies together, this time in hospitals; care for a wide variety of gyn patients; and live in a lakeside contemporary home--but their hearts are still firmly implanted in nature. The obstetrical climate is changing. The Harmans' family is changing. The earth is changing, but Patsy's arms remain wide open to life and all it offers.

Her memoir of living free and sustainably against all odds will be especially embraced by anyone who lived through the Vietnam War and commune era, and all those involved in the back-to-nature and natural-childbirth movements.

"There are more honest, revealing moments here than in many memoirs. Harman, whose prose is sparse but not simple, covers a span of decades, deftly revealing her own youthful struggles with identity through the children we witnessed her raising earlier in her book, revealing, in short, a full life." —Publishers Weekly

+ + + + +

Five Great Websites to Help You Go Green, A Little Bit at a Time
By Patricia Harman

Once, I confess, I was a total eco-freak. Forty years ago, I lived in a cabin without electricity and running water. We used hand tools because we didn’t want to waste non-renewable resources like oil and gas. We tilled the soil by hand, grew our own food organically, canned it in mason jars and stored it in a root cellar we dug into the side of the hill.

Looking back, I wonder at our extreme life, but at the time we were worried about pesticides like DDT killing the eagles and power plants polluting the air. We were looking for a way to live lightly and sustainably on the earth.

Then for thirty years, in the rush of raising kids, going back to school and working as a midwife 70 hours a week, I forgot all that. We moved up in the world, started our own OB-Gyn practice, got a house on the lake, two gas-guzzling vehicles and a jet ski. My youthful ideals receded to an amusing antidote about my past.

Lately, however, my conscience has bothered me. The world we face now seems so much more dangerous than in 1970s. With climate change, extreme weather, the disappearance of honey bees and wars in the Middle East fueled by competition for oil, my concerns about the environment have returned

Now, I’ll admit, I’m not interested in returning to a life without running water, electricity, or indoor plumbing, but I’m worried enough to begin altering my ways. Maybe it’s time, for all of us, to again consider how we can live more sustainably. Maybe it’s time we all think about what we can do to save Mother Earth. Maybe it’s time we all consider how we can be a little more green.

Here are some websites I’ve found helpful and inspiring on this, not so extreme, journey.

1. Natural Life Magazine
(35 years of inspiring articles about green family living.)

2. Mother Nature Network
(Recycling, home renovation, sustainable communities)

3. Mother Earth News
(Guide to Living Wisely, how to do it)

4. The Green Grandma
(Homey and witty)

5. Sustainable Communities
(The big picture…world view)

--- Patricia Harman CNM, midwife and author


+ + + + +

--> For the archive of Madam Mayo guest-blogs, click here.
Recent guest-bloggers include travel writer and reporter Gerry Hadden ; master gardener and spirituality reporter Mare Cromwell; and narrative arquitect and app designer Julia Sussner.

CLICK HERE.

Guest-blogger Gerry Hadden on 5 Great Places to Visit that You'd Probably Never Find (and 5 links to learn something more)

Gerry Hadden is the author of a book just out from HarperCollins that, as a long-time resident of Mexico City-- the very navel of the Americas, IMHO-- I am especially anxious to read: Never the Hope Itself. It's been garnering rave reviews, including from Publisher's Weekly, which calls it, "Offbeat, gripping....It's the rare journalist who shows such a mystical bent, but Hadden's quirks and openness give his book a rare charm."

Here's the catalog copy:

A former NPR correspondent takes you into his own ghost-filled life as he reports on a region in turmoil. Gerry Hadden was training to become a Buddhist monk when opportunity came knocking: the offer of a dream job as NPR’s correspondent for Latin America. Arriving in Mexico in 2000 during the nation’s first democratic transition of power, he witnesses both hope and uncertainty. But after 9/11, he finds himself documenting overlooked yet extraordinary events in a forgotten political landscape. As he reports on Colombia’s drug wars, Guatemala’s deleterious emigration, and Haiti’s bloody rebellion, Hadden must also make a home for himself in Mexico City, coming to terms with its ghosts and chasing down the love of his life, in a riveting narrative that reveals the human heart at the center of international affairs.
+ + +


Five Great Places to Visit That You’d Probably Never Find
Gerry Hadden

1. The shaded stream that circumvents a Garifuna village near Punta Gorda, Belize.
I was floating in it with a young Garifuna known as “the Jamaican” among the drug dealers in Queens. He was back in the village, trying to start over. He had seven bullet scars. “Look,” he said. I turned my head. Inches from my nose began an endless floating field of tiny white flowers, stretching upstream. I don’t know how they all ended up in the water. They moved passed us like silent boats, tickling our necks.
-->Learn to speak Garifuna.

2. The forest brothel along another river, Veracruz state, Mexico.
Sitting in the open shack, under Christmas lights strung in trees, talking to the girls, waiting for my interviewee. A mean guy showed up first, put a knife and a bottle on the table, made me drink with him. The sugarcane worker I was waiting for arrived. “Leave the Gringo alone,” he said. The mean guy stood, smashed his bottle and pointed it at me. I ran like hell. Then I turned back. I didn’t want to leave my contact behind. But when I reached the brothel all the lights were out, the music turned off. I ran again.
-->Hear some music from Veracruz(search Graciana Silva).

3. A ridge in the sierra outside San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
A shaman showing me his garden: plants to staunch bleeding, to help with birthing, to cure the chills or the fear of walking alone in the dark. The view looked West down a sloping valley crisscrossed with hills fading one into the next. Foreigners were coming to steal the shaman’s medicinal secrets. I never wanted to leave.
-->Take a canoe ride through Chiapan culture.

4. A field behind a voodoo temple, Western Haiti.
They were holding the ceremony so that Jean Bertrande Aristide would win the presidency and be a good leader. That was a lot to ask. A bonfire burned. Women circled it dressed in white and blue, singing something beautiful. We men formed an inner circle. The priest danced close to the fire and then let a goat have it with a machete. The rest is history.
-->See some of the best photos of Haiti.

5. A wooden meditation hut in the highland rainforest outside Xalapa, Veracruz.
I’d complained to the Buddhist monastery’s abbey that I couldn’t concentrate. The constant traveling had my mind racing. But after a week of solitude I began to feel grounded again. Upon returning to Mexico City that peace evaporated quickly. Okay, this last place you can find.
-->Here’s the link (in Spanish only).

-- Gerry Hadden


+ + +
---> For the complete archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.

Guest-blogs on travel in Mexico include David Lida on 5 secrets of Mexico City; Nicholas Gilman on 5 funky foods in Mexico City and where to find them; Stephanie Elizondo Griest on 5 glimpses into the Mexican underworld; and Isabella Tree on 5 favorite books about Mexico.

Guest-Blogs on Wednesdays...

Except when not. Alas, the one I'd hoped to post today didn't come through-- although already in line for next week, still-to-be-formatted, there's a fascinating guest-blog post from travel writer Gerry Hadden. So herewith, five of my favorite guest-blog posts (ask me tomorrow and I might make a different list):

App designer Julia Sussner: 5 apps to explore for yourself

Organizer Regina Leeds: 5 + 1 resources to make a writer happy in an organized space

Poet Christine Boyka Kluge: 5 sites for hybrid writing, collaboratiopns, and experimental work

Writer Paula Whyman: 5 + 1 sites for books on baking -- for writers and other breadheads

Writer Sheila Bender: Top 5 books on writing

---> For the complete archive of Madam Mayo's guest-blog posts, click here.

More anon.