It is unlikely we would have proper holidays this year, so I've decided to build on my fascination with Iran and read a book of travels in Iran. A few years ago, I've read Jason Elliot's book about Afghanistan and was impressed, so I've picked up this one. Jason speaks Farsi and travels widely insight the country. And I liked his way of describing his insights into Persian culture, traditions and history. He also talks with a lot of local people. The book starts with almost two pages of "eclecti...

A traveler's tale of his journey thru Iran in 2006. His observations and stories of encounters with Iranians were what I enjoyed most. Although his descriptions of geography are interesting, I was bored with his very detailed descriptions of the complexity of mosque architecture.I was reminded of Persian's love for gardens and poetry.

Highly memorable description of the lives of ordinary people in 21st century Iran. I have a memory like a sieve so it says a great deal about this book that I remember so much even though I read it 5 or so years ago. It left a huge impression on me. Every time I hear or read about Iran, I remember that ordinary people are trying to live ordinary lives there, e.g. I had never considered Iranians going skiing at weekends, or sharing pirate Western DVDs. There are a lot of funny moments in this boo...

Much more engrossing than "Alone in Teheran". Is it because of the pigeons? He speaks the language & has a knowledgeable background in architecture. It's the kind of cross-country travelogue that delivers both wide-eyed wonder (interrupted by the everything that is wrong with my hotel room monologue) & a guide's historical context, while taking a critical look at previous tales from the 19th to mid 20th century... Mostly Byron (1940s).

The Iran we see portrayed on the TV is very different from the country and the people that inhabit it. They are a generous and warm people who are prepared to welcome visitors to their homeland and most importantly their homes to show generous hospitality to guests.Elliot starts his journey in the back of a taxi leaving the airport that he had passed through with surprising efficiency. The driver asked him if he had been away long and was slightly surprised to find that this was Elliot’s first t...

This travelogue about contemporary Iran reminds one of the fable of the elephant and the blind men. Six blind men (or men in complete darkness) grope about an elephant they cannot see--describing it, depending on the part they happen to touch, as resembling a tree (leg), wall (side), spear (tusk), rope (tail), snake (trunk) or fan (ear). So many different impressions, all from the same object! This fable originated in India and was also expressed in the poem "Elephant in a Dark Room" by the cel

In the late nineties, before Afghanistan was rendered more chaotic and dangerous than usual, Jason Elliot visited the country and was moved by it. Building on the success of that trip, he looked over the border to Iran, a nation derided by the Afganis as full of sandwich-eating women, and decided to travel throughout it, as well. Mirrors of the Unseen collects the experiences of several trips made by Elliot throughout Iran, visiting it again and again as the seasons changed. What did not change

Much better, I thought, than Elliot's book about Afghanistan, Mirrors of the Unseen is a comprehensive look at a fascinating country that, sadly, suffers because of their government. My favorite parts were everything that dealt with the history and culture of ancient Persia, including this from poet Sa'di: "The sons of Adam are the members of a whole/ Each is created from a greater single soul/ Whenever fate to one of them brings pain/ No other can without distress remain/ You who for others' to...

Books like this make me sad, bored, and infuriated that there are such large portions of people within my own country which wish to "have a war" with Iran. Most of these have so little understanding of the Iranian national character, conflate the Iranians with other "ragheaded" nations such as Afghanistan and Iran, conflate the rule by a stagnant theocracy as 'the will of a governed people" and insist that despite all protestations to the contrary, Iran still wants a nuke so it can bomb the crap...

maybe I shouldn't include this, as I didn't finish it. I never give up on books! I read almost 300 pages of this one, and there were good things about it-the photos and analysis of architecture particularly. but the history was deadly boring-and, really now, how can that be?! mostly I got tremendously weary with the writer himself, bitching about the cost of taxis and hotels and being charged "tourist" price. hey man! you're from england, and you're in iran-you should pay at least triple! he als...

Eliot is a gentle traveller with distinct interests and biases. His view of Iran is dominated by friends, encounters and monuments. He is interested in art and religion but not in politics. His perennial struggles to avoid being ripped off by taxi drivers and museum staff lighten the mood and the frustrations of life under theocratic rule are well drawn with a light touch. The obsessive attention to architecture can be tedious to those uninterested in the topic!

I read this recently while visiting Iran for the first time in 21 years (having lived there for a number of years as a child). I found it on the whole an interesting, thoughtful and personal account from a scholarly but adventurous individual. Elliot seems to rather fancy himself as a less grumpy contemporary version of Robert Byron who visited Iran and Afghanistan in the early 20th century and wrote about Islamic art among other things in his Road to Oxiana. Following in Byron's footsteps is a

This is one of the better books I've read on Iran.ButIt drove me mad with all:- the lists (actual, and cleverly disguised by stringing them together with commas / semi-colons). It's great to do research, but maybe he didn't need to put all of it in?- the whining about cab drivers asking for money. See his list on pp370-1. These men are truly poor (they're not lying to him about this). They work to feed their families, in a high inflation economy, with petrol rationing. While the author gets to g...

Rating: 3. This book left mixed feelings about it. On positive side: I learnt quite much new about history, cultural aspects, religion, geography, art, people. Stories entertained, new facts made me think. I really liked it. However, it is not an easy read: language is quite hard to grasp quickly, so much descriptions, too much attention to details. I was also disappointed with the last chapter: so good places I wanted to read about where just briefly written about, with sensible annoyance in au...

"As mirrors of the invisible world, they conform to a rigorous order, in poetry achieved by metre, in music by mode, in calligraphy by proportion, and in architecture by geometry" (334). Sometimes the book was good fun -- erudite, thoughtful, even luminous. There were points when he makes a meaningful and moving connection with someone he meets. I skimmed through some sections that were just too much more of the same thing (so many taxi drivers), too hard to follow (architectural detail without

I must admit that I enjoyed Elliot's An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan a lot more. While this book does relate some information about daily life and politics, it focuses a lot more on the art of Iran. Even though I normally enjoy art history, it did not work well in the book.

On the one hand, this is a very interesting and pleasant book. On the other hand, it could have used another round of editing. For the most part, it isn't anything I didn't already know or suspect--the history Elliot introduces is pretty general, for the most part, though his interest in architectural history is by turns charming and a discouraging. I like architecture, too, but there does come a time when I'd rather another illustration or two instead of such a long description of a building. I...

Travel literature meets university lecture. And I do not write that unkindly, as Elliot has done a lot of research and he wants to be thorough. Unfortunately, from my perspective, it often bogged me down, even with some extremely beautifully written passages. I like the intellectual parts of my travel reading to hit my in lightning strikes, not large-scale ground offensives. I jest a little, cause I must say I could almost see the beautiful tile work and architectural delights he was trying to c...

Most books about Iran written by Iranians fall into three categories. One, Since the revolution Iran is terrible. Two, Iran is not terrible as long as you work within the law. Three, Iran is beautiful but has a lot of problems. Mirrors falls into the third category. Elliot started, and admits he did, looking for the Iran of secret religious police and persecution. He found a country that has lost it's religiousoscity and is more worried about unemployment, inflation, lack of foreign exchange, an...

A fine account of Elliot's journeys across Iran in 2004-2005. From a horse-breeding farm in the hills above the Caspian to clambering through the ruins of Persepolis to semi-clandestine cocktail parties in Tehran apartments, Elliot depicts a society exhausted by a generation of war, revolution, and corrupt theocracy, a society proud of its past and its religion, yet contemptuous of its clerical rulers and aware of its pariah status in the world. Elliot speaks Persian (though his appearance convi...

Many people will want to skim the long and detailed (and frequent) commentaries on Islamic art and architecture. (I did, even though I normally consider myself to be interested in such things) I found the book worth it for the glimpses into the lives of ordinary people, even though the author himself acknowledges that he never got near the truly impoverished segments of society, but that okay I guess. Nor would most travellers.

There were parts of this book that just entranced me - I felt as if I were seeing what the author described. He has some beautiful descriptions of the art, the atmosphere, and the geography of Iran. There were too many areas, however, where I was bored...sometimes his descriptions were sappy or long-winded. As a travelogue, it was good. As an art book, it wasn't.

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. The prose is stunning: every page shimmers with exquisite and insightful descriptions of art, architecture, gardens, history and poetry. The book also features many wonderful anecdotes about encounters with ordinary people, sometimes amusing, sometimes unexpectedly tender. Though the author at times comes across as arrogant and presumptuous, it's clear that he has a genuine love of Iran and he goes to great lengths to explore the culture an...

Fascinating, elegantly and sensitively written. Occasionally dense on detail, but whether that's excessive or not depends on personal tastes I think. As the author states, this is a book about art in all its forms rather than a travel book (or a political book), although you can't talk about Iran and not discuss a fair amount of history.I'd recommend to those interested in art and cultures/worldviews that differ to our own.

A nicely written, traditional travel book with some amusing interactions, but you better be seriously into architectural geometry to make it to the end.

The elements of this book make for really great travel writing. Elliot doesn't stick to a hard line of historical facts, documentation, and observation, although you find this in abundance. He'll also give you snapshots of conversations with people "on the ground" and these are often insightful, revealing, and sometimes incredibly funny.His writing is nice, he has a wonderful vocabulary, and I'm glad I read this book, but -- and here's the compliment-amendment that you all knew was coming -- the...

Fascinating look into the veiled world of Iran

Travel writing is an interesting genre, which apart from acquainting the reader with a place, gives him or her a rather intimate introduction to the author in a variety of unusual and highly challenging settings. Jason Elliot is a well-read, cultured traveler with an adventurous spirit and an affinity for meaningful cultural exchange. In short, I think he would make an absolutely delightful traveling companion. Not to mention the fact that his prose is so flawlessly elegant that I think I'm deve...

No, I haven't finished Elliot's Unexpected Light yet, but it's not that I don't like his writing. And I picked this up from the New Book shelves at the Neilson Hays Library, so I only have two weeks to read it. Nothing like a time limit to get me reading.19 March 2008In this, his second book, his editor seems to have given him his head when he might have reined him in just a bit. As I mentioned in a

Elliot didn't seem to write with the same affection for the Iranian people as he did with the people of Afghanistan in his book An Unexpected Light. This book had a good deal more history which sometimes seemed like a laundry list of facts. But his descriptions of everyday Iranian life and his encounters with ordinary people, were beautifully written. His list of excuses he was given by taxi drivers as to why they tried to charge him more than bargained for at the end of the ride, was priceless....