Q. Now that you’ve answered some of my many questions about Iran, let’s get back to the book! One of the reasons I was originally drawn to the novel is because the love story between Pasha and Zari is so romantic. Are you in particular a romantic, or is that a Persian quality?
A. My friends will tease me for the rest of my life if I even hint at having a single drop of romantic blood in me! My wife may go into shock. So let’s be careful with this one! I think readers will connect with Zari and Pasha because everyone remembers the first time they fell in love. Zari’s and Pasha’s youth puts them in an impossible situation to begin with, and if you add their restrictive social conventions and Doctor’s state of affairs, their situation becomes hopeless. And by the way, that is the dictionary definition of “romantic” in Persian literature. The beauty in romance lies in its inevitable tragic ending. What’s worth giving your life for is what you can’t have. For those who are interested in learning more about this topic, Iranian Culture—A Persianist View by Dr. Michael Hillmann (University Press of America, 1991) is a great source.
Q. In the novel’s original version, the narrator was never given a name. Why was that your first choice and why did you change your mind and call him Pasha?
A. Well, the narrator is me, and those who know me will immediately recognize him as me. But I didn’t want to give him my name. So I left him nameless, and I was getting away with it until you, my wonderful editor, convinced me that it’s time for him and me to decouple, to go our separate ways, and to live separate lives. Then I couldn’t find a name for him. Eventually I chose Pasha Shahed. Pasha would have been my first name if Mahbod wasn’t chosen, and Shahed is my father’s pseudonym, and also my mother’s maiden name. My father is a Sufi poet who has published three books of poetry in Iran.
Q. In so many ways, the characters and events of the novel remind me of what is universal in the human experience—the essential support offered by caring friends and family, the power of humor to see us through tough times, the clever and not-so-clever ways in which people submit to, and resist, political repression, the desire to love and be loved. Yet Zari’s horrific choice, and the characters’ extravagant response to grief, may both seem very foreign to Western readers. Can you help put those acts in a context for us that might help us to understand them?
A. Yes, love, hate, humor, friendships are universal qualities shared by people of all nations. You’re also right in that our cultures influence the ways in which we may respond to situations. In my non-writing life, I teach a course called “Understanding Personal and Cultural Differences.” Persians, and Middle Easterners in general, live in what the experts call “Affective” cultures. These are cultures in which people freely show their emotions, especially in times of mourning. Americans, the British, and the Germans live in “Neutral” cultures. In these cultures people don’t demonstrate their feelings; they keep them tightly under control. So, for example, the experience of attending a funeral in the U.S. would be very different from attending one in Iran. The Neutral people would come across as cold and unfeeling to the people in the Affective cultures, and conversely the Neutral people would see the Affective people as too emotional and overly expressive.
As for Zari’s “horrific choice,” I’d rather not give too much of the story away by commenting on it, except to say that what she does is not a common practice in Iran. It does occur, but rarely. She deliberately chooses such an extreme act to make a powerful statement.
Q. Do you plan to write another novel? Do you know yet what it will be about?
A. I’m already halfway through the second book. It’s about a man who has four wives but feels he has been deprived of love all his life! I don’t have a title for it yet. And someday, I’m not at all sure when, I will certainly write a sequel to Rooftops. I just need some time away from it for now.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What’s your general reaction to the novel? Did the author make the characters come alive for you? Did you care about them? Were you fully engaged? Did you laugh and cry?
2. Does Pasha’s love for Zari remind you of the first time you fell in love? How is it similar? How is it different?
3. Ahmed, Faheemeh, Iraj, Doctor, Zari, and Pasha are young people in the Iran of the 1970s. How universal are the challenges they face? How common are their thoughts and feelings, discussions and interactions, reactions to authority, methods of going after what they want? Compare the young adults in the novel to ones you know in the U.S. today.
4. Do you agree with Doctor that time is the most precious human commodity?
5. What do you think about the open, unguarded nature of the male relationships in this novel, especially between Pasha and Ahmed? How would such a close male friendship in the U.S. be likely to differ?
6. Discuss the relationship between Pasha and his father. How is it similar to, or different from, the father-teenage son relationships you know?
7. Discuss the lives of the women in the novel. What surprises you about them and what doesn’t?
8. The concept of That is discussed a number of times. What does this concept mean to you? Is there a Western equivalent?
9. What do you think motivates Zari’s bold and tragic action during the parade? Do you see her choice as honorable or delusional, or something in between? How might a Western woman in a similar predicament react?
10. What aspects of Persian culture most intrigue you? Did the novel change or challenge any of your notions about Iran and Iranians? What did you learn?
11. The narrator discusses the unique way in which people in Iran react to grief, and the author dramatizes many scenes of mourning. What surprised you about those scenes? How do the characters mourn differently from the way people do in the U.S.?
12. Discuss how characters in the novel perceive the U.S., both accurately and inaccurately. What factors might be limiting or distorting their understanding? What distortions might be shaping your own understanding of Iran and Iranians?
13. What do you think happens to Pasha after the book ends? To the other characters?
RECOMMENDED READING
History and Culture
A History of Modern Iran by Ervand Abrahamian (Cam-bridge University Press, 2008)
Iran Between Two Revolutions by Ervand Abrahamian (Princeton University Press, 1982)
Targeting Iran by Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian, Nahid Mozaffari (City Lights Bookstore, 2007)
All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2008)
Iranian Culture by Michael Hillmann (United Press of America, 1990)
The Soul of Iran: A Nation’s Journey to Freedom by Afshin Molavi (W. W. Norton, 2005)
The History of Iran by Elton Daniel (Greenwood Press, 2001)
Iran by Richard Frye (Mazda Publishers, 2005)
The Heritage of Persia by Richard Frye (Mazda Publishers, 1993)
Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution by Nikki R. Keddie (Yale University Press, 2006)
The Iran Agenda by Ruse Erlich (Polipoint Press, 2007)
Memoirs, Novels, Poetry
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas (Random House, 2004) Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (Random House, 2004)
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Vintage Books, 1990)
My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad, translated by Dick Davis (Mage Publishers, 2004)
Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowski Shahnameh by Dick Davis (Mage, 2006)
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald (Collier Books, 1962)
The Love Poems of Ahmad Shamlu by Firoozeh Papen-Martin (Ibex Publishers, 2005)
Strange Times, My Dear, edited by Nahid Mozaffari (Arcade Publishing, 2005)
Neither East Nor West by Christiane Bird (Washington Square Press, 2002)
Mahbod Seraji was born in Iran and moved to the United States in 1976 at the age of nineteen. He attended the University of Iowa, where he received an MA in film and br
oadcasting and a Ph.D. in instructional design and technology. He currently works as a management consultant, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Please visit him on the Web at mahbodseraji.com and rooftopsof tehran.com.
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