Tag: Children-of-the-Jacaranda-Tree • BookLikes

Search tags: Children-of-the-Jacaranda-Tree

Load new posts () and activity

Like Reblog Comment

show activity (+)

review 2014-08-09 20:56

Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani

Merle

Children of the Jacaranda Tree - Sahar Delijani

I'm throwing in the towel on page 78, as part of my continuing effort not to waste precious free time continuing to read books that aren't working.

This book put me in mind of Burial Rites, in that it sucks you in by opening with a character in a horrific situation, apparently in hopes that readers' instinctive emotional response will prove strong enough to keep us invested, although it soon becomes clear that the author lacks sufficient skill at characterization to actually interest us in the characters or make us care about them when awful things aren't happening. The ploy works less well here, however, because this book isn't as well-paced and because it's more a collection of short stories than a novel; after 50 pages we move on to some new, boring character doing boring things, and that appears to be the pattern throughout. Though at least I can say that it made the book easier to abandon - if the book had followed through with Azar's story I'd probably have read it all and then given 2 stars, or a begrudging 3.

Also, I realize English isn't the author's native language, but, hello, editors? In one sentence a character looking out a window observes a traffic jam, including "the restless bodies impaled on motorbikes with not enough space to maneuver through the jam." (Impaled? What a bizarre and distracting way to describe people riding motorcycles.) Later, a grandmother is described as "pedantic" for carefully showing equal amounts of affection to all of her grandchildren. I see how a thesaurus might have led the author wrong there, but that is not what the word means.

On its own, though, the first chapter is decent. If you want to read a painful story without any payoff, that is.

Like Reblog Comment

review 2014-07-27 00:00

Children of the Jacaranda Tree: A Novel

Merle

I'm throwing in the towel on page 78, as part of my continuing effort not to waste precious free time continuing to read books that aren't working.

This book put me in mind of [b:Burial Rites|17333319|Burial Rites|Hannah Kent|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1384207446s/17333319.jpg|21943144], in that it sucks you in by opening with a character in a horrific situation, apparently in hopes that readers' instinctive emotional response will prove strong enough to keep us invested, although it soon becomes clear that the author lacks sufficient skill at characterization to actually interest us in the characters or make us care about them when awful things aren't happening. The ploy works less well here, however, because this book isn't as well-paced and because it's more a collection of short stories than a novel; after 50 pages we move on to some new, boring character doing boring things, and that appears to be the pattern throughout. Though at least I can say that it made the book easier to abandon - if the book had followed through with Azar's story I'd probably have read it all and then given 2 stars, or a begrudging 3.

Also, I realize English isn't the author's native language, but, hello, editors? In one sentence a character looking out a window observes a traffic jam, including "the restless bodies impaled on motorbikes with not enough space to maneuver through the jam." (Impaled? What a bizarre and distracting way to describe people riding motorcycles.) Later, a grandmother is described as "pedantic" for carefully showing equal amounts of affection to all of her grandchildren. I see how a thesaurus might have led the author wrong there, but that is not what the word means.

On its own, though, the first chapter is decent. If you want to read a painful story without any payoff, that is.

Like Reblog Comment

review 2013-07-19 00:00

Kim Reads and Bakes

Children of the Jacaranda Tree - Sahar D...

I wanted to read this novel from almost the moment I knew of its existence. The author was born in Tehran’s Evin Prison in 1983, where her mother was a political prisoner. The work explores the life of Iranian political prisoners in the 1980s, the mass killing of leftist prisoners in 1988, the ongoing impact of imprisonment on relationships between former prisoners and their children and the cycle of dissent and oppression in Iran, with its most recent manifestation in the mass protests after the 2009 presidential election. The narrative shifts back and forward in place and time and deals with a number of characters, all of whom are connected in some way to a group of women detained in Evin Prison in 1983.

The novel explores some interesting themes. As a reader with a long-standing interest in Iranian history, society and culture and a familiarity with modern Iranian politics, it should have enthralled me. But it didn’t. Instead, it was profoundly disappointing and I only finished reading it because it was short and because I generally finish books I start.

Part of the problem with the work is the confusing structure. Too many characters are introduced, it’s not easy to remember how all of them are related to each other and the work is too short for any of the characters to be developed in a meaningful way. While I have no problem in theory with a narrative which shifts back and forward in place and time, in this novel the effect is choppy. I suspect that the lack of flow would be an even greater problem for a reader who wasn’t familiar with the background to the narrative.

However, for me the biggest problem is the writing. Delijani has potential as a storyteller and writer, but someone needs to tell her to restrain her impulse to use similes to pad out every paragraph. Not every action, experience or emotion needs to be compared to something else. The overuse of similes is particularly problematic when the images make no sense or are frankly inappropriate. An example:

He had a slightly big head and rice-tray eyes that flashed back at his surroundings like a fawn on the run.

As it happens, I know what a rice-tray looks like and while I haven't seen a fawn on the run, there can't be any similarity between the two.

Another animal-themed example:

She watches the reflections of the lights on the window, like eyes of sick pigeons staring.

Huh?

And what does this mean?

Inside, it was if her heart had been soaked in a pond of freezing light.

A sexual simile, which does not seem particularly apt:

It was the most silent lovemaking they’d ever had, like the sky had landed on them.

Here’s another unfortunate sexual image, describing a couple having a post-coital nap.

And they fell asleep in the scent of each other’s bodies, serene , like children content, collapsing after a long day at the beach.

I highlighted dozens of these strange, inappropriate or just plain nonsensical similes and the odd inane metaphor. When the language is so distractingly bad, getting lost in the story becomes impossible.

I really hope that Delijani’s ability as a writer improves, because she has something to say. There were times when her writing moved me; for example, her description of a child being removed from her prisoner mother, the execution of another prisoner and the reaction of an Iranian expatriate who observed the events of 2009 on her computer screen. However, whatever Deljani has to say, in this novel she has not said it well. If and when she writes another novel, I'll be in no hurry to read it.

Like Reblog Comment

review 2013-06-25 23:06

Book Review: Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani

The Streetlight Reader

Cover Gushing Worthiness: The cover of Children of the Jacaranda Tree is one of the most beautiful covers of the year for me. It reminded me of the cover from Julie Wu’sThe Third Son .I love how the Jacaranda Tree is the focal point while the city is faded in the background.

Review:

"We all have a tree inside us. Finding it is just a matter of time."

I first heard about this book from Jamie over at The Perpetual Page-Turner and I was thrilled when I got approved by Netgalley to read an ARC of it. Most of you who are regular visitors to my blog know about my background in Middle Eastern and East Asian History. I’m always interested in reading books about Iran because nobody seems to know a lot about the country. Plus this is the first book I've read which addresses the political situation in post-revolutionary Iran.

One of the first things I should point out is that if you're planning on reading this book for a plot, then you will be disappointed because there isn't one. Instead Children of the Jacaranda Tree focuses on two generations of Iranians: those who were political activists once Ayatollah Khomeini assumed power and their children. These individuals are scattered across America, Germany, Italy and Iran. The lives of all these people intertwine at some point within each person’s story, but there is no end game. It’s about shedding light on events that many people, especially people from my generation are unfamiliar with.

Children of the Jacaranda Tree jumps back and forth between the times of the Iran and Iraq war, the 2009 Green Revolution and 2011. Because there are so many alternating perspectives and time shifts it was difficult to keep track of which character was which and what was their relationship to A, B or C. But the more I think about it, maybe it wasn't so much about remember the character specifically. Maybe it was about remembering and appreciating the experience of those who went to prison or were executed because they wanted to ensure their generation and future generations would have the freedom they so desperately craved, wanted and deserved. That’s what I came away with in the end.

This book is eye-opening and heart wrenching at the same time. It’s not just heart-wrenching because of the experiences of characters, it’s also about the strained relationships between family,spouses, children and friends. For the younger generation it’s about trying to and coming to terms with their parents’ experiences, but also respecting and understanding the experiences of their comrades who participated in the 2009 Green Revolution movement. I think what struck me the most was the stories of the younger generation. It was interesting for me to see the men and women who now lived in the States, Germany and Italy come to Iran and interact with Iranians. It was almost as if it was a foreign concept to them and they didn’t know how to behave. Furthermore there were those people saw those coming from abroad as foreigners who didn’t really know what was going on in Iran and how do they have any right to make any opinions. I think I was glued to this aspect of the story so much because I've been there, I know what its like to live in the west and go back to your country of origin only for people to think you're ‘westernized’ and haven’t got a clue on how that part of the world functions. As much as you can feel angry for such judgments, it’s normal and I appreciated Delijani addressing the difficulties for both parties to understand each other’s experiences. One paragraph that stood out for me was when Donya, an Iranian American visiting said in regards to the Green revolution

"They might have identified us, but we also identified with each other. She feels a bit shy saying ‘us’ when she was not here, when she only watched everything on the news, thousands of miles away."

I thought those were powerful sentences in their simplicity. How we can feel connected to something that is happening across the world, even without being there and having the fear of people judging you for referring to yourself as one of the people who participated when you weren’t present physically.

The ending of this book is ambiguous and that’s where the beauty lies. A story was told and its up to the reader to decide what will happen in the end. Yes there were times I wanted more answers, but Delijani’s writing leaves you in a state of contentment over the answers that are provided to us.

There are many positives to take away from this book, but there are things that kept me from completely enjoying this book. Mainly it was the multitudes of alternative perspectives along with the time shifts. It felt disjointed and therefore sometimes it would be frustrating because there would be references to other incidents which took place in the book and as a reader I was trying to remember what the character was talking about. Maybe it was just me, but I think another reason I didn’t enjoy this book as much was because I read it in ereader format. I think if I had a hard copy I would easily have been able to flip back and forth between stories to pick up information in order better understand the character’s story I was reading about.

Overall Children of the Jacaranda Tree is was a great and poignant read for me. It was a reminder of the freedom we sometimes take for granted, it was about life and the heartbreak that comes with it. Sarah Delijani’s debut novel is bound to resonate with readers everywhere for its beautiful prose and construction of a country that was supposed to be so much more in the eyes of its people.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Would I recommend it? Yes

You can read my interview with Sahar Delijani here.

Children of the Jacaranda Tree is published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. It will be released on June 18, 2013. This Advanced Reader Copy was obtained from Netgalley. Thank You Netgalley for providing this copy in exchange for an honest review.

ARC Children of the Jacaranda Tree Iranian Fiction Middle Eastern Fiction Sahar Delijani

Like Reblog Comment

review 2013-06-08 00:00

Victoria Reads Books

3.5/5

Both of my parents experienced war first-hand. Countless hours have been spent with my parents talking to me about their childhoods, how war influenced them, their separation from their families, how they ended up in Canada, and yes, why I should be grateful that I didn't need to go through what they did. The moment that hit me the hardest in Children of the Jacaranda Tree was in the final chapter, when a girl named Neda laments the fact that the children of Iran are not mere witnesses to their country's history. They, along with their parents, are the historymakers; the horrors of their parents' pasts have bled through to the future.

Children of the Jacaranda Tree is a poignant look at post-revolutionary Iran, and jumps back and forth through time from the early 1980's to the present. It begins with a woman who gives birth to a beautiful baby girl in the darkness of a prison. The stories in this book are intricately interconnected. Many of the stories are heart-wrenching, as one can expect from a book taking place in a tumultuous time in Iranian history. This novel deals with love, with loyalty, with loss, with freedom.

The story of Amir is one that will stick with me the most- he a young man serving a jail sentence. Before this, I did not know that atheism was subject to the death penalty in Iran- this was the one thing that Amir pleaded not-guilty to. Amir has a baby daughter, and the author captures the anguish of being separated from family very well. With great resourcefulness, Amir gives his daughter a gift to represent his love, and waits for his jail term to be complete, anticipating the prospect of being with his wife and child once again. Needless to say, there is more to his story, which I will leave to readers to discover.

The greatest strength of this novel- the intergenerational depiction of Iran- also, unfortunately, serves to be its weakness. Although the author makes a valiant attempt to connect characters within the novel, as the novel goes on, it gets increasingly difficult to recall who the characters were and what role they played earlier in the novel. For instance, a character who is secondary in the first segment and is a cellmate, will become a primary- or another secondary- character in a later segment. A child with little plot significance will become an adult with a main story, so on and so forth. The overall cohesion of the book suffers a bit because of the awkward breaks needed to flip back and forth in an effort to remember who a certain character was in an earlier tale. As a result, the supporting characters lack the necessary substance needed to make them memorable. In addition, occasionally, it is difficult to determine the timeline when the date is not given.

I found that I was personally not entirely satisfied with the prose style. For instance, the similes/metaphors were hit-and-miss for me; some comparisons just didn't quite work. Other than that, I got used to the prose style as the novel progressed, and there were several passages that were simply beautiful.This is the author's debut novel, and she definitely has potential.

As shown by the title, the 'Jacaranda tree' serves as the novel's main symbol. Although it is fairly ostentatious, it would make for interesting analysis. It should also be noted that the pacing of this book is a little awkward; the first fifty pages or so were very strong, but it dragged a bit at certain sections within the book. The pacing is effective in the sense that it allows the reader to explore the setting and environment (which is likely what the author is going for anyway), so this is isn't too big an issue.

Overall, I think that this is a very strong debut novel from this author. I can see it in high school classrooms as a book to study, especially in a time when books with subject matter dealing with developing countries is gaining traction. Sahar Delijani, the author, is obviously passionate about Iran, and this passion does shine through in her writing.

(I also have to note that the cover of this book is stunning.)

Entertainment value: 3.5/5
Writing quality/style: 3.5/5
Readability: 2/5 (5 being the most difficult to read)
Characters (depth/development): 2.5/5
Plot: 3.5/5

I received an ARC of this through the Goodreads First Reads program. This has not influenced my opinions about the book in any way.