The Girl from the Garden: A Novel

I have mixed feelings about this one. The constant back and forth between present day and flash backs made the story hard to follow. Additionally, it took way too long to get into. I thought the over all storyline was interesting, but I also left the book feeling that some questions had been unanswered...

A cross-cultural story - for me. While it takes place in years gone by, one could envision such family, religious, and community strictures to be still in place, in certain parts of the world. The story sheds light on the power differentials that existed in former times with cultures or religions that typically expect families to have multiple wives. Story also emphasizes the utter destruction of a positive legacy when one believes that such can only be achieved through male babies.

I was very moved by the way Parnaz explores each female character (and even the male ones), in a way that left me with a pit of sadness in my stomach and a haunted feeling towards the past, a dull pain, longing, and overwhelming love for the women who might have been my ancestors too. I experienced a yearning to reach these characters, and any woman who was prevented from being her true self, something I cannot take for granted now. The dialogue she chooses to use is telling; it only took short, simple stringing of words and minimal conversation voiced from any one of the characters, and I was left with an entire meaning. I shed some tears when closing the book for the last time - the beauty and joy of being able to "become" was so harshly taken out of these women's hands, and even those with a hard shell are given room to be understood by the reader. It was beautiful, in a simple but profound way. And the story simply ends...the questions you are left with and the injustice and frustrations are just a reflection of a story that is based on a real one, where life is not always tied up into a neat package, stories are left untold, and only traces of someones heart and struggle remain on the pages.

Based on the recommendation of Rachel Schwartz, I picked up this book and began reading it. I was lost in the imagery of the scenes. I cared about the protagonist of the novel, Rakhel. My heart went to her for her pain and sufferings. The idea that bearing a child is purely the key to a person's worth in a society is painful at best and harmful at worst. I loved the usage of Farsi words through out the book. The Farsi words were peppered and they did not interfere with the understanding of the context even if you have never heard of the language. Mrs. Foroutan has done a marvelous job. Cannot wait to read more works by her.

In the opening pages of The Girl from the Garden, Parnaz writes, “The word paradise is a Farsi word. It means ‘the space within enclosed walls, a cultivated place set apart from the vast wilderness.’” If there is one thing this book portrays vividly, it is that not all enclosed spaces are paradise; some of them are cages. This book takes place in modern day Los Angeles but most of the characters and events take place in early 20th century Iran. The narrative takes place through the recollections of Mahboubeh who is tending to her garden in her Los Angeles and recalling the events and characters of her past. The book focuses heavily on a semi-fictional recollection of the life of a woman Rakhel (“Dada”). Rakhel is married to a wealthy and prideful Jewish man named Asher in the Jewish Ghetto of Kermanshash. Already we see there is one level of prison as both Asher and Rakhel have been pushed in a Ghetto because of anti-Semitism. Although Judaism predates Islam in Iran, Iran partly surrendered to Islamic colonization and with it came some pretty harsh points of view toward Jews. One of them was that Jews are dirty and that touching them would make one dirty as well. In fact, the Jewish dirt can rub off with rain water and spread onto a Muslim. Thus, Jews were forced live among themselves in ghettos and the story takes place in one of these. Rakhel’s husband Asher was however an astute businessman and owned a sizeable estate in which Rakhel lived. The story mostly takes place in this estate. Since women are not allowed to go outside unattended, their lives are confined mostly to the home. Now Rakhel and Asher had a nice enclosed space to call paradise except for the fact that Rakhel was not getting pregnant. This dilemma is a great focal point for portraying the severe circumstances people lived under at that time and place. Today, if a woman is not getting pregnant, she can go to a fertility doctor, divorce her husband, adopt, accept it and find meaning in other aspects of her life, etc... But this was simply not the case in an age where people blindly devoted to religion, superstition, and family. Rakhel had nowhere to run, no Youtube to distract her, and no science to explain the situation. Instead she was trapped in a vicious cycle of superstition, bad advice, self-blame, and false hope. For Rakhel, her husband was everything and her value was measured in keeping a home that she could not make. It is inescapable. This is a struggle that I never really considered as a 28 year old man, but Parnaz made it feel real with the delicate balance of prose and poetry. Actually, it is inaccurate to say Rakhel was a woman; she was just a girl without the escapes and defenses of an adult. It brought me back the bad days I had in elementary school, you know, before you could say screw this and take a coffee break, or just not ans...