writersmonthly.com- Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran, by Elaine Sciolino,Ayatollah Khomeini,Tehran,war in the Middle East, Persia history or Persian people, Iran and Iraq history, Axes of Evil, Mideast

If you've been lolling around on the couch lately, as I have, resenting autumn rolling in outside your sliding-glass doors while half-heartedly watching Bravo, you've probably caught Not Without My Daughter one too many times in rotation. And isn't once enough to fully ingest the overworked, overwrought, cliché-sodden we-hate-(or-are-at-least-terrified-of)-Iranians storyline? If I have to watch Sally Field furrow her brow and fight back tears one more time, I may just (gasp) turn off the television.

Elaine Sciolino's Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (Touchstone, 2001) offers just the antidote, particularly as we brace for a war in the Middle East that promises wild and unpredictable outcomes. Sciolino, senior writer for The New York Times, was lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on your outlook) to land in Tehran in 1979 aboard the same plane that carried the leader of the Islamic Revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, back to Iran. The plane was under threat of being shot down by the Iranian air force. In fact, the Shah's generals had devised a plan to shoot down the plane and presented the details to then-President Carter's National Security Advisor. The Carter Administration wanted no part in the plan but didn't exactly commit to any sharp words warning the Iranians against carrying out the plan themselves. After all, blood not on the hands of Americans is, well, blood on the hands of someone else. But the plane landed. The Ayatollah, after fourteen years living in exile, emerged from the plane and into the Tehran morning and history.

Sciolino spent the next twenty years in and out of Iran as a hard-news reporter. Persian Mirrors is not hard news but Sciolino's attempt to "offer a portrait of my own encounters with Iran, and with the Iranian people, in the hope it can illuminate whatever choices or predictions others make." Clearly, the current American administration is not illuminated. Having read this book, however, I am. Sciolino maps the cultural, political, and social history of Iran since its Islamic Revolution. She does me a favor by concisely summing up the sixty years of political history which preceded the events of 1979 before launching into the tumultuous days and months following the Ayatollah's arrival in, or return to, Iran in the book's first chapters. Sciolino writes of the days that followed the Ayatollah's return:

On the streets of Tehran, many women were bareheaded, and I took off my head scarf. A handwritten cloth banner bore the words–in English–"Welcome to the journalists coming with the ayatollah."

A few days later, a woman swathed in black spat out the word "whore" as I passed by, my head uncovered.

Welcome to Iran. Welcome to the revolution.

While the historical summaries are concise throughout, as demonstrated above it's that kind of eyewitness prose that keeps you turning pages. Here Sciolino deftly reveals a theme that remains constant throughout the text: the curious welcoming and blatant hostility toward Westerners both during the Revolution and continuing through the present. The Revolution is treated less with a reporting slant than a this-was-what-I-felt-and-saw-in-the-streets perspective. Sciolino's style succeeds in turning a topic that might otherwise be mired in dates, names, and strings of events without cohesive logic, into a damn good read.

But don't let the details fool you. There's plenty of interpretation here, too. The book is organized loosely by topic. After the first introductory sections, Sciolino explores the roles of women in Iran, the struggles over private and public spaces, the role of religion and particularly martyrs in the Revolution, the dark side of life under a repressive government, and many Iranians' hopes for a politically reformed future. It's refreshingly balanced between the often grim realities of everyday life in Iran and the creative solutions many folks have found to make life better for themselves and their families. Because it's thematically organized, the narrative jumps around a bit in time, which can be confusing. Luckily, a handy chronology is provided for the linearly-minded.

Sciolino is at her best when she simply describes her subjects living in the alternating light and darkness of the Islamic Republic. Her fascination with women's roles under the Islamic government was for me the most engaging subject matter.

It was her wedding day, and the bride wore a form-fitting white gown and a sheer veil. She was determined not to ruin her hairdo. So she defied the law and did not cover up when her groom took her out in a swan-shaped paddleboat on a crystalline lake hidden in the woods near the Caspian Sea….

The wedding season in Iran had begun, and just a few days before, the police had issued warnings about proper behavior. "The public presence of a bride dressed in a transparent gown showing her figure or without the necessary Islamic head scarf is forbidden," said the statement. Violators would be prosecuted.

This bride didn't care...she was a rebel of sorts, a pretty enough woman who looked no more than eighteen, wearing too much makeup, showing too much cleavage, and ill-accessorized in black patent leather platform shoes. She put on a long white chador and her moment of freedom was over.

That intriguing portrait is followed by this insight:

Many of my Iranian women friends criticize me for focusing so much on what women wear. But the reality is that since the beginning of Iran's revolution, by far the most relentless struggle for control of public space has been over women's dress. More energy has been spent on this social issue than any other, and there are profound political consequences. Women, after all, are a large part of the constituency for reform. They test the limits with colorful clothing or painted toes or visible bits of hair, then retreat in the face of episodic mass arrests.

Her judgments seem to me right on the money. She's great at giving you a picture of a situation and following it up with interpretation you wish you were clever enough to have realized yourself.

I came away from Persian Mirrors thinking two things: how it would be so nice if my elected (yep, we're to blame!) representatives were actually "illuminated" by Sciolino's book as she had intended; and, how completely inspired I am by so many regular Iranians who, in the face of raging political debates, intense scrutiny of their daily lives, and virtually no religious freedom, have, well, thrived. Contrary to what I feel is forced down my throat about one of the Axes of Evil, I have high hopes for Iran's future and its people.

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