As the author wonders how the Westward-looking Pahlavi throne fell under the weight of dissident pressure to a turban-wearing cleric, she paints in fine brush strokes the personalities who shaped the revolution's outcome both intentionally and quite by accident. Highlighting the idiosyncratic nature of history, Pakravan does not judge those individuals who found themselves engulfed in Iran's revolutionary turmoil. "The Arrest of Hoveyda" thus compels the reader to go beyond good-guy/bad-guy interpretations of history.

More significantly, Pakravan's tales evoke the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of Iran as she experienced them during various precious moments in her life. Perhaps most rewarding are "Kakouli" and "Quintet" in which she reveals her own emotions with clarity but without self-indulgence. The reader cannot help but wipe away Pakravan's salty tears of joy and sorrow. Her joy seems to derive from the smallest sweetnesses life has to offer. Her sorrow, from the loss of Iran as epitomized by her father's assassination.

"The Arrest of Hoveyda" is a first-rate hi-story that satisfies the intellect and the senses. Pakravan's words will linger with the reader long after closing the book...She has already cultivated a readership which eagerly awaits her next work.


Sharply honest, thoughtful and beautifully written book.   February 21, 1999
17 out of 22 found this review helpful

Saideh Pakravan has written a beautiful collection of short stories about Iran. The main story, "The arrest of Hoveyda" attempts to shed some light on one of the most puzzling events of the revolutionary months that led to the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty. Most foreign observers had concluded that the arrest of Hoveyda was a cynical -and ultimately futile- attempt by the Shah to sacrifice his loyal prime minister of 13 years to his own survival, while many Iranians adept of twisted conspiracy theories advanced that it was dictated by competing foreign powers (the U.S. or Great Britain)who wanted the liquidation of "a man who knew too much". Ms. Pakravan does not try to promote any theory, but her story is compelling by showing that the actors of this tragedy were all too human. All, even the Shah, meant well for the country but the dynamics of an undemocratic regime, without checks and balances, left it unprepared for the test of history. Her description of the anarchy and confusion that reigned among the Iranian leaders is enlightening in explaining the human dimension of the crisis and the often haphazard and conflicting decisions. She's chosen to outline the complexity of the situation by presenting this tragedy from the perspective of 5 important Iranian statesmen and writers who had been relegated to secondary function in the last years of the Shah, but were brought back as "wise men" to counsel on means of saving the country. Some of these individuals are easily recognizable, but others are composites characters. Their recollection of a telephone conversation they witnessed between the Shah and another -yet undetermined- person differ in many ways, but they all confirm that it was then that the still hesitating Shah approved the arrest of Hoveyda. Among these witnesses one can recognize the author's father, one of the most respected Iranian statesmen, who was among the many victims executed summarily by the Khomeiny regime. The author also reminds us indirectly that, in any event, Hoveyda's fate would not have been different given his later refusal, after his release from prison in the confusion of the collapse of the regime, to hide from the vengeful Khomeiny regime.

Ms. Pakravan's other short stories that follow "The arrest of Hoveyda" are beautiful snapshots from her youth and from her years after the revolution that trace her often difficult, but seemingly successful, personal trajectory in building internal peace and harmony out of a now shattered world that had attempted to marry the best -and at times worst- aspects of Eastern and Western cultures.