This is a wonderful book on so many levels. Foremost, it fills me with nostalgia for a time when the world really was a different place, and travelling really meant experiencing a feeling of complete "dépaysement". It must have been a wonderful time to travel. What is amazing is that this other world managed to survive in Iran until the '70s outside of the big cities. I suppose I experienced a bit of this world the first time I travelled to Turkey, and even those first one or two times a I went to France. Sad that this is gone - at least in the countries I am interested in visiting.
The picture of Islam that emerges from O'Donnell's book is also fascinating. It is such a different Islam from the one presented by the post revolution mullahs of Iran. Tolerant, kind, wise, generous, forgiving, open to the joys and pleasures of the world, and the richness of human emotion. In a way, this new hard-edged Islam is their version of the Protestant revolution. I'm not sure it is an improvement. There is something inhuman in that world view that links it to the new corporate social ethos that seems to be taking over our world - both are joyless, inhuman, impersonal and all about rules and regulations (that work to the institution's benefit.
The epilogue of the book also reveals the seed that has destroyed much of the richness of the world's cultures. His wonderful traditional garden home is to be destroyed by the landlord to build a pseudo-western suburb for Iran's emerging middle class with cars.
The book is full of wonderful anecdotes with a collection of memorable characters.
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