My Uncle Napoleon

I was hoping to get someone’s opinion here. I reached page 300 in this book and can’t get motivated to continue. As I read I can’t stop thinking about the TV show ‘Dynasty’ or the show ‘Keeping Up Appearances,’ the follies and tribulations an upper class family. I realize this is the biggest selling book in Iran but I also realize that Danielle Steel sells a lot of books in America.

nother, in a comment to Open Source, January 23, 2007

Our sentiments exactly. We’re moving this one to the graveyard, but maybe when a good Iranian film peg comes around we can resurrect it?

Here in America we could learn so much from reading fiction. Random House has just republished a fantastic Iranian novel called My Uncle Napoleon which is a huge classic, and which will you give you a sense of comedy, a sense of what’s going on, a sense of the country, the texture, the socio-cultural layering of Iran. The more we realize that these Iranians have a human face, that they’re desperate, they’re thirsty for dialogue…that’s our only way out of the crisis.

Lila Azam Zanganeh on The Democrat’s New Reading List, 11/9/06.

We’re taking Lila’s advice to heart (Azar Nafisi’s, too). We’re reading My Uncle Napoleon and we like it. It makes us realize how little we know about the history of Anglo-Iranian relations. Better, it makes us laugh. Pick up a copy and help us figure out how to do a show about it.

Much more to come as we read on.