Hazhir Teimourian
What the Persians Did For Us
Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran
By Jason Elliot
Picador 525pp £16.99
‘This at last wipes the taste of the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal out of one’s mouth, where Mohammadan art is concerned. I came to Persia to get rid of that taste.’ So wrote Robert Byron in 1933 of a little-known building in Hamadan, the site of the ancient Median city of Ecbatana, in western Iran. In case some of you have mislaid your old copy of his masterpiece, The Road to Oxiana, let me quote here the beginning of the passage to show why he was so spellbound:
At Hamadan, we eschewed the tombs of Esther and Avicenna, but visited the Gumbad-i-Alavian (dome of the Shias), a Seljuq mausoleum of the twelfth century, whose uncoloured stucco panels, puffed and punctured into a riot of vegetable exuberance, are yet as formal and rich as Versailles – perhaps richer considering their economy of means; for when splendour is got by a chisel and a lump of plaster instead of the wealth of the world, it is splendour of design alone.
Seven months later, in May 1934, as he was about to leave Meshed in eastern Iran for Afghanistan, Byron jotted down another sentence that reveals how he had been overwhelmed during his pilgrimage to Iran’s architectural past:
I tremble to think that of the four finest buildings in Persia, the Gumbad-i-Kabus,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk