Moon Brow by Shahriar Mandanipour

Moon Brow Reviews

• 
  Tahmineh Baradaran

  عقرب کِشی اشاره به قاطی کردن پودرعقرب داخل سیگاروکشیدن آن به عنوان نوعی مخدراست . شاید نوع روایت و آشفتگی ذهنی قهرمان داستان ناشی ازموجی شدن درجنگ وهمین عقرب کشی باشد . شاید هم اشاره ای به مفاهیم اسطوره ای عقرب با ویژگی هایی چون حقارت، موذیگری، حیله و نیرنگ، شرارت و درد، قدرت، مرگ و جنگجویی ویا آن داستان معروف که عقرب درمحاصره آتش خودش رانیش میزند ومیکشد !
  پسر یک بازارِی مذهبیِ پول دارِ ، از خانه توسطِ پدر بیرون رانده می شود و تصمیم می گیرد که پنهان از خانواده به جبهه ی جنگِ ایران با عراق برود. دستش را ترکش خمپاره قطع می کند . او را به بیمارستانِ موجی های جنگ می برند . امواجِ ترکش های مداوم خمپاره و بیهوشیِ بعد از قطع شدنِ دست ، حافظه ی اوراپریشان کرده است. او در پیِ بازگرداندن حافظه ، خواهر خانه نشین را به مکان هایی می کشاند تا بیاد آورد. کتاب نوعی روایت پشت سرهم وبدون فصل بندی است . اغتشاش ، تکراروازاین شاخه به آن شاخه پریدن شاید نشانه ذهن موج زده راوی باشد .
  رفت و برگشت به خاطره های جوانانه پیش ازانقلاب،روابط جوانان ، وبعدازانقلاب صحنه های جنگ و شلاق خوردن درمتنی که جابجا ازازروی دوشانه راست وچپ روایت می شود . نوعی ازاین گونه روایت را درآثارمهدی یزدانی خرم وناهید طباطبایی خوانده بودم که دوست نداشتم و ندارم . صحنه های درخشان از تلخی و فجایع جنگ ، مکالمات سراسر خشونت و عبارات رکیک درجبهه که نمیدانم چقدر واقعی است .
  صحنه هایی از جزئیات روابط جنسی "امیر " که شاید نیمی ازکتاب را پرازصحنه های اروتیک خشن و کلمات رکیک کرده است . حتما" آدمهایی هستند که همین گونه حرف بزنند و هیم طور روایت کنند ، ولی مورد پسند من نیست . احتمالا" باید روزی بررسی شود که آیا کثرت به کارگیری این گونه روایتها و کلمات ، ناشی از محدودیتهای سانسور ونوعی دهن کجی است یا روالی عادی. شاید هم کثرت افکار وخاطرات جنسی امیر اشاره به تقابل سائق جنسی ومرگ برای مردود نمودن وفراموشی مرگ است .
  نامها واصطلاحاتی درکتاب هست که درزمان روایت ، به کاربرده نمیشده است .
  اولین کتابی است که از ادبیات جنگ ایران وعراق میخوانم .متاسفان�� یکی دوکتاب مطرح قبلی رانخوانده ام ونمی توانم مقایسه ای داشته باشم . پس ازپایان کتاب ، با یاد جنگ هشت ساله ، برای چندمین باریقین کردم که مرد بودن بسیارسخت است ...
• 
  Saman

  اول اینکه تمام شدن این کتاب مصادف شد با تولد جناب مندنی پور.مبارک باشه تولدشون.
  تلفیق هنرمندانه یک داستان عشقی و جنگی با تم ضد جنگ رمان عقرب کشی رو تشکیل میده.قصه از این قراره که امیر در جنگ ایران و عراق شرکت میکنه و یک دست خودش رو از دست میده.پنج سال در تیمارستانی میمونه و بالاخره مادر وخواهرش اون رو پیدا میکنند و به خونه برمیگردونن.پس از بازگشت به خانه با یادآوری خاطراتش دنبال عشقش میگرده.عشقی که مشخص نیست در ابتدا آیا وجود داشته یا ساخته و پرداخته ذهن امیره.ادامه داستان برای یافتن همین مساله دنبال میشه.
  چند نکته برجسته در این رمان به نظرم اومد که اونا رو مینویسم:
  1-ضدیت با جنگ:به وضوح و با صراحت زیاد،شهریار مندنی پور داستانی ضد جنگی و در تقبیح جنگ این پدیده زشت نوشته
  2-نوع روایت:راوی قصه ما فرشته های روی شونه چپ و راست هستند.خیلی این نوع روایت رو دوست داشتم و برام جالب بود.
  3-زمان:داستان روایت غیرخطی داشت و از زمان حال به گذشته مدام در حال حرکت بود.گذشته هم شامل دو زمان بود.یکی زمان جنگ و خاطرات امیر از جبهه و دیگری خاطرات زندگی شخصی امیر که زمانش مصادف بود با ایام انقلاب سال پنجاه و هفت
  4-جنگ و عوارض بعد از جنگ:تو رمانهای با محوریت جنگ معمولا ما یک بعد قضیه رو میخونیم.یعنی یا داستانی حول جبهه و سختیهای حین جنگ میگذره و یا داستان به عوارض بعد از خاتمه جنگ میپردازه.اما این کتاب هر دو رو شامل میشه و از این جهت باز هم برام بسیار جالب بود.هر دوی این روایات با تلخی زیادی گفته میشه.
  5-روابط جنسی:با بیان روابط جنسی و توصیفاتشدر داستان مشکلی ندارم.باعث میشه داستان باورپذیرتر و طبیعیتر بشه اما به نظرم دز این قضیه در کتاب بالا بود و میشد از حجم اون کاسته بشه.احساس کردم گاهی مندنی پور داره فریاد میزنه: آآآی مردم، بدون سانسور نوشتن و چاپ شدن این شکلیه
  6-رابطه خواهر برادی:یکی از زیباترین روابط خواهر برادری که در کل عمرم درکتابها خوندم بدون شک همین کتاب بود.رابطه امیر و ریحانه یک رابطه باورپذیر شیرین همه چی تموم بود.ریحانه به وضوح عاشق امیر بود و از هر کاری برای برادرش دریغ نمیکرد.ولو اینکه بارها و بارها بهش بگه:کاش تو همون جبهه میمردی و برنمیگشتی.کیه که ندونه رابطه خواهر-برادی با همین دعواهای زود فراموش شده و همین فحش و نفریناش قشنگه :)
  7-یه سری لغات و عبارات بود که دهه شصت خورشیدی کاربردی نداشت.مثل در و داف..یا آقا زاده...اینا کلماتی است که بیشتر همین دهه نود استفاده شدن و میشن.
  8-آقای مندنی پور سالهاست دور از وطن زندگی میکنه.طبیعتا سختیهایی که متحمل شدند برای من غیرقابل درکه ولی اگر اثر با عصبانیت کمتری نوشته میشد به نظرم خروجی کار بهتر میبود.با این وجود هم عصبانیت بالای نویسنده و هم توصیفات زیاد روابط جنسی و استفاده نا به جا از برخی کلمات که بهش اشاره کردم باعث نمیشه من از پنج نمره کمتری بدم.نقاط قوت این داستان کاملا میچربه به این نقاطی که به زعم من منفی است و مشتاق شدم به خواندن آثار دیگر ایشون ادامه بدم.
• 
  Marzi Motlagh

  بدون اغراق باید بگم که خوندنِ این رمان از واجباته!
  .
  قلمِ مندنی پور، معجزه ست و قدرت چیدمان کلماتش آدمو میخکوب میکنه. یادم نیست آخرین باری که انقدر توی یه داستان غرق شدم کِی بوده ولی مطمئنم این کتاب حالا حالاها دست از سرم برنمیداره و تا مدتها فکرم درگیرشه.
  .
  قصه از این قراره که مادر و خواهرِ امیر، سال ها بعد از تموم شدن جنگ ایران و عراق، توی یه تیمارستان پیداش میکنن و برش میگردونن خونه؛ در حالی که امیر تو جنگ، موجی شده، دست چپش رو از دست داده و خیلی از خاطرات گذشته رو فراموش کرده...
  شبا خواب یه دختری رو میبینه که انگار باهاش نامزد بوده قبل از مجروح شدنش؛ حالا داره با کمک خواهرش سعی میکنه بفهمه اون دختر کی بوده.
  رمان تو زمان های مختلف گذشته (قبل و بعد از انقلاب، قبل از جبهه رفتنِ امیر و بعدش) و حال، روایت میشه؛ توسطِ دوتا فرشته روی شونه ی سمت چپ و راستش (زیادی جالب نیست این مدل روایت؟)
  .
  مندنی پور به عنوان کسی که توی جبهه حضور داشته، پرده از روی دیگر جنگ برمیداره که توی ایران کمتر بهش پرداخته شده و حداقل برای من جدید بود.
  .
  خلاصه که غافل نشید از این رمان جذاب و بدونِ سانسور.
  بخونید و از سطر به سطرش مست بشید و لذت ببرید.🍃
  .
  پ.ن: کتاب رو نشر مهری منتشر کرده❤
• 
  HAMiD

  حسام همان پسینی که کتاب را گذاشت توی دستم شاید می دانست که باید دوباره دست ببرم به بیرون کشیدنِ هرچه آدم است که بخواهی از یادت بروند تا از نو به یادشان بیاوری! همانجور هم شد و هر بند و هر تکه از متن آشوبی شد برای فراموشی و علیه آن؛ یادآوری! در همان پسین که باد شمال که از دریا می آمد و چنان رقصی درآورده بود درختهای پیرامونِ را و بچه ها یکی یکی رفته بودند، خیالم آسوده ی مشوشی بود که حالا تنها در رودرویی با متن مانندِ کسی ام که دست پیش می برد خودخواسته که عقربْ دُم بلند کند و بزند، بزند تا جان و خیال و ذهن را مسمومِ نشئه کند که درد بگیرد که بپیچی به خودت که باز یادت بیاید رد هرچه زخم که زده ای خودت را که زده اند تو را و نترسی از همه ی عفونتی که بیرون خواهد ریخت
  پس جا به جا باید که گزیده بشوی و می بینی جای نیش را و بمکی اش و راستی چه رمزی است در این لذتِ درد کشیدن و نفرت را بالا آوردن و چه عقربی به جان می افتد تا پایان و حتا حالا که تمام شده است؟ زهر توی خون می چرخد و تو نشئه ی دردی که نمی توانی فراموش کنی و نباید که هیچْ از یاد ببری. که تو باز دلخواهت گزیده شدن است. تو بیمارِ به یاد آوردن ها شده ای
  
  1400/11/22
• 
  Lark Benobi

  Reading this novel was something like walking into a bank of fictional fog so thick that all I could see of the protagonist was an occasional shoulder.
• 
  Inderjit Sanghera

  Like the violet-hued fog which envelops the streets of Tehran, wrapping itself around it, engulfing it in a miasma of murkiness, so the memory of Amir is shrouded in a haze of forgetfulness, of half-remembered seductions, a kind of asinine amnesia which the product of shell-shock and perhaps intentional misremembrance, from which shines the effulgence of moon-light, a solitary moon-beam symbolic of a lost love, lost in the endless haze of his memory, lost in the vagaries of his imagination, ensconced in the darkness which has taken over his mind; a dream and memory which rouses him from the self-pity caused by his dismemberment in the Iran-Iraq war, the lost arm he so covets not for any physical reason, but because on his finger there should be a ring which proves the existence of his love.
  
  Amir himself is-and was-a pretty unlikeable character. Spoilt and selfish, his half-forgotten carefree days were a endless stream of not only seductions, where he uttered uttered blandishments to a million women and one, but also of callousness, not only towards the women he seduced but towards his family; his selfless sister, discarded by her father because of her gender when it should be her who continues the family legacy rather than her brother, his long-suffering mother and hos pious and rigid, of melancholic father; for Amir people are things to be used, women conquests to be had in pursuit of the most banal goals; whether it be sexual gratification or completing the alphabet using the first letter of the first names of his conquests. Yet the tired format of the selfish, self-indulgent male whose stupidity we are expected to suffer and sympathise would for no other reason than them being a man is rendered interesting my two key points; firstly the poetry with which he describes his conquests, their bodies bathed in beauty, their desires doused in delirium;
  
  "And in the last moments of the Milky Way, she straddles you, her strong knees against your sides, and with a meteor lining or not lining the sky behind her, she rides your body. And you look at the star-filled sky of the garden, and the nectar of cherry milk spreads in the sky like a cloud."
  
  Amir's chicaneries are transformed into something beautiful by their sensuousness,  his seductions become poetic, a homage to Persian poets such as Hafez, odes to love, of nightingales, wine, cherry trees and the endless expanse of the sky, a kind of rebuttal of the myopia of the post-revolution regime, a celebration of the richness of Iranian history. 
  
  The second saving grace is the journey which Amir goes through the regain the memories which are so entwined with his seductions; as the haze slowly lifts he begins to see his selfishness and the callousness which infected his personality, the loss of his arm, his car, his memory and good lead to a bout of introspection, of self-awareness. Amir isn't exactly perfect by the end of the novel but, as he re-gains the memory of his lost love, as the moon-light envelops and overtakes the fog in his mind, he gains a sense of empathy for others, of remorse for his actions; after all were all products of our memories, our consciousness a product of our pasts and so Amir is able to finally let go of his,  to regain,  ephemerally, but tantalisingly, the moon-light which once caused his heart to stir.  
• 
  Mehdizar

  بوی خون می‌آید از دوردست‌ها و جوی خون می‌آید.
  
  و من که سراسر آشوب می‌شوم باز، و بسته می‌شود که چشم‌ها و تداعی می‌شود که زیسته و نزیسته‌ام و باز که می‌آیند یادها و درد که می شود آوار..
  
  ورق میزنم عقرب‌کشی را و بوی درخت که همراه می‌شود با بوی خون و یادها که رژه می‌روند آرام آرام و سان که میبینم همه را من.
  و در خود مچاله من، غوطه می‌خورم در یادها و در خون‌ها و می‌بینم خود را روبرویم که
  نوید می‌شوم، آویخته بر سرِ دار ..
  و پژمان می‌شوم ،سرخ از ماشه‌یِ استبداد ..
  و امیر ، که سگی در پیِ استخوان خویش.
  و نشسته من ، در پرواز ۷۵۲ که کمی بعد ریخته بر خاک خاکسترم و تمامِ من که حالا یک لنگه کفش است که باقی‌مانده از من.
  
  چسبیده یقه‌ام را سخت کتاب و می‌کشاندَم پیِ خویش و نه آهسته که به تاخت می‌خوانم و می‌شوم سرشار . سرشار از جنگ ، سرشار از خون و سرشار از یاد..
  و مگر که زندگی جز عزیمتی‌ست پیاپی از جنگی به جنگی دیگر که هرجنگ می‌ستانَد تکه‌ای از وجودت را تا که تمام شوی دستِ آخر؟
  جنگ است ، پنجه‌ی نحیف را که می‌اندازی بر پنجه‌ی ستبرِ تقدیر ..
  جنگ است یقه‌ی خویش را که می‌گیری و می‌دهی تکان‌تکان و سیلی که میزنی خود را و سرخ که میشودَت صورت ،
  جنگ است دستت که مشت شده از سنگ، نابرابر، در جواب لوله‌های شق‌شده از باروت.
  و سراسر جنگ است عشق و سراسر جنگ است جنگ.
  
  و مگر عقرب‌کشی در ستایش جنگیدن نیست همان قدر که در مذمت جنگ؟ که امیر نرفته بود مگر از جنگِ استبداد و تظاهرِ پدر به جنگ توپ و تانک و خمپاره که بعد رفته باشد به جنگِ فراموشی و بعدتر به جستجوی عشق که خود ، جنگ است؟
  
  می‌خوانم و می‌خوانم و بی‌وقفه می‌خوانم ، که هیچ‌گاه نخوانده‌ام اینطور کتابی را ،از حیث اشتیاق و از حیث استمرار.
  و بعد که ریخته خاکسترم در کنار من که لنگه‌ای کفش شده‌ام حالا در میان آتش و دود ، و گُر که می‌گیرد خاکسترم و شعله می‌کشم بلند و هیمه‌ام که می‌شود واژگانِ کتاب و رکیک که می‌شوم از پس هر ناسزای پیرار و نظر که بازی می‌کنم هر بار با امیر.
  و آتش که این‌بار نمی‌گیرم، می‌شوم و آتش که بشوی نمی‌سوزی، که می‌سوزانی و گردشِ خون که جوشیده در رگ‌هام ، و گداخته که می‌شود مغز و قُل که می‌خورَد و زیر و رو که می‌شود و می‌افتد به کار و می‌افتم که به میانِ تکاتکِ یادهای فراموش شده یا نشده و مگر عقرب‌کشی چیزی‌ست جز تمنای یادهای فراموش شده؟
  
  پانوشت:
  پیش از این‌که کتاب را بخوانی آتش شو سراسر و آن‌گاه دوستش خواهی داشت بی‌شک.
  آتش که باشی هیمه‌ات می‌شود کتاب و شعله میکشی بلند و آتش که رکیک است و صریح ، آنگاه رکاکت و صراحت کتاب نمی‌آزاردت.
  
  پنج ستاره نوش جانش.
• 
  Naseem

  DNF at 25%
  
  This was my review for Bookmarked. I received a review copy in exchange for a fair and honest review. (Original review here:
  http://bookmarked.bleatingheartpress....)
  
  When I was presented with the opportunity to review Moon Brow, I jumped at it. I’ve been meaning to read more by Iranian authors, so I just barely glanced at the premise in my excitement to get my hands on it. And the words I saw didn’t worry me—Iran-Iraq war, family, whatever. I went into Moon Brow only knowing that it was newly translated from the original Persian.
  
  I grew up on classic Persian stories; I’m familiar with the myth-like and lofty ways they can be told. But if Moon Brow is indicative of contemporary Persian literature, I’m highly disappointed.
  
  Let me explain.
  
  Moon Brow’s language is breathtaking. The prose is lyrical, flowery sentences that were evocative and gorgeous when all pulled together. Here’s a great example: “The girl blows on the palm of his hand. Turquoise dust, sunflower petals, and purple fern leaves fly at the window and stick to the glass. Lapis mist, saffron and honey.” A lot of the sentences are run-on, but I thought this was a deliberate stylistic choice that added to the reading.
  
  Translations in general are tough work because it’s difficult to capture the feel of a sentence in another language. Persian is especially complicated because our vocabulary is so vast. We might have three hundred different words for “face,” each of them with a slightly different connotation, and only one English equivalent. I admire the work the translator put into keeping some of that whimsical feel that Persian, as a language, often has.
  
  Unfortunately, the translation isn’t able to salvage the story itself.
  
  I can’t summarize what Moon Brow is about, because the story is so confusing that I stopped reading a quarter of the way through. From what I did read, it seems to be about a war veteran who comes back home after spending time in a psychiatric hospital. He’s obsessed with finding Moon Brow, a woman in his dreams that he thinks to be his true love. But from the pages I read, I don’t actually know what happened.
  
  Amir, the main character, is irreverent in a way that’s irritating instead of endearing. He argues with his sister, Reyhaneh, who is trying to help him regain the memories of his childhood and adolescence. Through that we learn that Amir has always been a womanizer and a partier, something that got him in trouble in post-Revolution Iran, even to the point of his father publicly denouncing as the Revolutionary Guard arrested him for a whipping.
  
  But the storytelling is deeply confusing. There’s a “scribe” on each of Amir’s shoulders, and it switches back and forth between the stories they tell. The significance of each—or of the scribes’ presences at all—are lost on me. The narration switches between a close third to a first person perspective without any preamble or explanation. There aren’t a lot of dialogue tags, further adding the confusion; I’m usually fine with that, but on top of everything else, it just made me frustrated.
  
  Furthermore, this book is obsessed with sex. That’s not a huge deal for me normally, but it’s bizarre to me that a book published about Iran has so much discussion—and explicit detail—about sex that doesn’t seem to further the story. (I have to clarify that it wasn’t published in Iran; it seems that the author’s writings were banned from publication in the late ‘70s.) If I didn’t already know the author to be Iranian, I’d wonder where they were from. I was raised with the understanding that sex isn’t discussed, period. As I haven’t grown up or even been to Iran, it’s possible—though doubtful politically—that sex is treated with less tip-toeing; I’m skeptical, though, as, my cousin, who moved from Tehran about five years ago and is in her thirties, would be mortified to read this.
  
  Amir also holds lustful thoughts of his sister, which sent off a lot of warning bells. It’s both in the descriptions and their conversations—there’s one where he discusses masturbating—and also explicitly or implicitly: “I want to rest my head on her black skirt so that it can absorb all that has welled up in my eyes, and in return, I want her to let me smell her scent.” Maybe lines like this are meant to show us Amir’s state of mind, but it just wigged me out instead.
  
  While beautiful in its translation, Moon Brow’s lack of a clear plot made me put it down as soon as I hit the 25% mark. As someone who writes literary genre, I appreciate that the plot doesn’t have to be apparent right away, but there needs to be something for me to hold onto. Instead, I found myself frustrated and confused as I struggled through it. Maybe I’m not Moon Brow’s intended audience, or maybe it’s more difficult to translate from Persian than I realize. Still, I was deeply disappointed in this book.
• 
  Gaele

  Never quite sure what I was looking for, Mandanipour and this magical, fantastical tale dragged me into Iran, providing a tour through the good, the bad and even the heartbreaking moments. I have to admit to a fascination with the richness of Iranian and Persian culture - a history that predates most European countries, never mind the US. But the only way, I believe, to achieve that balance and sense of who the people are is (for me) in translation. While I can’t attest to the translation, this story is rich with characters who fairly breathe in the corners as you read, lush descriptions and turn of phrase that feels as “other’ as it is easy to understand.
  
  Amir served in the war, lost a limb and was committed to an asylum for treatment of soldiers with shell-shock. Found by his sister, she brings him home to live and recover, perhaps regain his memories and somehow bring a sense of solace and repair to the family. Pre-War, he was a playboy, causing his parents much grief, although now he’s haunted by a vision of a woman that he believes is his fiancé – convinced the woman with the crescent-shaped mark on her forehead was imprisoned in his family home. Now he is determined to find her, this woman he’s named “Moon Brow”, an action complicated by the family guards – treating him as a hero of the Revolution, yet cautious and containing the madman he’s become. Enlisting help and friendship, his humor and two scribes – an angel of virtue and one of sin, sitting on his shoulders as the quest to find his missing arm, with engagement ring on a finger.
  
  Mandanipour straddles a line between virtue and vice, sanity and madness, as Amir retells his story. A delicate balance for a man who was often dislikable, frequently selfish and now in search of a sort of redemption as he tries to pull the puzzle that is his life and memories into a cogent whole. Consistently challenging the easy and expected choices with ones far more nuanced and human – full of the flaws that make Amir all too human as the story becomes a quest not only for the girl but for himself and his place in the family, his country and the world beyond. The unique prose and narration does take some adjustment, and you will find yourself marking passages to delve further into the politics, folktales and histories mentioned, but this serves only to show the sameness in desires, failings and choices that we all experience throughout our lives.
  
  I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.
  
  Review first appeared at
  I am, Indeed
  
• 
  Annie

  The Qur’an has mentions two angels that record a person’s life, the kiraman katibin. One angel, which sits on the right shoulder, writes down all the good a person does, thinks, and feels. The other records all the bad and sits on the left shoulder. In Shahriar Mandanipour’s masterful novel Moon Brow (translated by Khalili Sara), the two angels that sit on Amir Yamini’s shoulders tell us all the good and bad in Amir’s violent, confused, angry, lonely life. The two angels spare no embarrassing detail or tantrum, creating a far from flattering portrait. And yet, seeing all of Amir’s warts means that I ended up feeling enormous sympathy for him...
  
  Read the rest of my review at
  A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.
• 
  Ferial Fattahi

  Shahriar Mandanipour is the young and precious Tehran in its glorious time in 1970s; beautiful, restless, modest and cheerful. The kind of happiness that will soon be turned around, as we all know, with the cracking fires of 1979 revolution. He is everything my generation had never had a chance to see. We never danced in Tehran’s bars and clubs, never enjoyed social freedom of any kind, never known love like it existed then. There you are, this is the book for you if you are in search of that lost time.
• 
  David

  Moon Brow presents a rich story and a great deal to turn over in the mind. There is more to consider as the pages stack up, and it consistently evades the easy expectation in favor of the more complex and more human. At the same time that it is something different, it strikes far closer to home than I would have imagined and resonates more deeply. I will be continuing to think about this book for quite a while.
• 
  Jacob Hoefer

  A book I did not know I was looking for.
  
  A tale of war, loss and finding yourself (in this case somewhat literally) in modern Iran. After loosing his arm in the Iran/Iraq war Amir is kept under a unique form of house arrest (honored for his sacrifice but kept away least he become a complication) and searching for the woman from his dreams. Convinced the solution to all his problems lies with his severed limb, Amir enlists his sister and close friends to piece his life back together.
  
  Aided by two scribes (one on his left shoulder one on his right) the three narrators walk us back and forth through time recounting the events of his life. Often with very different opinions.
  This structure leads to some beautiful passages about love, violence, sex, revolution and how Amir and the word around him is transformed by all of them.
  
  Imagine Slaughterhouse-five as told by Henry James and Salman Rushdie. Mandanipour manages a fantastic balancing act. Keeping Amir sympathetic and engaging, while being a truly flawed human being. Between Amir and the backdrop of other fully realized characters (Amir's sister and DJ Serge stand out as some of my favorites) we receive a world bordering on fable but still harshly tethered to our own reality.
  
  I can't speak much to the translation, as I have no exposure to Persian from which this was translated, but I will say each character and narrator had a distinct voice and feel about them. I also must admit it took me about 200 pages to become really hooked, as the unique style took some adjusting, but once it grabbed me I was completely immersed.
  
  Do not miss this one come April, a unique, thought provoking and beautifully told story. It makes me wish more of Shahriar Mandanipour's work made it past the politics of both our countries.
  
  I have to again credit Restless Books on doing an outstanding job of bringing great works to our western ears.
• 
  Mehdi Omidvari

  عقرب‌کشی(نسخه فارسی)داستان عاشقانه‌ایست که از دل یک جستجو بخشی ناگفته از تاریخ ایران( اواخر پهلوی٫ انقلاب و دوران جنگ) را به حکایتی شخصی متصل می‌کند. داستان با تکیه بر دو راوی( نویسنده‌های شانه چپ و راست) سعی در تغییر لحن دارد که لزوماً همزمان نیستند و در سطوح مختلفی داستان را روایت می‌کنند. این تضاد بین راوی‌ها بخصوص وقتی به فصل جستجوی امیر (شخصیت اصلی) به دنبال دست قطع شده‌اش که به داستان عاشقانه‌اش مربوط است بیشتر برجسته می شود. این چندسطح بودن روایتها از متکی بودن داستان به روایت خطی و تبدیل شدن داستان به مجموعه اتفاقات مرتبط جلوگیری می‌کند و داستان را به روایتهای درونی و بیرونی تقسیم می‌کند. تصاویر کتاب بعضاً بسیار درخشان هستند و تعاریف گویی هر پنج حواس خواننده را لمس می‌کنند. صحنه مرگ خزر یکی از آنهاست که تعریف بدن او در کنار دریای شمال و توصیف موجها در دل‌شب بسیار درخشان است. یا صحنه‌های ترسیم دیسکو کازبا بسیار دقیق است به نحوی که تصویر شخصیتهای حاضر در آن شب کاملا ملموس است. با آنکه نویسنده سعی در زبان آوری داشته و بسیاری از دیالوگها با فارسی محاوره‌ای اواخر دهه پنجاه و دهه شصت نوشته‌شده‌اند ولی باز می‌توان بخشهایی ( شاید اصطلاحاتی) یافت که در زبان محاوره‌ای آن دهه جایی نداشتند( مثلاً آقازاده و داف). کتاب از مشکلات ویرایشی زیادی رنج می‌برد که گناه آن تا قسمتی متوجه ناشر است.
• 
  Monica

  I think I would have gotten even more or of this book if I knew more about Iranian culture and history. It was a beautifully and interestingly written book that did a great job of evoking the main character's frame of mind.
• 
  BooksnFreshair (Poornima Apte)

  Not an easy book to read but simply brilliant.
• 
  Anny

  This book is a mothership. Read it.
  
  "Until now, much of me has been nothing but what others remember of me"
  ーShahriar Mandanipour, Moon Brow, transl from Persian by Sara Khalili
  
  MOON BROW is a beautiful love story that punched me in the heard first then let me see the beauty of it at the end. It is a beautiful love narrative in the fragment of war. Worth reading every page.
  
  Unlike a few other books by Iranian writers that I'd read, this book is the most challenging one. I have to pause and did long research for the reference, I can’t get past it until I understand the context. The metaphor about The Wall and The Garden were mesmerizing. I learned a ton about The Islamic Revolution, Shah, Ayatollah Khomeini, The long Iraq-Iran war, the border conflict, the ethic, Iranian landscape, Tehran, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan. Also, I've always fond of Persian mythology so this book is such an indulgence for me.
  
  This is the story of Amir Yamini, a shell shock army of the Iraq-Iran War who lost his left arm in the battlefield. The horror of the war erased almost all of his memory. His mother and sister found him in the mental hospital and took him home. The story began when Amir, with empty memory in his head, tried to collect pieces of himself in the past, believing that it will make him whole again. His most frustration was the woman he tried to remember and saw in his dreams all the time, Moon Brow whom he desperately seeking. I have to say that I dislike Amir's rudeness but I do respect his devotion to find her even when he gone nut and can't remember anything in the past. In this book, Mandanipour portrayed such a devasted depiction of a psychology development of a war-traumatized veteran and the people around him who suffered greatly by and for him. It made me very depressed.
  
  However, the most challenging part of this book is that it presented in short chapters, with the two angels on the shoulders co-narrated, each with a different voice and focus, time shifting back and forth. Oh my head, I literally took doliprane1000 after a long reading. "You need to read a book that affects you like a disaster." You're right Kafka. More books like this for me please.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Tannaz

  اوایل بی پردگی کتاب آزارم می‌داد ولی... وای از این داستان. وای وای وای
• 
  Laura

  It takes some courage to write a novel whose protagonist keeps reminding you how unlikable he is, and yet you keep reading. Amir is an Iranian veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, maimed and suffering from PTSD. His pre-war life of partying and womanizing comes to an abrupt and after a romance ends in tragedy and he is arrested by the religious police. His family searches for him for years after his discharge, finally finding him in a mental institution. Once he is home, memories begin to surface and he becomes tormented by his need to recover his past. His experience as a soldier is pretty universal, I think, but he is a distinctly drawn character who takes full advantage of his social and gender privilege even in the throes of PTSD attacks. Not a likable man but neither is he deserving of the pain and grief he suffers.
  
  The conceit of the novel is that it is told by 2 angels, one on each of Amir's shoulders. I didn't understand what they were there for; it didn't seem to me like there was any difference between the two in terms of the content they related. That may be a result of my lack of cultural understanding.
• 
  J.J. Brown

  Moon brow is the name of an illusive and persistent memory of a woman, in the mind of an Iranian soldier recovering from an amputation during the war with Iraq. His memory has failed him and he relentlessly searches for clues to his past. This love story is both romantic and grotesque, with graphic and explicit scenes throughout. The narrative alternates between two points of view, one from a imaginary scribe perched on the soldier's left shoulder, and one on the right. A painful struggle with post-trauma mental illness is described in the protagonist's thoughts and relationships with family and friends. I highly recommend this new book!
• 
  Fornia

  it wasn't particularly bad or painful to read, it just kinda dragged...on...and...on.....
  and the writing style felt a little off, maybe because it was translated?
  also no book needs that many sexual jokes
• 
  Peymanjafari

  واقعا دستمريزاد خدمت استاد مندني پور
  خيلي وقت بود همچين كتابي نخونده بودم
  واقعا بينظير بود از همه لحاظ
  از شروع كتاب تا حوادث داستان از گيرايي داستان از ايده عالي نويسنده و پايان بندي عاليييي
  بسيار كتاب گيرايي بود از همون صفحه اول طوري درگير كتاب ميشي كه اصلا دوس نداري زمينش بزاري
  اولين كتابي بود كه اصلا دوس نداشتم تموم شه
  هر چي در وصف اين كتاب بگم واقعا كم گفتم
  واقعا شاهكار بود
  واقعا دستمريزاد استاد
  شاهكار خلق كردي شاهكار
• 
  Erika Schoeps

  A Persian veteran of the Iran-Iraqi war returns home with selective amnesia; his most important memory, which is really more like a strong feeling, is of a woman he knows as "Moonbrow." He touches his left hand feeling for a phantom wedding ring; he has cryptic dreams. But his family doesn't believe him, or is at least fighting his desire to leave the house and find Moonbrow.
  
  We are thrust in along with Amir, and discover his past alongside him. Or at least it seemed that way. Unbeknownst to me, the visions of the past we are reading about are not actually being experienced by Amir. As the reader, we experience some visions of the past before Amir remembers them, but it's confusing because this is never really explicitly indicated. The reader knows what's happening before Amir does, but we really don't know that.
  
  Everyone's motives, reasoning, and actions are obscured-- we drift through past episodes still not really knowing where any of the characters are coming from and why. This applies to Amir also. Amir's dirty past and playboy ways are constantly mentioned, so as the reader we have no-one to trust.
  
  Scenes of Amir's post Iran-Iraq war are plentiful, and so are Amir's jumbled war memories. It's all confusing and anchor-less but I truly felt satisfied at the end. I enjoyed being in that confused, drifting position when Amir finally got to some place of understanding with his family again. A place of familial peace is hesitantly reached with each family member in really touching interactions. As a really selfish, damaged character, Amir finally has an interaction with each person (mother, father, sister) where he begins to see them as a full person with their own struggles. These interactions were easily the high point for me. I went from being in Amir's position and not knowing to feeling like I suddenly had a grasp of who his family was.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Christine

  A slow start but a strong ending for this story of remorse and recovery and revolutions. The narration by angels on Amir's shoulders was interesting but often felt unnecessary, I couldn't tell their voices apart although I suppose they helped with the flashbacks and generally fragmented recollections. I was hooked following Amir and Reyhaneh through Tehran and climbing a mountain to find missing limbs and memories. But for a main character who is apparently broken hearted, every timeline found him lusty but unclear what other personality traits he had which Moon Brow or anyone could find lovable. Sorry to be a prude, but I could have done with less talk of semen and hymens.
• 
  Edd Simmons

  It’s hard to imagine this book without physically reading it. The description does nothing for you. The layout of the book will tell you as is, “I’m sick”, and I’m thinking like it. Reading nothing like this before makes me think of mental health deeper. I read a few of them but nothing like this.
  
  War is apart of this novel. And he is desperately trying to go back into battle which adds a element of insanity because he is not living his outside life.
  
  Most of the book are hallucinations and dabblings in a crisis. A mental one. I recommend this as a 5 star ⭐️ book.
• 
  Florence Primrose

  Amir was a carefree playboy whose only concerns were women and riling his family. But he enlisted in the Iran war. He lost an arm and ended in the mental hospital for shell-shocked soldiers.
  
  Back home he has lost his sanity and is obsessed with finding a woman he remembers as Moon Brow.
  
  Disturbing story with too much emphasis on the importance of sex to Amir.
  
  
• 
  Deb M.

  This was a tough one to read. Not because of the story as much as being a style of writing I had not been exposed to in the past. Give this one a chance if for no other reason but to be exposed to something new.
• 
  Vuk Trifkovic

  Good, but overwrought. The shifting perspectives are cool, and so is a non-clicheed character. Buuut, you kind of figure it is a good schtick, but schtick nonetheless and you get a bit bored.
• 
  Geoffrey Fox

  (Review coming)
• 
  Fem (Little Miss Booksniffer)

  A deep dive into the mind of a shell-shocked Iranian soldier, Amir, looking for the woman he loves but cannot remember.
  
  The story is told by two ‘scribes’ (angels), one on Amir’s right shoulder, one on his left. They seem to represent two different parts of his mind, which is blown apart by the traumatising events from the Iran-Iraq war – at least, that’s how I read it. It gave the book a mythological, lyrical, fairytale-like quality, detached from the bloody reality, although the reality starts to seep in more and more towards the end of ‘Moon Brow’. The only problem I had with the two voices is that they didn’t feel overly distinctive to me; I wonder if this could be due to the translation, although it seems to be very well translated in general. The narration device comes mostly into its own in the parts of the book where the scribes are bickering about what part should be told by whom, or where they take over in rapid succession.
  
  Throughout most of the book, the reader is just as lost as Amir is, dwelling in his mind and trying to put the loose pieces into a coherent narrative. I liked piecing together the different ‘shrapnel’ parts of Amir’s story, and getting to know him better in the process (even though he is quite unlikeable, but I’m never one to shy away from unlikable main characters). You find out he is searching for meaning, an escape even, in the form of an obscured ‘love’ – escaping the reality of a country in upheaval during (the aftermath of) the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. While the set-up is a bit confusing, it works well as a device to show Amir's disturbed mind, and, in my opinion, ultimately comes to a satisfying conclusion.