The Book Depository Mirrors of the Unseen by Jason Elliot
76 ratings
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Price: £12.99
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: Mirrors of the Unseen : Paperback : Pan Macmillan : 9780330486576 : : 20 Jul 2007 : The country - its culture, its history and its people - behind the headlines. The Book Depository Mirrors of the Unseen by Jason Elliot - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780330486576
MPN: 9780330486576
GTIN: 9780330486576
Author: SlowNsteady
Rating: 5
Review: I greatly enjoyed An Unexpected Light and had high hopes of this when I bought it a few years ago. I've since read and re-read Mirrors of the Unseen four or five times and each time it's a delight. Elliot has the great advantage of speaking the language but each time I read it the understanding of the country and his affection for the people growing through the period of his travels is reinforced. He does go on a bit about the Persian influences on western civilisation and is obviously fascinated with Islamic art, but I knew little of either so I'll forgive him and read on. His erudition, explorations, investigations and surprising findings plus the conjecture on muqarnas kept this armchair traveller fully occupied and left me better educated. Most of all, his affection for ordinary Iranians and their widely varied country will bring me back to this again and again. A keeper.
Author: Louise Simes
Rating: 3
Review: Having read his first book 'An Unexpected Light' and thoroughly enjoying it - I have to admit that I found this book a bit of a slog to be honest. There is not doubt that it is a well written scholarly travel book about one of my greatest interest areas, but I do think that the author laboured his thoughts about the origins and meaning of Islamic art a bit too much, which made parts of the book very hard work. However I never give up on a book unless its badly written so I persevered and did gain something from it. But did we really need to know quite so much detail about the authors conclusions on Islamic art with virtually every tile being analysed. I was disappointed that the author mentions a Monastry/shrine on a mountain top where when one enters a certain room/shrine everyone cries uncontrollably, but then fails to mention where that Monastry/shrine is situated or what it is called after a book of such profound detail - even thumbing back through the book and checking the authors maps I could only hazard a guess of the location of this site. Even so I cannot give the book a bad rating because the author writes well and speaks fluent Persian and it is worth persevering but be prepared for immense architectural detail - this is not really a book about the people of Iran or its politics although it does explain the religion well.
