Abandon (andamu)

AbandonPico Iyer has been called the poet laureate of travel writers. Most of his previous works have been categorized as travelogues, although when reading interviews with him, there is an impression that he is not entirely comfortable with the label. In "A Note About the Author" at the back of Abandon, it is phrased this way: "Pico Iyer is the author of several books about the romance between cultures..."

He is a verbal virtuoso, and I found myself frequently scribbling quotes from Abandon into the nearest notebook. And so I think in lieu of a review in my words of Abandon, I would rather present you with a collection of quotes in his own words, after setting the scene: be warned, I will not be doing it justice.

John MacMillan is an English graduate student in Divinity with a fellowship to study in California. His dissertation is on the Sufis, with reference to Rumi. In addition to the challenges he faces in completing his dissertation, he becomes reluctantly involved with a young woman who is facing a legion of her own demons.

Although England and America are both home territory to Iyer, having been raised and/or spent significant time in both, he cannot resist "traveling," exploring new vistas, as he reveals in his "Note of Thanks:" "As one who's never studied Islam or been close to Iran -- and is of Hindu origin to boot -- I was especially grateful ... for whatever wisdom I could glean from others."

Without unraveling the entire plot or, in fact, much further ado, here are snapshots of the novel in his words.

"All across the city rose the long, slow, heart-torn cry of love -- "La ilaha'illa 'Llah" -- rose up, as if from a widow in her grief alone."

"...he got up and slipped out, through the southern entrance this time, into the riddle of lanes that snake around the Old City, this way and that, like a theological argument."

"Around them the same faces as usual were taking the same seats as usual, some near the back, with a view to a rapid escape, others near the front, in the hopes of a rapid ascent."

"Stories are ... mobile ... They change as we do, assume different colors depending on how we look at them; ... they grow up as we do. They aren't static narratives; they fit themselves around us like our shoes."

"...I toil in the pastures of the heartbroken. Becoming a doctor who can't heal when I wish only to be a bachelor once more."

"...and in a culture in which we have no gods but plenty of beliefs -- or, as commonly, no beliefs but plenty of gods."

"Who cares who wrote it? It is itself, like any child."

"The Sufi ideal is one of love, but it is not the love of the compassionate mother...he speaks of; it is the ravenous, consuming eros of the lover inflamed."

"The cry of te Sufi is, quite simply, the cry of abandoned love."
"For the Sufi, man is not fallen, just fallen asleep; we are not lost, just temporarily obscured. Like stars that can't be seen in mid-afternoon."

"Seville seemed almost and exercise in teaching one how to read: for those with eyes, there were Arab spirits hiding out even in the menus posted outside restaurants ("arroz," "naranja," "azucar"), even in the faint memory of the ghazal that haunted the guitars."