“35th” Review and comments

By Laleh ChiniDecember 5, 2018 ( 40 )

It is hard to not judge an autobiography, from a different culture and time. Yet the hard and horrible experiences had here are not unusual or exclusive to the authors’ experience. Child marriage, abuse of girls and women, people unwilling to have compassion for girls caught in a system that no one is willing to change. How can she remain positive in the midst of such a life?

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Describing her parents, she loved them in spite of all the actions hurtful to her and her siblings they thought nothing about. She looked to aunts and uncles quite different households than her’s without envy, but gave her hope. After being married off at age eleven, to a twenty-seven-year-old man who raped and abused her, she found joy in the man’s mother, “Bibi”, who considered “her Najima” like the daughter bibi never had…and the child found Bibi to be the loving mother SHE never had! I know a woman who had similar–but not exact–experience who a; so found relatives who were kind and helpful models for her to follow. She had compassion on her tormentor –which made itself apparent in her adulthood., similar to the authors of this book.

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How this little girl tortured every night by an uncaring husband whose wedding was described mostly as a big party—whose security and links to her family were utterly broken by her in-law family moving to Bushehr, another town eight-to-ten hours of dangerous driving away from shiraz…the only home she’d known.. Tightly controlled by her husband, she nevertheless found people, like Bibi and her in-law’s family…to enjoy and learn from—despite her horrific nights being abused and hit ruthlessly by her husband. And yet, she did find people to help her and stand up for her, throughout her life.

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Two things I am looking forward to learning—maybe three. How could she have gained a positive view of God and some people, given her circumstances? No specific religious ceremonies are mentioned…but God makes his presence known through o\people around her. How could she find compassion for Hassan, her abusive and dictatorial husband, even to the point of discovering WHY he was acting so? And, finally, HOW did she escape—if she did–such an abusive and terrifying situation? You see, I haven’t finished the book! But am reading as hard and often as I can to find the answers! Join me?

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Jonathan Caswell

reviewing, CLIMBING OVER GRIT, by Marzeeh Laleh Chini and Abnoos Mosleh-Shirazi, published 2018, by l’Leph, a Wisehouse Imprint.

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