Mansur Rafizadeh

I've marked this as non-fiction, though I suspect there is much fiction to this book. But this is the first time I've been able to hear the "anti-Shah" side of the story from a westernized Iranian.

It's been very hard getting through this. Every time I pick it up I think I'll be able to finish, but then I can read only 10 pages or so and I'm bored. There is little point in finishing it other than to simply finish it. This is yet another egotistical memoir of an "exceptional" person, who isn't show more really all that exceptional. I have nothing against Iranians, but they do tend to be rather self-aggrandizing. Knowing that, I feel I'm quite possibly reading a fairy tale. There's no way to know how much of this is true, and if it's not true, why do I need to read it at all? This is the problem I'm having in completing the book.

How is it that Rafizadeh is able to accomplish so much, overcome so many challenges, bridge so many gaps, when all the others failed? He seems to always be in the right place at the right time, knows just what to say, trusted by all regardless of their alliances... even able to seduce a nun without trying!! How is it that an unknown, brand-new-to-this-country college boy manages to find himself making political suggestions to President Kennedy? Incredible. Literally incredible. And with all his adversaries dead, who's to object?

I enjoyed the first half of the book, when he was describing his childhood and early adulthood. He has a writing style that's easy to read, and he added enough color that he successfully painted his world for me to imagine. But then the tale devolved into a "he said and then he said" word-for-word relating (and obviously it wasn't really word-for-word -- who knows what was really said?) of tedious, drawn-out anti-drama. And through it all, he depicted the US as a bunch of bumbling idiots. When things worked in favor of the Iranians, it was by their superior strategic skill. Meanwhile, the US representatives were at odds with each other, crippled by in-fighting, always duped by others, and when things worked in our favor it was by pure coincidence. It couldn't POSSIBLY be that perhaps the US had duped Iran, and along with it Rafizadeh. No, he's far too clever for that. Right. In fact, everything would have worked out if everyone had just listened to him. show less