Mountains, rivers, deserts and decades stand between them. Their countries are bitter enemies. Will these long-ago lovers find their way back together?When Geddy Mason falls in love with 17-year-old Annie Yousefian, an exotic undergrad from Iran, he considers abandoning his dream to move to Israel. But when he graduates, he leaves Annie brokenhearted in Indiana.
2006, Israel. Canadian-born Geddy … Israel. Canadian-born Geddy Mason has served in the army, married, raised his family in Israel. Yet 35 years of memories and guilt continue to haunt him and he still wonders about Annie.
Then he discovers Annie will be the featured speaker at a conference in Ottawa. He decides he must go to her, risk all his memories, try to make amends.
Will Annie turn him away? Or will she welcome him, putting an end to decades of estrangement?
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A great book with lot’s of twist’s first time reader of Gadi Bossin but now ordering other books by this author, love finding books by authors i have not read before putting this one in top 10.
Gadi Bossin, ‘If We Could See Forever’.
A Tale of Loving and Longing.
As an ARC reader I received a free copy and promised an honest review. Here it is.
Rating: 4,5 (of 5 stars).
In general: Fascinating love story between a Zionist professor and an Iranian artist.
“The instant I fell in love with you
I knew we’d part
The instant I fell in love with you
I knew we’d break each other’s heart.”
Main characters:
– Geddy Mason (59 in 2006).
He’s a Jewish professor English Literature living and working in Kiryat Bialik, in northern Israel. He’s married to Carol, the woman he loved for 30 years. They have three adult children.
– Annie Yousefian (53 in 2006).
She’s a family loving Muslim and a famous photographer living and working in Tehran, Iran. In the late 70-ties she married Sharon Farzam, a famous Iranian architect. They had two children.
The author, Gadi Bossin, created a fascinating novel. The story is told from Geddy’s situation in 2006. He met Annie 35 years before; when she was a 17 year old gorgeous, exotic looking student and he a 23 year old teacher at the Indiana University. She was born and raised in Iran, had lived a few years in Paris for her education and now lived in Indianapolis to study Fine Arts.
Geddy’s family originally came from the Ukraine, but he was raised in Montreal, Canada. He divorced after a marriage of two years because he wanted to emigrate to Israel after his study in Indianapolis and his ex-wife didn’t.
When he saw Annie in 1970 it was a deep love on first sight. In a few weeks they felt like soulmates. Annie had her doubts about a ’forever’ from the first moment. She knew that Geddy saw Zionism as his destination and that an Iranian woman (passionately loving her people) did not fit into this future. But Geddy was so deeply in love that he refused to talk about this problem. It made their parting extra bitter and gave Geddy for a long time a feeling of an unfinished relationship.
In flash backs his rollercoaster love affair with Annie is explained. And that’s a fascinating story with wonderful, exciting main characters and interesting additional persons. Moreover the description of the conflict between Israel and the Libanese Hezbollah (2006) gives a very penetrating image of the effects of this conflict on every day life of common people living near the Israel-Libanon border. For me this book was an exciting page turner.
But once – a long time ago – I studied (and teached) History. And as an historian I had my doubts:
The book is one-sided pro Israel. It idealizes the Israeli community as a friendly, peaceful community and avoids critical questions and notes, i.e.
– Geddy lived about 1967 (and later again for some time) in a kibbutz. Not a word about the change in mentality (less idealism?) from the first decennia of the kibbutz-system and the 2006 situation in a kibbutz.
– Not a word about the sharp, intern conflicts about Israel-Arab peace negotiations between Likud/Orthodox Jews/settlers on the one hand and the Israeli Workers Party on the other culminating in the killing of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.
– In the 2006 Israel-Libanon War 1109 people were killed; by far the most were Libanese citizens, the book mentions – with a lot of feeling – only a few Israeli victims.
And as a reader, empathizing with the main characters, I got only a bit info about Annie’s situation in the Iran of the ayatollahs, her marriage with Sharon Farzam and whether or not the dream about the course of their last meeting will come true.
But all in all: a fascinating novel with an intriguing, original plot taking place in a very conflicted part of the world.
R. Huiszoon.