Abandon

by Pico Iyer

From the national bestselling author of The Half-Known Life comes an intoxicating novel that's at once a stylish intellectual mystery and a pulse-quickening love story—the love in question being at once sacred and profane.

John Macmillan, a classically reticent Englishman who has moved to California to study the poems of the Sufi mystic Rumi, unexpectedly becomes involved in two equally absorbing quests. The first is for a mysterious Rumi manuscript that may have been smuggled out of Iran; the second for the elusive Camilla Jensen, who continually offers herself to him only to repeatedly slip from his grasp. Are these quests somehow related? And can Macmillan give himself over to them without losing his career and identity?

Moving deftly from California academia to the mosques of Iran, filled with insights into the minds of Islam and the modern West, Abandon is a magic carpet-ride of a book.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Romance, Iran, Novels, Poetry, Mystery

368 pages, Paperback

Published April 13, 2004

About the author

Pico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist of Indian descent. As an acclaimed travel writer, he began his career documenting a neglected aspect of travel -- the sometimes surreal disconnect between local tradition and imported global pop culture. Since then, he has written ten books, exploring also the cultural consequences of isolation, whether writing about the exiled spiritual leaders of Tibet or the embargoed society of Cuba.

Iyer’s latest focus is on yet another overlooked aspect of travel: how can it help us regain our sense of stillness and focus in a world where our devices and digital networks increasing distract us? As he says: "Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds. Nearly everybody I know does something to try to remove herself to clear her head and to have enough time and space to think. ... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilarations of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world."

Reviews

[Doreen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank God that's over. This book wasn't without redeeming qualities, but they were few and far between (the speech the visiting Iranians give both on- and off-stage on pgs 218-226 were the only bits that didn't feel insufferably removed from real-world problems.) Mostly, I wanted to shake John and Camilla and make them get real jobs. Apart from them both being aggressively annoying and self-absorbed and emotionally unstable, I took issue with the author's fondness for using pronouns instead of proper names, particular when involving John in a conversation with other men. The dialog was wooden enough without the added aggravation of constantly needing to figure out exactly whom was speaking or acting. I would have enjoyed the truth of both Camilla's parentage and the author of the book she gave John if I cared a whit for either character. But I didn't, and it was a relief to finish this book.

[Rubina · Rating 2 out of 5]

a mystery about a grad student studying sufism in the american academy?? did i hit the jackpot or what? this is my fav mix of genre and situation....i hope it doesnt suck.

update: egads! it did suck. first it lulled me into being slightly interested in it and giving it a chance...but then it kicked me in the head, but i cannot leave a book no matter how bad unread, so i finished it using my spidey sense and good skimming skills. (nunchuck skills were not necessary, but i will save them for when i meet pico)...its a horrible blend of exoticizing the oriental as a group and as individual people. the profs, book sellers, random exiles, dude at the gas station are all so complicated, with a background of intrigue and all speak in code and to the main character have this ineffable "grace" to them ...so exoticized it made my head spin. plot is convoluted and lead to nowhere but not in a cool way, i wanted to throw the female love interest girl out the window...only redeeming things were that i think it accurately described the lonliness, awkwardness, and disconnect from reality that is found in the academy. and how difficult it is to write a paper. and the grad student ignored his work a lot and got many extensions on his work, that sounded about right. oh, and iyer does portray some aspects of the human condition is interesting and at times beautiful ways...i liked the part about humans living in "eternal syndication" or something.

[Śrī · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! It's a story about a comparative literature student, his mysterious love interest, and his love for dense medieval Persian poetry. It's vaguely a Sherlock Holmes type mystery, but the deeper esoteric mystery is of the soul. I really loved this book because it had all the right elements for me: intellectual questioning, a twisting plot (appropriate to the story's Middle Eastern theme) and an ending that leaves one questioning the fate of the main characters. Great artists often imitate those they idolize, and Pico Iyer has imitated Rumi well.

[Bindu Manoj · Rating 3 out of 5]

"An Englishman in California studying Sufism, and in particular Rumi", so says the back cover on who the protagonist is. Having discovered Rumi rather late in life and getting drunk on him ever since, the pull was too strong to resist and back it came with me from the last trip to the library.

The story starts with John Macmillan in Damascus meeting up with an enigmatic old professor, Khalil and ending up carrying a gift back for his friend. Originally from London, he seems to be running away from his life and love and moving towards something that neither he nor the reader can make sense of, at least in the beginning. His trip to dleiver Khalil's gift brings Camilla Jensen to his life, who gets intricately entangled with him. The story goes in and out of their unusual meetings with each other. In between are the encounters with his professor and mentor, Sefadhi, who seem to have an alternate life.

Interspersed (or was it supposed to be the main plot?) is the rumor about an original manuscript of Sufi poems which seem to mysteriously surface here and there. Yes, it even brings John to India. All the characters seem to have some mystery or other that shrouds their past, each one of them trying to uncover or hide from it.

The narrative is mystical, in line with the the theme of the story. There are some good insights by the author on religion, mysticism, Sufism and of course Rumi, Shams and Hafez. To cut a long story short, I had to conclude that I am neither intellectual nor mystical enough yet to really enjoy such an esoteric theme and author :-)

One interesting anecdote that I loved is, "Rumi has replaced the Dalai Lama in greeting cards". To a certain extent, the author is able to convey the pain of a race as they helplessly watch their soul getting so blatanly commercialized. Keeping the story apart, there are some brilliant allusions to the genre of poems that we have come to equate to Sufism. The biggest revelation for me was that "The cry of the Sufi is, quite simply, the cry of abandoned love", and not a celebration of love that is.

The best of piece of advice came from Professor Sefadhi,

"My only words of advice: remember, please, to keep the poets higher than your thoughts of them. Don't pull them down to your level; let them draw you up to theirs...It is best to make sure always there is something in them you don't understand."

Looks like, sadly I have to go a long way to reach that level.

Verdict : Not te be read with abandon. Take it up if you love mysterious characters in all shades of grey and of course Sufis, their lives and poems

[Irene Daguno · Rating 4 out of 5]

i've read this book, borrowed from a friend, while on a weekend respite amidst the pine trees and mists. the book not only tells a love story but also gives a wonderful introduction to sufism. as what the main character, a student of religion doing his dissertation on sufism/rumi, explained, the sufis are a group of moslems who began to secretly gather in groups after prophet mohammad's death to find a clear path to the divine without clerical mediation. for them, god exists not only in the mosques or madrassas but everywhere, even within yourself. "The cry of the 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 the stars that can't be seen in mid-afternoon." the sufis are said to be closer to the mystics of other traditions than islam and that makes them subversive.

there's also a wonderful insight about abandonment. it poses this hypothetical question: "What if the abandonment that God is guilty of is not that of desertion but, rather, of rapture, the neglectfulness of an artist who lets the work take over?" and elaborates on it. quite heretic.

never mind the romance - i might appreciate that part in another time - but this book is so rich with amazing insights that arriving at the last page only made me yearn to read it again. i have to get my own copy. and, maybe, have a one whole night devoted to experiencing a sufi night in lahore.

[Shelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is *barely* three stars for me, but might have gotten four if Camilla had not been such a whiny, self-absorbed, flaky, annoying - shall I go on? - woman. It was simply impossible for me to suspend disbelief and accept that the protagonist could keep from strangling her, let alone be so passionately in love with her.

[Rick Slane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this novel but I can understand why some would not.

[Nenya]

I love Pico Iyer's travel writing. "Why we travel" was his first piece of writing that I read. It's been two years and I still come back to it. Now that I have established just how much I love him, I have to declare that I have no idea what "Abandon" is all about. As I ploughed through this book over a span of four months- even periodically abandoning it (why name a book like this 'Abandon'?)- I kept telling myself that perhaps this book was ahead of its time and that I was not sufficiently ready to comprehend it. The only deterrent that reduced this idea to the ground was Camilla. I cannot remember the last time a character in a book irked me as much as she did. Why John Macmillan fell in love with such a self-absorbed, annoying, self-pitying, whiny woman is beyond my understanding. That said, I do acknowledge the strength of Iyer's language. It is so poetic and rich in imagery that this book would make decent material for a screenplay. Maybe if they made this one into a movie, the pain of enduring Camilla Jensen will be over in less than two hours. I do not want to give any kind of rating for this book. I will attempt reading it once more and keep my fingers crossed for a different take.

[R-Qie R-Qie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fiuh! Akhirnya kelar juga baca novel yang menurut saya absurd dan membosankan. Saya berharap menemukan kisah seru yang menimbulkan penasaran ketika membaca blurb-nya. Tapi yang ada justru terasa datar, absurd, membingungkan, dan membosankan. Yang melekat dalam benak saya hanyalah buku ini penuh dengan perumpamaan. Kata 'seolah', 'seperti', dan yang sejenis bertaburan dan mungkin kalau dikumpulkan mencapai 1/3 isi buku. Perburuan manuskrip puisi seperti numpang lewat saja. Didominasi kegiatan John dan Camilla yang 'itu-itu' saja dengan dialog absurd dan perpisahan tiba-tiba (kayak orang putus) tanpa alasan jelas. Ketemu lagi, berkegiatan seperti 'itu' lagi, pisah lagi. Gitu terus sampe lebaran monyet.
Novel ini jelas gagal menarik perhatian saya. Entah bagi orang lain. Mungkin kapasitas otak saya saja yang gak 'nyampe' untuk memahami susunan kalimat di dalamnya.

[Jennifer B · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book sounded so promising but was very disappointing. The magic I expected just didn’t materialize.

[Bauschan Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The idea of religious abandon.....as love!

[Reader Jain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems are what you make of them

[Manu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm quite a fan of Pico Iyer's travelogues, so this was a book that had to be checked out. The protagonist is John Macmillan, an Oxford-educated Englishman, in California to study the work of the Sufi poet, Rumi, and complete his thesis under the guidance of his professor Sefadhi. On a trip to Damascus, he happens to meet a reclusive professor, who requests him to carry a package to California, to be handed over to a Kristina Jensen. While doing that, he happens to meet Camilla, Kristina's sister, who, despite her flighty and fragile nature, makes inroads into his life. And then starts a journey that's part a search for an Iranian manuscript, part an inward search for John, much like the sufis - "We are even mysterious to ourselves, they believe: a part of us going through the rituals of our daily life, while another part, a deeper part, cries out for whatever it is that can take us back. The stranger whose voice we recognize as our own.", "..for the true Sufi, the looking is the key. Even if you don't know what you're looking for."
The word 'Abandon' too can be seen from different perspectives - from the Sufis' mystical version of abandoning themselves to a higher power, John's need to let go of his notions and caution, and Camilla's seemingly unconscious way of living her life in abandon, even as she fears that John might her leave her because of it. To me, the novel by itself was a kind of 'abandon', just like John's thesis in the book - as though the author worked on a structure for some part before, towards the end, he let the work chart its own course.
I do think the book might have a lot of subtext that deals with Islam, its interpretations, and its relationships with the rest of the world, but I'm not really qualified to explore those aspects. Even otherwise, its a very good read, in which there seem to be layers hidden beneath each statement, waiting to be uncovered, just like the excellent poetry that is shared within.

[N. Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kisah yang lumayan menarik,puisi-puisinya juga indah dan misterius hanya saja banyak kesalahan entah pada penulisan kata dan sebagainya.

Yang salah:
- hal.100 pada paragraf ke-3,kalimat ke-2,kurang huruf m pada musi,
- hal.154 pada paragraf ke-2,salah penulisan pada kata perasaam,
- hal.237,kata bajik terasa membingungkan,apakah maksudnya bijak?
- hal.240,kurang huruf e pada kata kekcewaan,
-hal.247,kurang kata sambung di pada kalimat papan kayu yang terasa dingin telapak kakinya,
-hal.280,ada kata yang kurang tepat pada kalimat rumah-rumah yang terbikin dari lumpur,harusnya diubah dengan menggunakan kata terbuat atau dibuat,
-hal.288,kesalahan yang sama seperti pada hal.247,kurang kata dari,
-hal.330,salah penulisan pada kata napsu,harusnya pakai huruf f,
-hal.370,apakah penulisan yang benar itu velk atau velg?
-hal.403,salah penulisan pada kata pande besi,harusnya pandai besi,
-hal.439,kelebihan huruf pada kata emasa,
-hal.444,apakah maksudnya merasa atau mereka?
-hal.448,kurang huruf s pada kata mitis,
-hal.455,apakah kata menalinya tepat untuk digunakan?
-hal.478,kata blakblakan terasa aneh,
-hal.491,mungkin akan lebih baik bila kalimat"Kurasa Saya pernah membaca karya Anda" menjadi " Saya merasa pernah membaca karya Anda",
-hal.528,kurang huruf n pada kata banguna,
-hal.533,salah tulis pada kata melangkaui,harusnya melampaui,
-hal.537,kata membikin harusnya diganti membuat.

Demikian beberapa kesalahan yang saya temukan dalam edisi terjemahan ini.

[Sukanya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am not sure if it's me or if it's the writing. It gave me bouts of queasiness. May be it's true. I have lost faith in the sentiment of love.

Of all places, I had read this on the twitter page of a certain Mr Mahesh Bhatt. That human beings seek permanence not through longevity but through their relationships. Believing that a lover, a partner, a friend will be there forever. And through them we will remain intact. Our past, present and future.

Nothing kills us as losing someone. Remember that beautiful line by Chandler? 'Saying goodbye is like dying a little.' Or something like that.

We verbalise too much for our own good.

I have this notion that all of us here have set quotas for experiencing different things in life. From the most esoteric to the most mundane. A quota for food. For films. For money. For travels. For stories. Love. Pain. Joy. Words.

Either we spread these out through out our entire lifetime or we experience them all at once and then live the rest of our lives without that experience.

I think I am trying to squeeze my entire quota of words into this period of my life, so that I may enjoy freedom from them for the remaining of it.

[Inert1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Abandon, I was struck by how hard it must be to write a good novel. I really enjoy Iyer's travel writing. He manages to consistently amuse while offering pithy observations about the culture in which he finds himself, without the whining and pontification found in most travel writing. Abandon features the same ability to make characters real and interesting. Certain parts are very good, and I was interested in the characters' happiness. However, I didn't feel a clear understanding of their motivations and pathologies, making the behaviors seem gratuitously melodramatic at times. Had the author conveyed and sold me on the characters' quirks more successfully, I would have really liked the book.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Englishman in California studies Rumi and the Sufis and travels to Syria, India, England, Iran, in search of lost manuscripts while falling in love with an enigmatic, flaky, and scared girl. About surrender, to love, to life, and knowing you will be abandoned, and isn’t that what makes life so complex and rich? So descriptive, I was back in LA, in the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, in Malibu Creek State Park, a holy place for me. Excellent writing that I slowed down to read out loud. Also made me think differently about Rumi’s poems; they came from losing what he loved instead of a celebration of what he had.

[Kalika · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me very long to get through this book. The love story that threads through the book, and the self-absorbed life of a grad student and his thesis became a bit tedious at times. But what really made it for me was the almost "academic" like discussion on sufi poetry. And the Fourth star in the rating is solely for the lovely bits and pieces of poems by Rumi and others (including Iyer himself) that pepper the book. This won't be to everyone's liking but the writing and the poems were worth the effort to keep up with the rest of the story.

[Judit Szabo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first Iyer book I couldn't bring myself to finish. While the manuscript hunt is intriguing, I found the romance part an unbearable drag. I just found it utterly improbable that a woman with such low self-esteem and nothing to give could really be fascinating for an intelligent, learned man... What's so attractive in constant moaning and self-pity? Halfway through the book I still wasn't sympathetic towards her, so I put it down. But maybe it's just a personal thing, and someone who can identify with the characters better might enjoy the book.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Pico Iyer as a journalist and an observer. He is a smart perceptive analyst of a world where boundaries of all kinds are shifting, melting and merging. Abandon is a novel set in the expatriate Iranian community as well as within Iran. This is not a bad mood piece for attemtpting to come to grips with the type of discontent with the revolution that had been building ion the early part of the decade and may be at the heart of the Green Revolution that seems so vital in 2010.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was nothing mysterious and engrossing about this book. The idea of a passion and Sufism did not work out to be a Romance, rather it was both madness of Camilla and John.
I didn't like the character of Camilla at all. I had a sense that she has an empty space in her brain and through out 353 pages I didn't change my mind a bit. John Character was more tolerable as at least he had a goal. He had to finish his Thesis in Sufism but did he succeed, I have no IDEA!

[Daniel Baylis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book — primarily because I'm obsessed with Pico Iyer's TED Talk.

But I just couldn't get into it. For every book I read, I look for that one character to cheer for. I just couldn't find it here. I didn't particularly enjoy the love story. Whether intentional or not, the dialogue was awkward and laced with cliches. And after 100 pages, I put it down.

Sorry Mr. Iyer. I still think you're a great man.

[Abhishek Joshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike Pico Iyer's unparalleled travelogues, the plot in 'Abandon' has intricacies too fine for my tastes. The cross-pollination of genres from mystery to romance and mysticism hover through as Camilla and John dig Sufi secrets and their budding romance. The prose is there, the pulp however goes missing at times. Perhaps, I shall visit it again after sinking in the Sufi subtleties.

[Elyce Wakerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am currently reading this book and find its many layers intriguing. Unfortunately, I'm not very fond of the primary female character/love interest. Whiny and self-absorbed, she gets irritating. On the other hand, he is SUCH a good writer, that I am happily pulled along, wondering where this is all heading.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a difficult time starting it but once in I couldn't get out. It kept my interest until about 2 3rds done then it dragged on and the story rather fell apart hit me. The author did have some amazing insights such as this "The first prerogative of power is to do as it chooses and not even look at the rules it is breaking. Pico iyer " but all in all I wasn't that absorbed with the characters.

[Dovofthegalilee]

I was disappointed by this book. It promised to be a good read at least for me when the issue seemed to be heavy in the mystery of finding lost texts coming out of Iran. Instead it got too bogged down with an undeveloping love story that just went on forever.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, really good book. The imagery was so vivid, the suspense so subtle. A beautiful love story, and some really wonderful information about Sufism, Rumi, and Iranian history. If you have any interest in Middle Eastern religions and poetry, I recommend!

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish it. I enjoyed and appreciated it at the beginning--the setting of academia, the mystery of manuscripts, the romance--and then I got tired of the characters and the confusing plot and decided I was wasting my time.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to love this book, and I do love it in parts; there are phrases I've highlighted on almost every page. Overall however the isolation of particular phrases is not enough to give this book the weight it aspires to.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love story with an intellectual (and almost too-abstract) mystery at its heart, visions of Sufi thought and poetry, and dangerous passages in modern Iran. I do like this one, rather a lot.