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Courtesan
Set amid the elegant châteaux of Belle époque France and the closely guarded world of nineteenth-century Persian women, Courtesan unfolds with the breathtaking cinematic sweep and stunning visual grandeur of an epic film. At its heart are three unforgettable women: Madame Gabrielle, the courtesan whose fateful liaison with the shah of Persia reverberates in the lives of her daughter, Françoise, and her rebellious and brave granddaughter, Simone, whose journey plunges her into the cutthroat diamond trade, where the secrets of an ancient culture may hold the truth she desperately seeks.
290 pages, Paperback
First published June 28, 2005
9 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
About the author
Dora Levy Mossanen
6 books87 followersDora Levy Mossanen is the international bestselling author of the widely acclaimed novels Harem, Courtesan, The Last Romanov, Scent of Butterflies, and Love and War in the Jewish Quarter. She is the recipient of the prestigious San Diego Editors’ Choice Award and Best Historical Novel of the Year from The Romantic Times. She is a contributor to numerous media outlets such as Huffington Post and The Jewish Journal and has been featured in various mediums and publications including Sh’ma, The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), Authority Magazine, Jewish Renaissance Magazine, KCRW, Radio Iran, Radio Russia, and JWT, and has appeared in numerous television programs. In 2010, Dora was accepted as a contributor to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, founded in 1926 and hailed by The New Yorker as “the oldest and most prestigious writers’ conference in the country”.
Her writings have been praised by many celebrated authors, among them: Amy Ephron, Steve Berry, Jonathan Kirsch, John Rechy, Rabbi David Wolpe and Adam Kirsch, to name a few.
"In this richly evocative novel, Dora Levy Mossanen conjures Tehran in the 1940s, where age-old customs and prejudices are being challenged by modern ideas - about love and sex, politics and science, and the place of Jews in Iranian society. The story of Soleiman Yaran, a Jewish dentist whose life changes course when he is summoned to treat a royal patient, is as romantic, suspenseful and compelling as the history of the city and people that surround it." – Adam Kirsch, Author, The People and the Books:18 Classics of Jewish Literature
Dora was born in Israel and moved to Iran when she was nine. At the onset of the Islamic Revolution, her family was forced to leave Iran. They eventually settled in Los Angeles. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California (USC).
You can learn more about her at www.doralevymossanen.com.
Her writings have been praised by many celebrated authors, among them: Amy Ephron, Steve Berry, Jonathan Kirsch, John Rechy, Rabbi David Wolpe and Adam Kirsch, to name a few.
"In this richly evocative novel, Dora Levy Mossanen conjures Tehran in the 1940s, where age-old customs and prejudices are being challenged by modern ideas - about love and sex, politics and science, and the place of Jews in Iranian society. The story of Soleiman Yaran, a Jewish dentist whose life changes course when he is summoned to treat a royal patient, is as romantic, suspenseful and compelling as the history of the city and people that surround it." – Adam Kirsch, Author, The People and the Books:18 Classics of Jewish Literature
Dora was born in Israel and moved to Iran when she was nine. At the onset of the Islamic Revolution, her family was forced to leave Iran. They eventually settled in Los Angeles. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California (USC).
You can learn more about her at www.doralevymossanen.com.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
April 3, 2019
At times so very good you think this is awesome writing; at other times the writing is so pedestrian you have to plow through it. It was a pleasant read, but it did not offer as much excitement.
February 24, 2011
Courtesan / 978-0-7432-4678-1
When I picked up Mossanen's "Courtesan" and "Harem" together at the local half price book store, I hadn't realized at the time that I could easily have just read "Harem" in order to get the salient contents of both stories.
"Courtesan" shares so many elements with "Harem" that the two books are almost functionally identical. Both books center around a multi-generational trio of women who are textbook Mary Sue characters. Grandmother, mother, and granddaughter all have implausibly-colored hair (azure blue, topaz yellow, and crimson red) and the author makes a big point of telling us that the carpet matches the drapes. Their eyes are equally implausibly colored as deep turquoise, slate gray, and golden yellow. These Jewish women serve as prostitutes to the local Persian gentry, and without any actual training they have managed to become world-renowned harlots; they even know the super-secret method to eunuch orgasms.
Incidentally, the ghosts of famous dead authors like to wallow in the big breasts and blue armpit hair of the matriarch of the family. I'm not making this up; I wish to god I was. In addition to the many famous and skilled authors Mossanen invokes sexually in this novel, she also invokes Oscar Wilde, who not only does not deserve this abuse, but I'm also fairly certain that he wouldn't be interested in these ladies, if you know what I mean.
The only real difference between "Courtesan" and "Harem", is the technique of switching point of view, timeline, and location randomly throughout the story. This is often done without signaling to the reader that a switch has taken place and what, precisely, the new narrator/setting/timeline combination is now.
The plot is largely basic, once you allow that all the main characters are two dimensional stereotypes. The grand-matriarch BlueHair of the "Honore" family (It's "ironic" because prostitution isn't usually considered an "honorable" profession.) was "forced" into prostitution when her Jewish family suffered starvation and privation during the war. However, "forced" is a bit of a stretch, since she enjoys the profession too much to quit once she is financially secure and she is adamant that her daughter and granddaughter follow in her chosen profession, even if they don't want to. The daughter, YellowHair, is more than happy to go along with this plan because she is a simple, pleasure seeking creature with very few thoughts in her head; however, the bold, beautiful, horse riding granddaughter RedHair has different ideas. When she falls in love and marries her first suitor, a rich, powerful Jewish diamond merchant, her family reacts with disapproval, which is terribly odd considering that she's single-handedly wrapped up the money and power they wanted her to get for herself. Sure, she's only servicing one man instead of hundreds, but this seems a small point to quibble over.
RedHair's True Love is a perfect husband except that he quickly gets himself murdered when he discovers that the suspicious rare "red diamonds" suddenly flooding the diamond market are a mite suspicious. He is murdered to protect the secret, in a blatant disregard for the economics of scare commodities: if the "rare" red diamonds are "flooding" the market, then suspicious or not, they're not going to hold a high value for very long. At any rate, RedHair vows to find the killer and her search is greatly aided by the face that her mother and grandmother have conveniently serviced everyone worth knowing in the jewelry industry, and a certain key player has a lifelong obsession with crimson red hair and has *never* found a true red head until he's presented with RedHair.
Like "Harem", "Courtesan" is plagued with frequent sex scenes that are not erotic and fail to advance the plot. Most of them revolve around some kind of kink: oddly colored female body hair, exhibitionist urination, eunuch orgasm, and so on. Also, Mossanen has still not learned that an author should show, not tell, so the pages and pages that tell us the personalities of her characters are quite worthless and would have been better served to be replaced by a few pages showing us their actions, thoughts, dreams, and/or desires. As it is, it is clear that these women do not HAVE desires except the most one-dimensional caricatures possible.
~ Ana Mardoll
When I picked up Mossanen's "Courtesan" and "Harem" together at the local half price book store, I hadn't realized at the time that I could easily have just read "Harem" in order to get the salient contents of both stories.
"Courtesan" shares so many elements with "Harem" that the two books are almost functionally identical. Both books center around a multi-generational trio of women who are textbook Mary Sue characters. Grandmother, mother, and granddaughter all have implausibly-colored hair (azure blue, topaz yellow, and crimson red) and the author makes a big point of telling us that the carpet matches the drapes. Their eyes are equally implausibly colored as deep turquoise, slate gray, and golden yellow. These Jewish women serve as prostitutes to the local Persian gentry, and without any actual training they have managed to become world-renowned harlots; they even know the super-secret method to eunuch orgasms.
Incidentally, the ghosts of famous dead authors like to wallow in the big breasts and blue armpit hair of the matriarch of the family. I'm not making this up; I wish to god I was. In addition to the many famous and skilled authors Mossanen invokes sexually in this novel, she also invokes Oscar Wilde, who not only does not deserve this abuse, but I'm also fairly certain that he wouldn't be interested in these ladies, if you know what I mean.
The only real difference between "Courtesan" and "Harem", is the technique of switching point of view, timeline, and location randomly throughout the story. This is often done without signaling to the reader that a switch has taken place and what, precisely, the new narrator/setting/timeline combination is now.
The plot is largely basic, once you allow that all the main characters are two dimensional stereotypes. The grand-matriarch BlueHair of the "Honore" family (It's "ironic" because prostitution isn't usually considered an "honorable" profession.) was "forced" into prostitution when her Jewish family suffered starvation and privation during the war. However, "forced" is a bit of a stretch, since she enjoys the profession too much to quit once she is financially secure and she is adamant that her daughter and granddaughter follow in her chosen profession, even if they don't want to. The daughter, YellowHair, is more than happy to go along with this plan because she is a simple, pleasure seeking creature with very few thoughts in her head; however, the bold, beautiful, horse riding granddaughter RedHair has different ideas. When she falls in love and marries her first suitor, a rich, powerful Jewish diamond merchant, her family reacts with disapproval, which is terribly odd considering that she's single-handedly wrapped up the money and power they wanted her to get for herself. Sure, she's only servicing one man instead of hundreds, but this seems a small point to quibble over.
RedHair's True Love is a perfect husband except that he quickly gets himself murdered when he discovers that the suspicious rare "red diamonds" suddenly flooding the diamond market are a mite suspicious. He is murdered to protect the secret, in a blatant disregard for the economics of scare commodities: if the "rare" red diamonds are "flooding" the market, then suspicious or not, they're not going to hold a high value for very long. At any rate, RedHair vows to find the killer and her search is greatly aided by the face that her mother and grandmother have conveniently serviced everyone worth knowing in the jewelry industry, and a certain key player has a lifelong obsession with crimson red hair and has *never* found a true red head until he's presented with RedHair.
Like "Harem", "Courtesan" is plagued with frequent sex scenes that are not erotic and fail to advance the plot. Most of them revolve around some kind of kink: oddly colored female body hair, exhibitionist urination, eunuch orgasm, and so on. Also, Mossanen has still not learned that an author should show, not tell, so the pages and pages that tell us the personalities of her characters are quite worthless and would have been better served to be replaced by a few pages showing us their actions, thoughts, dreams, and/or desires. As it is, it is clear that these women do not HAVE desires except the most one-dimensional caricatures possible.
~ Ana Mardoll
October 17, 2008
hmmm. I think the author tried to make this book into things it was not. It was sort of a romance sort of a mystery and definately a historical novel. I didn't really enjoy it but it was short so I finished it. I definately want the 2 hours that it took me to read, back. I felt a little cheated when it was over and i certainly never really cared about most of the characters. The cover art was quite lovely though and I have just made a first in my book reviewing history- I just mentioned the cover art.....
August 27, 2008
This book is an interesting study in the different definitions of independence and freedom that woman have. The three female characters all strive in different directions to find their personal security. It has a bit of a slow start, but the eccentricities of all the players set against 19 century France intrigue you to the very end.
September 3, 2013
Loved her book Harem but this was full of bad romance, bizarre communication with dead writers, and the stereotypical Jew-hating Muslim hoards. Very disappointing.
July 5, 2023
O carte despre o famile de curtezane, care prin frumuseţea şi cunoştinţele de a fascina un bărbat sunt vestite în toată Franţa. Doar cea mai mică din familie refuză să să fie iniţiată în acest bissnes al familiei. De aici şi începe mare aventura a Simonei...
Dar eu nu am văzut un sfârşit ... Totul pare ca începe, dar nu se mai sfârşeşte...
Dar eu nu am văzut un sfârşit ... Totul pare ca începe, dar nu se mai sfârşeşte...
July 11, 2024
Just ok sums it up for me. Less of the courtesan and more of a bereaved wife trying to discover the identity of and motive driving her husband's murderer. The cover quote compared the story to a mix between Girl With a Pearl Earring and The DaVinci Code-I must have been reading a different story because I didn't get those vibes at all.
July 4, 2017
Good book. Would have been great if there was closure at the end. Still worth the read.
November 28, 2017
Very good. I liked the part where the husband and wife went down to the teahouse for dinner.
February 6, 2018
I got secondhand embarrassment reading this book
September 10, 2020
I wanted to like this, but everything about this was just a bit lacking, which adds up to disappointment. The plot, the characters, the writing style, they all felt a bit deficient.
December 26, 2021
This was odd and very disconnected. Marked it as dnf.
June 22, 2024
idk what to say😭 noen ganger var det kule ting andre ganger tenkte jeg hva f leste jeg nå
November 17, 2024
I didn’t like this book at all . Should have given it one star.
May 5, 2024
Simone, daughter and granddaughter of prominent French courtesans, marries a client Cyrus, a Persian court jeweler and dealer in rare red diamonds, who takes her to his native land. Deeply in love, she shares her husband's rustic life in the Persian mountains, adjusting painfully to the patriarchal society, strict traditions, and open hostility from his relatives.
When Cyrus is murdered, Simone bitterly returns to Paris, attempting to find the killer, presumably among the corrupt cartel of diamond miners and dealers. With the help of her mother and grandmother, she acquires the feminine wiles and sexual sophistication necessary to ingratiate herself into the innermost circles.
The prose is lush and erotic, with sumptuous detail to fin-de-siecle Paris and all the decadence of La Belle Epoque. Her grandmother Gabrielle, a shrewd businesswoman, has acquired fabulous wealth from clients ranging from European aristocrats to Persian shahs. She lives in a mansion filled with vintage art, jewelry, and furniture. There is also ample detail to the Persia of that era, and greater respect for its inhabitants than to the "white colonists" thousands of miles away. Nevertheless, the characters are sympathetic and certainly fascinating, not the least Simone herself, a fiercely independent, athletic, and sensual woman.
References to her Jewish background, however, seem confused, as well as annoying. Although many Jews did assimilate -- even to the point of conversion -- during the nineteenth century, it strains credulity that Gabrielle's father is a famous rabbi and mystic living in Le Marais, the Jewish area, let alone one who would accept his daughter's "profession." (Maybe he admires her natal ability to turn a profit.) The maternal lineage automatically makes Simone Jewish, and she even marries a Jew, although Cyrus, while maintaining some traditions, seems to blend skillfully between both Muslim and Jewish societies. (However, he is painfully aware that Jews are considered unclean in that part of the world.)
There is little of any true Jewish content in the book, which seemed like a hodgepodge of political correctness tossed in with "cultural" references. Moreover, the magic realism is silly, such as the spirits of famous contemporary artists (e.g. Oscar Wilde, Franz Liszt) residing in Gabrielle's bodice. Perhaps she keeps in touch with them thanks to the copious amounts of absinthe.
Nevertheless, COURTESAN is a fun read, a sort of GIGI on steroids. The vividness of the Parisian demimonde is edifying and apparently well-researched. The author reveals a world ruled by women -- one of the few where those with the good looks and social smarts could fulfill ambitions outside of domestic or subservient roles. The feminist message is obvious, albeit without total condemnation of all men -- at least, non-European men. The author touches heavily as well on the effects of European colonialism, and the ruinous exploitation of Africa by the diamond trade, although quite a few in Asia and the Middle East have also been complicit.
When Cyrus is murdered, Simone bitterly returns to Paris, attempting to find the killer, presumably among the corrupt cartel of diamond miners and dealers. With the help of her mother and grandmother, she acquires the feminine wiles and sexual sophistication necessary to ingratiate herself into the innermost circles.
The prose is lush and erotic, with sumptuous detail to fin-de-siecle Paris and all the decadence of La Belle Epoque. Her grandmother Gabrielle, a shrewd businesswoman, has acquired fabulous wealth from clients ranging from European aristocrats to Persian shahs. She lives in a mansion filled with vintage art, jewelry, and furniture. There is also ample detail to the Persia of that era, and greater respect for its inhabitants than to the "white colonists" thousands of miles away. Nevertheless, the characters are sympathetic and certainly fascinating, not the least Simone herself, a fiercely independent, athletic, and sensual woman.
References to her Jewish background, however, seem confused, as well as annoying. Although many Jews did assimilate -- even to the point of conversion -- during the nineteenth century, it strains credulity that Gabrielle's father is a famous rabbi and mystic living in Le Marais, the Jewish area, let alone one who would accept his daughter's "profession." (Maybe he admires her natal ability to turn a profit.) The maternal lineage automatically makes Simone Jewish, and she even marries a Jew, although Cyrus, while maintaining some traditions, seems to blend skillfully between both Muslim and Jewish societies. (However, he is painfully aware that Jews are considered unclean in that part of the world.)
There is little of any true Jewish content in the book, which seemed like a hodgepodge of political correctness tossed in with "cultural" references. Moreover, the magic realism is silly, such as the spirits of famous contemporary artists (e.g. Oscar Wilde, Franz Liszt) residing in Gabrielle's bodice. Perhaps she keeps in touch with them thanks to the copious amounts of absinthe.
Nevertheless, COURTESAN is a fun read, a sort of GIGI on steroids. The vividness of the Parisian demimonde is edifying and apparently well-researched. The author reveals a world ruled by women -- one of the few where those with the good looks and social smarts could fulfill ambitions outside of domestic or subservient roles. The feminist message is obvious, albeit without total condemnation of all men -- at least, non-European men. The author touches heavily as well on the effects of European colonialism, and the ruinous exploitation of Africa by the diamond trade, although quite a few in Asia and the Middle East have also been complicit.
August 13, 2011
Hmm . . . not sure what to say . . . interesting story about a family of Parisian courtesans, who each, in her own unique way, has ties to Persian men . . . oh, and the women are Jewish, just to further complicate things . . . so it's got an interesting Jewish-Muslim-Euro-Arab thing going on, and it could have been good, but damn, this book didn't know what the heck it wanted to be. Enigmatic peek into the Muslim world or a bodice-ripping lust-filled bonk-buster? Historical fiction, or detective mystery? I felt that the story never found it's rhythm, it's conclusion was poorly executed, and it's tone was quite uneven . .. however, I did keep reading, even through the lurid bits, and I found that I did want to see it through to it's conclusion. I liked what the author was attempting, but I think she fell short of her own aspirations.
April 3, 2009
The story was interesting, and I very much wanted to see what was next. But there were times when the book didn't know what kind of book it wanted to be exactly. And the chapters often lacked comfortable transitions, jolting you from one person or place or time to another without clear explaination. None-the-less, it was an interesting read.
March 15, 2009
This novel is a good choice for lovers of historical fiction. The author makes good use of both language and imagery, which made the novel a pleasure to read. My only complaint is that the plot, while intriguing, ended too abruptly.
September 28, 2007
Not as memorable as Harem, but still an interesting story.
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July 29, 2012Maybe it's my mood. It never got my attention.
August 23, 2015
Try as I might, I just couldn't enjoy this novel. It was too flowery for my tastes.
April 22, 2015
Interesting.
October 27, 2015
i didnt realy like it especialy the double plan . I would have preferd one plan wich sade te story from beging till the end
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August 24, 2009Courtesan: A Novel by Dora Levy Mossanen (2005)
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews