Geata Póeg na Déanainn

Weaving a magic thread November 23, 2023

This post is part of a series of articles that I previously published in various Australian newspapers when I was working as a reviewer between 2001 and 2012. The vast majority of these do not exist in digital format, and I’ve decided to reprint them here for digital preservation. Much of what is said in these republished reviews does not represent my current thinking, but rather my understanding at the time of writing and original publication. The titles of the posts are the titles that were given to the articles by subeditors upon publication.

Australian writer Sophie Masson, in The Curse of Zohreh, leaves her familiar territory of dark, mysterious Breton forests for the fiery world of the Arabian Nights. Masson’s talents as a writer have always been based on her ability to blend several genres of story, and combine the qualities of myth, legend and fairytale with modern sensibilities. She certainly doesn’t disappoint in The Curse of Zohreh, which mixes medieval Arab storytelling with modern fantasy, throwing in a dash of Romeo and Juliet love story and feminism for good measure.

The story concerns two families, the wealth al-Farouks of Ameerat, and the impoverished Parsarian descendants of a successful trader, Zohreh, who laid a curse on the al-Farouk family for destroying her business empire and stealing a family treasure. One hundred years after Zohreh’s death, 15-year-old Khaled al-Farouk is keen to break the curse. Just as determined to visit retribution on the al-Farouks is Soheila, Zohreh’s descendant, who has disguised herself as a boy and infiltrated the al-Farouk household.

What follows is an adventure in the best fairytale tradition. It involves werewolf carpet-sellers, ghouls, jinn, dusty libraries and terrifying car journeys through deserts. While it is Masson’s imaginative brilliance that makes the story engrossing, it is the emotional richness and moral complexity that gives The Curse of Zohreh its depth.

As the story progresses, the reader wonders with Soheila whether it is right to punish children for the sins of their ancestors. At the same time, we come to understand, with Khaled, that it is important for families to remember past wrongdoings and to learn from mistakes. However, Masson has never been an author to use her characters as mouthpieces for moralising, and so these emotional issues are hinted at rather than broadcast loudly from every page. Readers have to discover this moral dimension for themselves.

Although the book is a welcome addtion to good-quality Australian fiction for young teens, the more worldly reader may question Masson’s fantasy world. This is partly because it is so obviously based on the Arabian peninsula and the Middle East that readers might wonder why she bothered to reinvent it. Parsari is Persia, or Iran, while Mesomia is Iraq, which is even ruled by a bloodthirsty, Saddam Hussein-type figure called The Vampire. Soheila’s family follow a religion which has the characteristics of Zoroastrianism, and Khaled’s is recognisable as Islam.

It is also partly because of the anachronism of having mobile phones and jinn, cars and flying carpets, in the same story. Genre convention either has modern characters experiencing the weirdness of the otherworld or the story is contained in one internally logical universe. Here contemporary characters with mobile phones travel on flying carpet without comment. Some readers may have to work hard to accept this.

Ultimately, the most important theme of Masson’s book is one that is woven like a thread through all her books. This is her deep belief that magic, wonder and fantasy are essential to the human spirit, and that life is impoverished without this other world into which people can travel. For Masson, this other world resides between the pages of books. Despite the slightly uneasy stretching of the parameters of fantasy conventions, this nourishing richness lies there to be discovered in The Curse of Zohreh.

This review first appeared in the 9 July, 2005 issue of The Canberra Times.