![]() ![]() He applies the term “Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy” incessantly. Apatan says what this reader thought, especially seeing how Darius accuses everyone he doesn’t fancy as being pedestrian. Apatan, the owner of Tea Haven, labels elitist. ![]() That’s certainly what Darius seems to think, and he aspires to find gainful employment at Rose City Teas - a hipster joint for the sort of people that Mr. Tea Haven engages in what a more serious tea drinker would likely consider to be the commercialised bastardisation of the ancient custom and art of tea-drinking. He works part-time at a shopping mall tea shop that sells artificially flavoured teas bearing silly, thoughtless names - like Blueberry Bliss. Initially set in Oregon, Darius –an awkward and uncertain teenager - is half Star Trek nerd, half tea snob. ![]() The protagonist, sixteen year-old Darius Kellner, isn’t especially endearing in the first chapters of the book. And while offering vignettes on Persian customs, cuisine, the Farsi language, landmarks and the demography of Iran, the novel’s overarching theme is that of mental illness. In this coming-of-age story, Adib Khorram provides the sort of dimension to Persian culture and to Iran as a country that one is unlikely to find in much of the media. Adib Khorram, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, Penguin Books, 2019, 336 pgs. ![]()
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