Product Description

ALETHOPHOBIA revolves around the life of the Iranian-born Professor Pirooz who lives mostly in his own imagination; he is everywhere and yet he is nowhere. He dissimulates and dissimulates, yet loses control of himself and speaks his mind - in spite of his efforts - at all costs. He is a whistle blower with a broken whistle and a broken heart and a broken existence. What is the use of being a Professor if you cannot profess and, worse yet, have to pay lip service to academic freedom in order not to be marginalized?
ALETHOPHOBIA is eventful, witty and insightful. It is a real story that appears as surreal. How could such events occur on a tranquil university campus in America? How could the love of a gorgeous policewoman and a wondering scientist take root and blossom in such inhospitable soil? The story has many stunning turns and twists inducing laughter and tears.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2171508 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 332 pages

About the Author
MANOUCHER PARVIN, a polymath, has published novels, poems, short-stories and numerous works in various fields of sciences. His novels: Cry for my Revolution, Iran; and Avicenna and I, the Journey of Spirits now reprinted, and the novel-in-verse, Dardedel: Rumi, Hafez, and Love in New York have been acclaimed by reviewers. Alethophobia is his fourth novel.
He has been active all his adult life for causes such as human-rights, the environment, and democracy. Professor Parvin has served as a television and radio commentator here and abroad and has lectured around the world. He is active in various sports, is a chess addict and not such a bad cook to boot!
The author has been lucky to have become prepared for writing Alethophobia by an overall unique experience in the American educational system. This includes several years of teaching at Columbia University; Hunter College in New York City; Fordham University; a very big State University in Ohio, the University of Akron and Emory University. The author has also taught at Barnard School for Boys in the Bronx, and, as a single parent nursed his son, now Dr. Mark Parvin, through the suburban public school system in Ohio.

Customer Reviews

Alethophobia (Fear of Truth) Raison d'être
Alethophobia (fear of truth) articulates a favorite theme of Parvin: struggle to be at home in Diaspora. Its protagonist, Professor Pirooz, is one of the most memorable/remarkable characters in cross cultural literature. With exploration of struggle for freedom, women uprising, racial conflicts, clash of cultures; and the bond between knowledge and democracy this creative work sharpens the mind to see the unseen, to touch the hidden.

In the forward Parvin asserts:" I have lived this story, this Alethophobia, and relived it as I wrote it down. [Alethophobia] is presented as fiction, and in some details it is a fiction. But over all it is a novel of fact about a fiction, the fiction of, the academic freedom in America..."

Alethophobia begins with a prologue where the writer provides insight into a major event and the theme portrayed in this novel: The harshness of life and the despair of the victims and the sugary but false claims engulfing everything today. Samantha, a policewoman, blindfolded, hand cuffed, and thrown naked on the floor is quietly listening to the voices of her assailants surrounding her deciding her fate. This brilliant Samantha provides insight into the personality of Professor Pirooz, as a man and as a lover. How poignant, and how profound!

Alethophobia begins with a prologue--Samantha's dangerous entrapment--but it swiftly moves to the mind of Pirooz, a man, a lover of loves and his ever conflictive thoughts and feelings. Professor Pirooz feels guilty since he knows that his professing/lectures are only half truth, it is repeating the assigned texts, illusions promoted as science. He finds academic freedom elusive in a land where people are afflicted with "a national paranoia." His free speech, his truth, must be self-censored for the sake of safety and job security. A loving single parent he dreads who would take care of his little boy if something happens to him? So he compromises his dignity for his survival in the often praised: the land of the free. But he fails to force self-censor upon himself. He pays the heavy price of becoming a whistle blower. Unbelievable events happen in a tranquil university campus.

Pirooz mainly lives in his own imagination with the Alethophobia as a companion. His options are all dreadful in the world where honesty, compassion, free choice and dignity are shattered by the authority of the "national religion" in which money and power and nationalism are intertwined as the trinity. The National Religion whose existence is denied but he demonstrates that it exists. It is more powerful than all religions combined! In this religion money is God, America the promised land, Constitution, the holy book, flag, the cross, national anthem, the hymn, and pledge of allegiance the credo, etc.

Who is this Pirooz that appears in four novels by Manoucher Parvin and two by Rob Levandoski daring to challenge the American way of life? Can he ever change and become like the others? Can he be tamed or is he condemned to be who he is--an iconoclast that barely survives? To bear the burden of being a compromised himself, he sublimates his passion of mind for the passion of skin. So he finds refuge in sex and poetry and becomes a rebel seeking freedom from the stranglehold of the reality by plunging into dreams, fantasies and imagination. A rebel, and a victim of his passion with instinctual impulses for the marvelous- "my mind continues to cling to her satin skin. The taste of her touch transforms me from a bleeding Homo Sapient into a jubilant peacock!"
Would the policewoman with enigmatic smile who attended him after the car accident be his soul mate? Would this unforgettable love be healing and help Pirooz from ravages of chronic Alethophobia?
Would America, mankind be ever freed from Alethophobia as they were freed from small pox!

This novel is the story of an Alethophobian told allegorically and with greater courage, sense of conviction and element of fantasy - however regaling the truth in a multicultural context -- A unique Raison d'être -a remarkable insight into one's own psyche! This is a vivid story of life in twenty first century America seen by an outsider who has become an insider.

Raison d'être (Reason for being) or degree of rationalization

Alethophobia Review
Alethophobia: Fear of the Truth
By Manoucher Parvin
IBEX publishers

As the mother of two teenagers about to enter college and as a lover of exciting fiction I found Alethophobia to be a great read on both counts. My own university experience did not prepare me for what I learned in this page turner of a novel. I know of academic politics behind tenure and promotion decisions. But I was under the false impression that once tenured, professors may unearth inconvenient truths or expose falsehoods under the protection of academic freedom without fear of job loss or retribution. Reading this witty, insightful novel of fact, I found that my assumption is invalid to various degrees depending on the university. Despite pretensions, academic freedom is compromised in so many subtle ways. Professors do indoctrinate our children mostly unknowingly because they themselves have been victims of indoctrination and because of fear of being marginalized by administrations, colleagues, and even students. So conforming to our media/business driven culture is an unwritten or invisible rule. The accented professor Pirooz turned into a whistle blower struggles to point this out while fighting the system. This is not much of a help to our children when trying to navigate their lives thoughtfully, and with a healthy sense of skepticism.
Having read Alethophobia I will now examine closely, from several angles, the university that my children may attend. I want them to be taught by the Professor Pirooz's of the world. Pirooz is the protagonist in this and several other novels by Manoucher Parvin. To become aware the the pervasive inaccurate premise that America is always right and the rest of the world is always wrong is the beginning of objectivity in political economy and diplomacy. Such objectivity could prevent future unnecessary wars.
I want my children to study science and arts and acquire professional skills as objectively as possible. I want them to acquire a moral compass, and critical minds that will compel them to question the half truths of the history books and in politics. I want them to be taught to think for themselves and become skillful, cultured nonconformists, but still remain good team players. Such concepts are not contradictory.
All the important, interesting, and relevant information in this novel is wrapped around a delightfully compelling story filled with iconic characters, each representing a different spice in the melting pot that is America. Memorable characters and memorable events. I found the blurb on the back cover true, I did laugh and cry reading Alethophobia. Professor Pirooz is adorable! You can almost hear the accent in his feisty words, a true "ladies man" to boot. Bravo! I can't wait for the next novel from Manoucher Parvin.

Theresa Kenny
Boston

Alethophobia (fear of truth)
I bristled! Laughed! Wept! Purred great sensual tiger purrs! This master work - a "novel of fact about a fiction, the fiction of academic freedom in America", this thing called "Alethophobia" (fear of truth), challenged me - demanded intense attention, provoked `thought conversations' with the invisible author! Yes, this reading, this "Alice In Wonderland" trip through the inner world of university life and the media, unsettled me to no end.

Pirooz, the protagonist, reveals unrelenting introspection and remarkable courage - alternately shining like the sun or twinkling like a star. His devotion to the loves of his life - to truth, to inform, to his son as a single parent, to his friends, to underdogs of all walks of life, and to love itself, is unending. But his love of truth forces him to risk everything by confronting the pervasive fear of truth (alethophobia) within himself and the others. He publishes an article asserting economics professors are immoral because they teach mostly ideology and call it the science of economics. He proclaims in his classes that the biggest brain washing in America is that there is no brainwashing in America! For this (and more), Pirooz is subjected to psychological abuse at the hands of the university community. Only a small circle of friends, and the fortunate happenstance of falling in love with a gorgeous and brilliant campus policewoman and law student help him survive - but only barely. His trials and tribulations seem surrealistic but they have the unmistakable, undeniable `ring of truth'.

As I finished Alethophobia, I felt challenged, as a reader, to risk as well - to recognize the myths perpetrated by alethophobia and how it sanitizes, and my contribution in maintaining it, if not creating it. (My modest collection of shattered-myth shards now has several new additions.) I consider myself to be a critical thinker. As such, I must acknowledge the existence of alethophobia as a chronic disease of mind and address it; or I must surrender my claim of being a skeptic. I'm in your debt, Dr. Parvin.