i have just finished a complex, not wholly saisfying but educational novel.
"Abandon" (2003) is by Pico Iyer. He’s of Hindu origin, lives in Japan and California and writes about cultural issues for the New York Review of Books and Time, among others.
His story weaves strands of Islamic mysticism, romance and mystery into a brilliant but bewildering tapestry.
The spiritual quest, where I was mostly lost, is – big surprise - about God and the nature of reality. I did follow the love affair between an Englishman studying Sufiism and the poet Rumi) in Santa Barbara and a lovely, enigmatic California woman whose only certainty is that she is worthless. All this as the hero pursued ancient manuscripts that may have emerged from Iran in the wake of the revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Or not.
I found reading "Abandon" more frustrating than pleasurable. Still, it was satisfying to learn something about Islamic world - thanks to Washington's brilliant neo-conservatives we are, after all, in an epic struggle of civilizations - in non-political terms.