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 Published

Symphony of the Dead

by  Abbas Maroufi

___________
 

Qoqnoos Published

Primordiality to Eternity

Critical Study of Symphony of the Dead

By Elham Yekta  ___________

Abbas Marufi, Pioneer of a New Wave in Persian Fiction

By Ismail Salami

 

Born in 1957 in Tehran, Marufi was raised and educated in Tehran. He studied dramatic arts at Tehran University while teaching at schools and writing for the newspapers. He served as the editor in chief of the literary Gardun magazine from 1990 to 1995. His first published work was a collection of short stories entitled Into the Sun. He also wrote a few plays which were performed on stage.  In his The Last Superior Generation, he touched on social themes. His last collection of short stories, The Scent of the Jasmine was published in the United States.

 Marufi came to prominence with the publication of The Symphony of the Dead (1989) which is narrated in the form of a symphony. The novel provoked a slew of criticisms from the critics. Some saw it as a great masterpiece in the Persian literature; still some others relegated it to a sheer imitation of Faulkner’s Sound and Fury. Yet, the novel proved so influential that it came to be imitated by other writers. In this novel, Marufi uses the stream of consciousness technique very effectively. The Year of Turmoil and The Body of Farhad are among his other works.

Marufi is currently living in Germany with his family. Some of his works have been translated in German.

 A Moonlit Night, which follows in English translation, narrates the story of a shepherd boy called Mandal who is deeply in love with Nilupar.

In this story, the writer touches on a main theme in a traditional society where a man finds it impossible to express his love to his beloved; rather he prefers to keep his love to himself and burn in the cauldron of his passionate love. Albeit, there is more to it. Psychologically, Mandal is a sort of a voyeur who spends his time secretly watching the naked body of his beloved, thereby gratifying his sexual urges.

Voyeurism is a sexual perversion but the hero resorts to it because he cannot achieve his object of desire. Mandal is not a kind of character the reader may wish to identify because he is weak and undecided. There are moments in the story where he can open his heart and divulge his long-harbored secret. Yet, he prefers to keep it to himself as if he takes delight in inflicting pain upon himself, as if we were faced with a masochist. 

  
 

 

A MOONLIT NIGHT

 

Mandal was again troubled by uneasy dreams. His heart pumped violently and his body was soaked in sweat. The barking of a dog drifted into his hearing from afar. He saw that he was falling from a cliff into an unknown place and that darkness prevented him from finding a hold. He was then swept away by a gust of wind into the branches of a service-tree which stood in the depths of a valley whose side had been eaten away by flood. There was many a time he had carved Nilupar on the bark of the tree with the point of his knife.
    Turning over in bed, he tried to accustom his eyes to darkness and saw moonlight through the crevices of the canvass. At that moment, his mother, holding an oil lamp, came into view from the tent which opened to Mandal's.
    "Why were you talking in your sleep, Mandal?" she asked.
    Mandal sat up and cast his eyes over the various objects around him.
    "Mm-m?" he moaned.
    He waited for his mother to go to bed. But she insisted.
    "You were talking deliriously.’ Get them! Tie them up!'" she resumed, "Where was your mind wandering?"
    "I don't know." he replied
    But he did know. His mother raised the lamp higher. Instantly, his eye fell on the yellowed muslin round her wrist once more. For months, she had been applying a poultice of turmeric and goat's suet to her broken wrist to help it knit together.
    “Are you ill?"
    "No. I am fine."
    "Any quarrels or fights?"
    "No."
    "Why do you look so restless, then?"
    Tell her you are in love with Nilupar and then it's over, he thought to himself but remained silent. He had grown impatient and despondent. For him, days and nights slipped slowly by. No longer was he full of  energy. A permanent feeling of lethargy had taken possession of him.
    "What's the matter with you?" she said.
    At this, Mandal looked down at his hands, buttoned up his left cuff, stretched out his arms and drew the quilt over his head.
    "I don't know," he replied.
    "All right, you better sleep," she observed, blowing out the lamp before she left.
    The tent was again engulfed in darkness and moonlight fell needle-shaped through its crevices. Mandal's heart began palpitating. Mountains and rocks threatened to approach and he seemed to be falling. At that very moment, he fixed his eyes upon the black wooden pole, unable to keep it still or to stop it from receding into the distance. So he shut his eyes.
    Ever since his father had died, his life had been taken up by the sheep, the pathways, the mountains and the desert. From the moment he woke up at dawn, he would drive the flocks to the mountains where he would stay with only his thoughts until dusk. Entrusting the flocks to the care of the night shepherd, he would go to collect firewood. He could not remember a time when anyone had returned to the dark tents before the evening star had been sighted. When he came back, he would remove his leggings, scratch his body, gulp down one or two glasses of tea and kept yawning until his mother served him food.
    That night at dinner, they had not exchanged a word as usual.
Crawling under the quilt, Mandal allowed his mind to dwell upon Nilupar once more.
    In his half-sleep, he had dreamed that an immense flood had swept down the service tree of his previous dreams. When he woke up, he racked his brains to interpret his dream but to no avail. At that moment, he felt that nothing in the world would afford him more pleasure than sleep. What happiness to be able to slumber in a cozy warm bed. And how irksome to suffer the toil of going up and down the mountain paths after the flocks, with your chukha* falling over your shoulders.
    Before sleep overtook him, he would muse about turning over a new leaf. But then he would banish the idea from his mind, saying:
    "I shall do something about it in autumn."
    At length, autumn would come. The tribe would be moving to Sangsar.
Shepherds would sign their annual contracts with their masters. And by the time they had got settled in one place, Mandal would have to set off for eight months in the desert.
    "Oh, for the spring!" he would murmur.
    Spring ran into summer, summer into autumn. The succession of seasons, the job of tending the flocks, the agony of cold and snowy days and many other things so preoccupied his mind that he hardly knew he had reached the age of twenty five. Now he was thirty. His skin was sunburnt.
He had tiny pimples on his forehead, some white hairs in his moustache and broad shoulders which had remained unused as he had no wife to embrace. It was a certain relief to hear his mother praying. He followed suit. Yet he found himself unable to banish the memory of the rocks and the eerie darkness. As he was praying, his thoughts would turn involuntarily to Nilupar. The recollection of her walking, lisping and swimming formed his fantasy. In the course of all those years, he had only managed to have one single conversation with Nilupar. It was while her mother was cooking oatmeal in front of their tent and his father, chukha flung over his shoulder, was chatting with the shepherd dealers. Mandal himself was moving goatskins of yoghurt into the tents.
    "May I trouble you to turn the carpet loom for me?" Nilupar had asked.
    "And you don't need to take off your chukka boots," she had added.
    "But I may bring in dust?"
    "Never mind. I will sweep it clean."
    And what a beautiful carpet she had woven! Fine, carmine, with a design of blue flowers. It was then that Mandal knew he was deeply in love with her. It was a long love which he had harbored in his heart without anybody knowing. The mere sight of her or the sound of her voice was enough to draw him back into the vortex of his nightmare. He was fighting the inevitable fate. He would talk in his sleep until he was startled out of it as he felt himself thrown onto the service tree. Then sleep would be denied him until morning. The nightmare of falling from the precipice recurred whenever he indulged in the passion of watching Nilupar's naked body in the mountain stream. During the day he would drive the flock to the mountain whence he was in a position to let his eyes wander over the area, the long black tents, the idle dogs, some diseased sheep and a group of people working. He knew well when the women got together to go to the mountain stream. At noon, when the sun weighed heavily overhead, the women, bundles hoisted onto their heads, babies pressed against their bosoms, would flock to the stream to wash their bodies.
Even with her back turned, Mandal was able to pick out Nilupar among the forty or so women from a distance. Mandal's eyes had followed her for twelve years. He had watched her grow from eight to twenty eight. It dawned on him then that Nilupar, instead of setting her bundle on her head, would secure it over her shoulder with her fingertips. Before they stepped into the stream, Mandal would conceal himself in a snowy hollow in the mountain.
    Lying prone on a black mass of rock, he would devour the stream with his eyes. The one who poured water over her headwith cupped hands, splashed the others, swam daringly in the cold water, called out the loudest and sat herself on the rocks warmed by the sun, unhurriedly put on her green dress and wrung her hair dry was no one but Nilupar. At the very sight of her, a shudder would go through his spine, immobilizing him. Then a sense of fatigue would overcome him and an unspeakable pain would so twist his stomach that he remained for hours in a state of  bewilderment.
    Consequently, he would have a terrible dream that night. Well, what could he do? To marry Nilupar had never been a possibility, for the simple reason that he used to work for her father as a shepherd in those early years. Besides, he could not pluck up courage to seek her hand. He pined for her. Now that Mandal had his own flock, Nilupar was engaged to an untrained shepherd by the name of Gelverdi. Mandal burnt even more passionately, in a perennial fever.
    His eyes were burning and he could not sleep. He got up, put on his chukka boots, swung his chukha over his shoulder and crept out of the tent. It was a moonlit night. Polaris and Achernar had already risen. He could hear the rushing water and it seemed as if a bird were moaning.
Bravely, Mandal made his way towards Nilupar's tent and tiptoed along it. From the interior came the sound of people sleeping. Her father and brother were snoring loudly and there was a constant moan from her mother. As for her, she was breathing softly as if the Wheel of the World were spinning for her alone. Mandal paused for a moment.
    "You are alone or I?" he murmured to himself.
    Then he made straight for the mountain and climbed up without stopping to catch his breath. Once there, he saw the first glimmer of dawn.
Suddenly he felt that his eyes were burning with an excruciating pain.
It was as though the rims of his eyes were on fire. He felt as if a hot metal spit were being thrust into his eyes. He had wandered over the mountains before, staying awake until morning, but never once had he been in such a quandary. He knew without any doubt that his painful eyes were in some way connected with his spying on the naked women. What else could be the cause of this agony? Again, the vision of Nilupar's bobbing up and down in water came into his mind. It made him experience such vertigo that he had to put his hands out to find a support in the air.
    When he shut his eyes he felt that his eyelids had caught fire and had started to crack. He was convinced some terrible affliction had befallen him. His temples throbbed until he thought they would burst. He felt as if tiny creatures were eroding his eyes. A strange sorrow gripped his soul. He touched the corners of his eyes and felt afraid.
Inflamed and blistered. Then an overwhelming sensation of weariness came over him. His knees trembled and gave way beneath him. In vain he groped for a support but he subsided helplessly onto a stony slab. As soon as he opened his eyes, his eyelids tore as material does and burnt painfully.
Then a veil of darkness fell in front of his eyes. From behind the veil, he could barely see the sun in the sky. The sheep were bleating and dogs barking in the distance. He could hear a child crying and the sound of a man's voice echoing faintly through the wind. Mandal was quite unable to move.
    There was one thing he yearned for and that was sleep. His mind went blank. His one desire was to return to the peaceful dreams he had had before. Trying to see, he looked all around him. Everything was blurred. The veil of darkness blinded him. All he could make out was the vague and misty shapes of the steep mountains. He endeavored to resist his blindness and see more but in vain.
    "Oh my God, I've gone blind," he said to himself.
    He got to his feet and slowly went back down the mountain. He did not have the least idea where he was going. He only wanted to reach somewhere. Suddenly he found himself entangled in a thicket of aloes.
Desperately trying to protect his face and hands, he took refuge in the shade of the thicket and sat down. By then he realized that the swollen rims of his eyes had turned into large blisters. He could not see anything.
    "Oh my God, I haven't gone blind, have I?” he said to himself.
    Frightened, he prayed, not knowing which part of the ritual prayer he was mouthing.
    Without thinking about what he was saying, words tumbled out of his mouth.
    "Save me!" he prayed.
    In his religious fervor, his hands began to work involuntarily.
Blindly, he undid his leggings and tied himself to the petiole behind him, which served him as a shrine. The heat of the sun was intense. His mind traveled back to his father, Shir Agha, a plain and honest man. For years he had earned his living by cutting wood. He used to have strange dreams and once he had dreamed that he had gone to Mirza Ali Akbar's store.
    "Mirza, this famine will come to an end one day and so will the troubles. Besides life is short. Tell me, does it please God to see my wife and children sleep on empty stomachs?" he had asked.
    "Shir Agha, have you ever asked for anything that I have refused you?" Mirza Ali Akbar had replied.
    "You know, it's hard for me to ask. Misfortunes are raining down on us. How can I go to Himeh to cut wood in this blizzard?"
    Snow had covered the ground and was still falling. It was almost dawn. As his father was recounting his dream, there was a sudden knock at the door. Mandal was then seven or eight years old. He opened the door and was amazed to see Mirza Ali Akbar with a laden ass. He called to his father. Sacks of flour, sugar, tea and rice were carried into the room.
    "Shir Agha, I saw you in my dream last night," said Mirza. "I asked how life was treating you in this ungodly year. I asked. And you said: 'God is merciful.' Now don't let anything trouble your mind. I've brought you some flour, rice, tea and a few odds and ends. We'll reckon up! You can give us some firewood in the new year."
    "Is there any other way I can repay?" said Shir Agha gratefully.
    "Listen, my wife is expecting a baby very soon. If it should be a boy, we'll name him Mirza Ali Akbar."
    Contrary to their expectation it turned out to be a girl and she was named Noresa. It was a desperate spring that year. Many sheep perished. The Russian Cossacks were roving round Sangsar.
    No one had bread. Snow still lay in the alleyways. Every morning, Shir Agha used to go to Khoreh to gather wood. One day, as he was loading the panniers of his donkey, he began to scold his dog: "Stay away from us starving people!"
    However, the dog had grown accustomed to going to the forest with Shir Agha. But as the sight of the dog's hunger became too much for Shir Agha to bear, he decided to tie it to a tree. To his astonishment, he found the dog sitting on the doorstep when he reached home. The next day he threw the dog from the top of the cliff into the foaming river below. Yet hardly had they gone to bed than they heard the whimpering of the dog. All night long he tormented them so that they could not sleep. As dawn was breaking, Noresa was born.
    "I shall become a shepherd tomorrow," vowed Shir Agha. “It’s no use waiting for things to get better."    Until that time they had been settled in one place, but from that day on they started to live a nomadic life.
    Mandal fastened the leggings more tightly round his waist and pleaded as a pilgrim tied to a shrine.    "Dear God, I lost my father when I was fourteen. For his sake, please forgive me! Dear God, Oh dear God, dear God ...."
    He dissolved in tears and repented his actions most sincerely. He promised he would never again watch the women swimming naked in the stream. And he vowed to keep his eyes clean and to depart this life with a pure soul, to deserve the trust of others who could look up to him as they did to his father. He began his prayers afresh and everything and everyone sank into oblivion. He felt deep down that he had absolutely no one he could turn to. All alone. He seemed to have become an integral part of the tree. Just then, he heard footsteps but was unable to see anyone. He could only hear.
    His heart raced. Terror overcame him and he felt like vomiting.
    Despite his giddiness he sensed the footsteps getting closer.
    Raising his head, Mandal saw a figure clad in a dark blue transparent dress. He had the impression that the figure in blue was a woman.
    "Wh-wh-who are you?” he said with difficulty.
    The figure made no reply.
    "I am Mandal," he said with a tremor in his voice.
    Still, the figure said nothing. The edge of her gown streamed through the wind into the distance.
    "I've gone blind," said Mandal.
    As the figure in blue, Mandal felt something within him rise and fly out of his head. He was tongue-tied and a trembling took hold of him.
The figure laid her hand on Mandal's forehead, stroking him gently. He felt as if he had died. He remained without any feeling, like a lump of meat until the hands touched his eyes.
    Then he sensed nothing more. He could feel only a coolness drawn over his eyes by a gentle hand. He thought he was dreaming. He blinked. He opened his eyes easily and looked all around him. No one was there.
He could see the tall bushes clearly. Then he looked at his hands and saw the calloused fingertips. He realized he had tied himself to a tree.
No one was there. Untying himself, he put on his leggings and stood up. Light, tranquil and painless.
    He looked around. No, there was nobody there. Overhead the sun was shining and a north wind was blowing. Mandal climbed up the slope and lay on the lofty mountain side, looking over to a bank of cumulous cloud. Down below he saw the tents and a flock climbing up. Close to the tents men were heating milk. The women and young girls were leaving the camp on their way to the stream. Among them was Nilupar with her bundle hanging from her fingertips over her shoulder.
    "Fate!" said Mandal.
    Into his blood surged the pleasure he had felt when the figure in blue had passed its hand over his face.
    With a smile of fulfillment, he glided unseen down the mountain and hid himself on a huge rock overhanging the stream. Like leeches clinging to the udders of cows, the long tents had patterned the mound. On the hillside opposite, Gelverdi was driving his flock; the girls' laughter reached his ears. Transfixed, Mandal watched. A group of women were swimming and one woman was undressing her child. Nilupar plunged into the water. As her head surfaced, she cast her eyes to the cliff surface. Mandal ducked down. He kept his head low for a moment and then came up from his hiding place. Nilupar pointed to the top of the cliff and let out a burst of laughter. He froze, unable to move. His heart was pounding. Again he ducked down. For a moment he held his breath, and then raised his head. Nilupar came out of water, fixed her gaze upon him and gave a laugh. Mandal felt as if he were falling from the top of the cliff and however hard he tried he was unable to gain a hold.

 

Notes:

This story is set in the Sangsar district in the north of Iran. The tribes move around the edges of the Great Desert and the Salt Desert with their flocks.

 *The service tree, commonly found in the area is a 'love tree'. It is said to arouse passions and it is forbidden for girls to go there.

*Chukha is a woolen garment worn by shepherds or farmers.

*Leggings are a sort of cloth binding round the legs to protect them from thorny plants and for warmth in the cold winters. 

* The story was published in Pakistan in 1999.

Jalal Al-e Ahmad

An Engagé Writer

 

By Ismail Salami

Born in Tehran into a family of clerical stock, Al-e Ahmad studied religious subjects in Najaf for some months. Upon his return to Iran, he joined different political parties. Yet, he failed to find his desired goals. He studied Persian literature at Tehran University and took on a job as a teacher.

 His first collected stories entitled Pilgrimage (1945) appeared in the Sokhan Literary Magazine. Exchange of Visits, his second collected stories, influenced by Sadegh Hedayat were published in the same year. The narrator of all these stories is an alienated man oscillating between belief and unbelief. Soon afterwards, his stories The Pains We Suffer (1947) were published. The stories, influenced by his political leanings, detailed the pressures exerted on the political activists by the government agents. It was in the same year when he defected from the Tudeh Party together with Khalil Maleki.

 In his collected stories, Extra Woman (1948) and Setar (1952) he depicted the ignorance and blind prejudice of the lower classes. In these stories he employed the interior monologue, a technique which he brought to perfection in such stories as "An American Husband" and "The Auspicious Celebration". Pursuant to the 1954 coup, he was put to prison where he wrote the Story of the Honeycombs (1954) in which he illustrated the social situation of Iran during the oil nationalization process through the migration of the bees. The use of folk elements epitomizes the writer’s efforts to create a native literature. In his novel N and the Pen (1961), he used the form of folk literature and shed light on the modern social issues. In all, Jalal tries in his novels to prove himself as a social reformer and leads his characters in a direction to prove his points.

 He is best-known for his novel The School Principal (1958) in which he illustrates the life of the frustrated generation who seeks to find solace in a restful spot but fails to do so. Bitterly tired of teaching, the hero is assigned as a principal of a school in a god-forsaken place. Events happen one after the other and the writer analyses the social ills. However, unlike his other fictional works, he tries to communicate his message through the narrative events and characters. We come to know all the characters through the school principal. The scandal of the sodomy between two students drags the principal to the court. Thinking that there is someone to listen to him, he puts down to paper his views and opinions. Yet, much to his disillusionment, he discovers that even the court lets the whole affair slip by as if nothing serious has happened. As a result he resigns and leaves. His style is marked by colloquialism, and simplicity. The idea of failure is once again illustrated through this novel.

 In his next novel The Blight of the Earth (1968) which is somewhat the continuation of The School Principal, the narrator reports the changes following the land reforms in the villages. Instead of creating a novel of artistic value, Jalal dwells on issuing a revealing manifesto about the role of the land reforms on traditional agriculture. As a result, he offers a critical report of the existing situation.

 His book Westoxification (1962) represents him as an intellectual writer who entertains a burning desire to go back to traditions and native beliefs. Lost in the Crowd (1968)’ is about Hajj.

 In his autobiography entitled A Stone on a Grave (1983) he deals with his impotence and its effect on his social and emotional relations.

 Jalal Al-e Ahmad was married to Simin Daneshvar, the great Iranian writer. He died in 1966 in Asalem, Gilan.

 The importance of Al-e Ahmad lies in his true depiction of the social situation, colloquial style, simple narrative technique and criticism of the then prevailing social milieu. He is more of an engagé writer who seeks to lay bare the social problems, the ignorance, and blind prejudice of the common people and the evil influence of modernism and mechanization on people’s lives.  

 

 
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