My Father's Notebook
A Review by Karima Alavi
I first heard of Iranian author, Kader Abdolah, while visiting relatives in Belgium. They raved about his book, “The House of the Mosque” and suggested that my husband and I read it. Since it has not been translated from the original Dutch into English, I had to take my husband’s word for it, when he said that I need to read this man’s work. The author’s real name is Hossein Farahani, but he uses this pen name to honor two friends who were executed in Iran. Like the narrator of “My Father’s Notebook,” Kader Abdolah studied physics in Iran and joined the leftist student movement, first against the shah, then against the Khomeini regime. Because I just finished a novel manuscript based upon my experience of living in Iran during the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution, I felt particularly drawn to “My Father’s Notebook.”
One of the goals in writing my novel, “In the Shadow of the Tombs” is to humanize Iranians in the eyes of outsiders, particularly those who have fallen into the trap of labeling Iranians as members of the so-called “Axis of Evil.” Frankly, I’m frightened by the fact that we have, in a short span of a couple of weeks, taken a 180-degee turn around, wherein the formerly reviled Iranians are now being held forth as brave defenders of human rights. The power of the media has once again been demonstrated. But anyone who looks closely at the history of modern Iran will see that those people have been dying on their streets for the sake of freedom during much of the twentieth century, beginning with the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. They’ve always been fighters. Let’s not forget, these are the folks who overthrew one of the Middle East’s most militarized rulers, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, through the use of rocks, Molotov Cocktails, and religious conviction.
It’s this whole concept of humanizing the “evil other” that Kader Abdolah does brilliantly. The story follows the closely intertwined lives of Aga Akbar, a deaf-mute villager, and his son, Ismael, a character whose life seems to be loosely based on that of the author. Their fictional town of Saffron Village becomes an important part of Iran’s history for two reasons: the stern ruler, Reza Shah, decides to build a railroad through Saffron Mountain, thereby dragging the region into the twentieth century, and secondly, up in Saffron Mountain is a well—an important well. This is the place, villagers believe, where the Mahdi resides, deep beneath the earth, reading a book by lamplight. People like Aga Akbar await the day when this messianic religious figure will return from his centuries-long occultation to rid the earth of injustice.
Even with that set-up, this is more than a story of modern-world-encroaches-upon-traditional world. Between the time when Reza Shah horrifies the “ignorant” villagers by sealing the well with cement, and the day when Ayatollah Khomeini himself arrives for the re-opening, the reader has fallen in love with the humble, somewhat bumbling character of Aga Akbar and his dedicated, yet frustrated son, Ishmael. When political events beyond their control shatter the family, separating them through imprisonment and exile, it becomes impossible for the reader to associate these lovable characters with the recent “Axis of Evil” psycho-babble that spewed from our televisions during the Bush administration. Hopefully, we’ll think twice now before labeling others based upon the behavior of their government, keeping in mind that, until recently, we’ve been in one heck of a precarious position ourselves when it comes to labeling. In the case of the Iranians, that sort of absurdist name-calling adds another layer of pain onto a people who have already suffered through revolutions, brutal regimes, and a major war with their neighbor, Iraq. In fact, I have a suggestion: search the web and try to find one photo of Kader Abdolah in which his eyes don’t speak to you of sorrow. You don’t need to understand the Dutch language to get the point; his face is the point.
Karima Alavi is seeking an agent for her recently completed novel while working on her “Blogistan” where she’s posting 30-year-old letters and photos from her stay in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. You can read them at karimadianealaviblog.com.