RedWine
09-20-2006, 11:00 AM
Shahrnush Parsipur's novel reveals ongoing tension between rationalism and mysticism, tradition and modernity, male and female, East and West .
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2928/pny5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Excerpt from Touba and the Meaning of Night (2006, The Feminist Press) by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated by Havva Houshmand and Kamran Talattof. From a distinctly Iranian perspective, Touba reveals ongoing tension between rationalism and mysticism, tradition and modernity, male and female, East and West. Speaking in an idiom unique to its author and indicative of a new tradition in Persian women’s writing, the epic also defies Western stereotypes of Iranian Women and Western expectations of Iranian literary form.
Touba and the Meaning of Night, p. 8-14:
During his years at the seminary school, as a teenager and shortly after puberty, Haji Adib had believed that the sky was the husband of the earth. Haji loved the sleeping lady earth in autumn and winter. In the winter, when snow covered everything, he thought of the sleeping lady earth who cradled wakefulness in her sinews until the sudden tremble of thunder and rain in the spring. In autumn--which was the spring of the mystics, according to his father--he would go on long walks to hold communion with the clean, quiet and motionless lady. Without knowing it, he was in love with the earth. He had a feeling of support for her, even though he knew that in the end it would be this same earth's job to take him into her, to disintegrate and to digest him. Still, in his mind Haji supported the earth. His hidden excitement would reach its peak when, in his games of fantasy, he imagined himself higher and grander than the lady earth. There could be no doubt that the eternally motionless lady, half asleep and half awake, needed infinite protection. And yet, how could the lady who was so large, so very large that she was perhaps infinite--how could she have a protector? A grander thing could not be conceived. The bittersweet sadness that filled him at the discovery of his own smallness seemed odd even to him. In those days there had been a vague rumor about the roundness and finiteness of the earth, but his loving feelings for her prevented the young man from believing it. Perhaps this was the reason he had not learned the new sciences. And since he did not discuss these matters with anyone, he was naturally categorized among the scholars of the old school. Coming home from school every day and passing the basement rooms of his parental home, he could hear the women of the family talking, continuously and relentlessly, as they wove their carpets. The sound of their shuttle combs on the looms created a delicate rhythm that accorded with the laws of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Haji was also the protector of these women. There was no grandeur here to frighten him. He thought, "We have our own four walls." And even in the near-infinite grandeur of the lady earth, he felt that his four walls had a place of their own. His parental courtyard had rectangular garden patches and an octagonal pool in the middle. Deep in his mind, he felt that he stood at the center where the pivot housed the wheel, turning the sky dome without cessation.
He remembered the chaos of war in the city of Herat, and the flood of deserters, the hunger, and the inflated food prices. He remembered how he had thought that if only he could spread his body on the earth so it would cover these four walls, if only he could for one second take her with love and aggressiveness, then all wars would end. People would become calm. They would look after their own business, and there would never be famine. And after that loving domination, he would have only to give orders, and the lady would submit. She might give birth, she might not; she might bear fruit, she might not. Whether the sky poured rain or not, everything would be at his command.
When his father died after a long illness, he was left with the responsibility for the many women in the family, those who did their weaving in the basement of the house. They were from the city of Kashan, where weaving was a tradition. His brothers were all in the carpet business, but he had turned to the sciences. Every time he entered the house and announced his arrival by invoking the name of God, the women would run to different corners to cover their hair. Haji enjoyed their imposed silence when he was there, and, without knowing how or why, he cared for their affairs. He would arrange for the girls' marriages and find wives for their sons. In order to take care of everyone's needs he spent his own youth without a wife. Unknowingly, he had married the lady earth. And though he did not confess it, he feared her. He was afraid of her chaotic laws and her famines. At the age of fifty when he finally married his illiterate wife, he actually enjoyed her ignorance and simplicity. A single sharp glance was enough to put the woman in her place, and the turning wheel of life's activity continued.
After the incident of the Englishman, having paced the yard of his home for many long days, Haji Adib finally came to the conclusion that women do eventually lose their innocence. In fact, the lady was never asleep, nor even half asleep. Rather, she was always awake and spinning in frenzy. It was just this turning that caused the seasons to follow one another, floods to occur, and droughts to descend. The rhythmic sound of the shuttle comb on the loom now implied something different. Haji Adib thought about the women, "They can think." Something had been shaken in him again, just as the first time he had seen the globe. Haji Adib thought, "Very well, you know that the earth is round, you knew it very well. But then why so much anxiety?" This knowledge threw him rapidly into depths of thought. In his studies he had read that some of the Greek philosophers had hypothesized the roundness of the earth. He knew that the scientists of the east also had knowledge of this fact. At least, a few of them knew it. Then Galileo had come and proven it. Haji Adib knew all of this, yet he wanted to continue believing in the squareness of the earth.
He sat on the edge of the octagonal pool and leaned his head on his left arm. He needed to understand why he wanted the earth to remain square. Impatiently, he wanted to throw aside any thought of the sleeping lady earth. But the thought would not leave him, spinning in the sphere of his mind.... Who was it who said that slaves were merely tools that spoke? Haji Adib had at last found a thought to keep him from dwelling on the sleeping lady of the earth. Who said it? Perhaps it was a Roman. He raised his eyebrows, but it would not come to him. He could not remember.
Who was it who had said, "Let us shut the books and return to the school of nature?" Again, his memory failed him. What had been the use of all his reading, he thought.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2928/pny5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Excerpt from Touba and the Meaning of Night (2006, The Feminist Press) by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated by Havva Houshmand and Kamran Talattof. From a distinctly Iranian perspective, Touba reveals ongoing tension between rationalism and mysticism, tradition and modernity, male and female, East and West. Speaking in an idiom unique to its author and indicative of a new tradition in Persian women’s writing, the epic also defies Western stereotypes of Iranian Women and Western expectations of Iranian literary form.
Touba and the Meaning of Night, p. 8-14:
During his years at the seminary school, as a teenager and shortly after puberty, Haji Adib had believed that the sky was the husband of the earth. Haji loved the sleeping lady earth in autumn and winter. In the winter, when snow covered everything, he thought of the sleeping lady earth who cradled wakefulness in her sinews until the sudden tremble of thunder and rain in the spring. In autumn--which was the spring of the mystics, according to his father--he would go on long walks to hold communion with the clean, quiet and motionless lady. Without knowing it, he was in love with the earth. He had a feeling of support for her, even though he knew that in the end it would be this same earth's job to take him into her, to disintegrate and to digest him. Still, in his mind Haji supported the earth. His hidden excitement would reach its peak when, in his games of fantasy, he imagined himself higher and grander than the lady earth. There could be no doubt that the eternally motionless lady, half asleep and half awake, needed infinite protection. And yet, how could the lady who was so large, so very large that she was perhaps infinite--how could she have a protector? A grander thing could not be conceived. The bittersweet sadness that filled him at the discovery of his own smallness seemed odd even to him. In those days there had been a vague rumor about the roundness and finiteness of the earth, but his loving feelings for her prevented the young man from believing it. Perhaps this was the reason he had not learned the new sciences. And since he did not discuss these matters with anyone, he was naturally categorized among the scholars of the old school. Coming home from school every day and passing the basement rooms of his parental home, he could hear the women of the family talking, continuously and relentlessly, as they wove their carpets. The sound of their shuttle combs on the looms created a delicate rhythm that accorded with the laws of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Haji was also the protector of these women. There was no grandeur here to frighten him. He thought, "We have our own four walls." And even in the near-infinite grandeur of the lady earth, he felt that his four walls had a place of their own. His parental courtyard had rectangular garden patches and an octagonal pool in the middle. Deep in his mind, he felt that he stood at the center where the pivot housed the wheel, turning the sky dome without cessation.
He remembered the chaos of war in the city of Herat, and the flood of deserters, the hunger, and the inflated food prices. He remembered how he had thought that if only he could spread his body on the earth so it would cover these four walls, if only he could for one second take her with love and aggressiveness, then all wars would end. People would become calm. They would look after their own business, and there would never be famine. And after that loving domination, he would have only to give orders, and the lady would submit. She might give birth, she might not; she might bear fruit, she might not. Whether the sky poured rain or not, everything would be at his command.
When his father died after a long illness, he was left with the responsibility for the many women in the family, those who did their weaving in the basement of the house. They were from the city of Kashan, where weaving was a tradition. His brothers were all in the carpet business, but he had turned to the sciences. Every time he entered the house and announced his arrival by invoking the name of God, the women would run to different corners to cover their hair. Haji enjoyed their imposed silence when he was there, and, without knowing how or why, he cared for their affairs. He would arrange for the girls' marriages and find wives for their sons. In order to take care of everyone's needs he spent his own youth without a wife. Unknowingly, he had married the lady earth. And though he did not confess it, he feared her. He was afraid of her chaotic laws and her famines. At the age of fifty when he finally married his illiterate wife, he actually enjoyed her ignorance and simplicity. A single sharp glance was enough to put the woman in her place, and the turning wheel of life's activity continued.
After the incident of the Englishman, having paced the yard of his home for many long days, Haji Adib finally came to the conclusion that women do eventually lose their innocence. In fact, the lady was never asleep, nor even half asleep. Rather, she was always awake and spinning in frenzy. It was just this turning that caused the seasons to follow one another, floods to occur, and droughts to descend. The rhythmic sound of the shuttle comb on the loom now implied something different. Haji Adib thought about the women, "They can think." Something had been shaken in him again, just as the first time he had seen the globe. Haji Adib thought, "Very well, you know that the earth is round, you knew it very well. But then why so much anxiety?" This knowledge threw him rapidly into depths of thought. In his studies he had read that some of the Greek philosophers had hypothesized the roundness of the earth. He knew that the scientists of the east also had knowledge of this fact. At least, a few of them knew it. Then Galileo had come and proven it. Haji Adib knew all of this, yet he wanted to continue believing in the squareness of the earth.
He sat on the edge of the octagonal pool and leaned his head on his left arm. He needed to understand why he wanted the earth to remain square. Impatiently, he wanted to throw aside any thought of the sleeping lady earth. But the thought would not leave him, spinning in the sphere of his mind.... Who was it who said that slaves were merely tools that spoke? Haji Adib had at last found a thought to keep him from dwelling on the sleeping lady of the earth. Who said it? Perhaps it was a Roman. He raised his eyebrows, but it would not come to him. He could not remember.
Who was it who had said, "Let us shut the books and return to the school of nature?" Again, his memory failed him. What had been the use of all his reading, he thought.