Iraj Pezeshkzad (1928 in Tehran - 12 January 2022 in Los Angeles) was an Iranian writer and author of the famous Persian novel "D膩'i J膩n Napoleon" (丿丕蹖蹖 噩丕賳 賳丕倬賱卅賵賳) (Uncle Napoleon, translated as "My Uncle Napoleon") published in the early 1970s.
Iraj Pezeshkzad was educated in Iran and France where he received his degree in Law. He served as a judge in the Iranian Judiciary for five years prior to joining the Iranian Foreign Service. He began writing in the early 1950s by translating the works of Voltaire and Moli猫re into Persian and by writing short stories for magazines. His novels include "Haji Mam-ja'far in Paris", and "Mashalah Khan in the Court of Haroun al-Rashid". He has also written several plays and various articles on the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution. He is currently living in Paris where he works as a journalist. (from )
丿丕蹖蹖 噩丕賳 賳丕倬賱卅賵賳 = Da'i-i jan Napuli'un = My Uncle Napoleon, Iraj Pezeshkzad
My Uncle Napoleon (Dear Uncle Napoleon) is a coming of age novel by Iranian author Iraj Pezeshkzad published in Tehran in Persian in 1973.
The novel was adapted to a highly successful TV series in 1976 directed by Nasser Taghvai. The novel has been translated by Dick Davis into English.
The story takes place at the time of Iran's occupation by the Allied Forces during World War II. Most of the plot occurs in the narrator's home, a huge early 20th-century-style Iranian mansion in which three wealthy families live under the tyranny of a paranoid patriarch Uncle.
The Uncle鈥攚ho in reality is a retired low-level officer from the Persian Cossack Brigade under Colonel Vladimir Liakhov's command鈥攃laims, and in latter stages of the story actually believes that he and his butler Mash Qasem were involved in wars against the British Empire and their lackeys such as Khodadad Khan, as well as battles supporting the Iranian Constitutional Revolution; and that with the occupation of Iran by the Allied Forces, the English are now on course to take revenge on him.
The story's narrator (nameless in the novel but called Saeed in the TV series) is a high school student in love with his cousin Layli who is Dear Uncle's daughter.
The story revolves around the narrator's struggles to stall Layli's pre-arranged marriage to her cousin Puri, while the narrator's father and Dear Uncle plot various mischiefs against each other to settle past family feuds.
A multitude of supporting characters, including police investigators, government officials, housewives, a medical doctor, a butcher, a sycophantic preacher, servants, a shoeshine man, and an Indian or two provide various entertaining sequences throughout the development of the story.
鈥忊€€€€璏y uncle Napoleon鈥�, 鈥巃 novel by Iraj Pezeshkzad鈥€忊€€€€�; translated from the Persian by Dick Davis. Washington D.C鈥�.鈥忊€€€€�: 鈥嶮age Publishers鈥€忊€€€�, 1996, In 507 Pages.
鈥漁nce upon a time I was like you, too...very sensitive...very melancholy...but time changed me...a person鈥檚 body is formed in the workshop of his mother鈥檚 body, but a person鈥檚 soul in the workshop of the world.鈥�
Our unnamed narrator is a teenage boy who finds himself pulled in all directions by his own burgeoning feelings of love, the squabbles of his extended family, and the generally confusing advice he gets from everyone he knows. He knows one thing for sure, that he loves his cousin Layli, and if he can鈥檛 have her for his own, he will just have to kill himself.
The drama of young love, so easy to believe that it is all consuming.
His main obstacle turns out to be his own father, not for the traditional reason that his father doesn鈥檛 feel the girl is a good match or the family is not good enough, but because his father has embroiled himself in a personal vendetta to take Layli鈥檚 father down a peg or two.
Revenge, as they say, is best served cold, but our narrator鈥檚 father is too clever, too ambitious, too impulsive to let the slights against his character remain unchallenged. The Dear Uncle Napoleon is the patriarch of the family. None of his brothers and sisters have moved very far away; in fact, they all live around the same garden and courtyard. Anything that happens to any of them is quickly known by all.
They are all obsessed with one another鈥檚 business.
Dear Uncle Napoleon fought in the war, and his stories and his memories about his exploits have grown from minnows to whales. It isn鈥檛 completely his fault; his manservant, Mash Qasem, over the years has inserted himself into his master鈥檚 memories of the war and continues to add his own fabrications to the odes of war.
Dear Uncle Napoleon has always been an admirer of Napoleon. Fortunately, his delusions about himself have not expanded to the point that he believes that he actually is Napoleon, although as the plot unfolds it becomes touch and go as to whether his mind will remain tethered by slender strands to the truth or whether he will completely be taken over by his own delusions. Not helping the situation is that the British have invaded Iran (the book is set during WWII), and he is convinced that they will arrest and execute him for his daring feats against them in the past war.
The narrator鈥檚 father has a fine time playing on those fears.
There is another cousin, Puri, a horse faced young man scared of guns and women in equal measure, whom Dear Uncle has promised will be married to the beautiful Layli.
OH NO!!!
Uncle Asadollah Mirza, who happens to be my favorite character in the book, is a philandering admirer of widows and wives. He is one of many who have known the charms of Tahereh. 鈥滻 became aware of a twinkle in Asadollah Mirza鈥檚 eye. When I looked in the direction he was looking I saw in the dimly lit porchway the beautiful glittering eyes of Tahereh.鈥� She is not only beautiful but frequently available. A man can easily find himself in her arms despite the fact that her husband, Shir Ali the Butcher, has killed two men by cleaving them in two and beat up several others who dared to try and woo his wife. 鈥漇hir Ali, the local butcher, was a horrifying man. He was well over six feet tall; his whole body, from head to toe, was covered in tattoos, and there were numerous knife scars visible on his head. His character and temperament fitted his terrifying body exactly.鈥�
Asadollah Mirza is a lover not a fighter. Lust is a sacred feeling for him and must not be ignored. Luckily for him, Shir Ali has found religion and has set aside his cleaver for a leg of mutton as his weapon of vengeance. Asadollah wouldn鈥檛 survive his neck cleaved in two, but he might survive a broken skull.
In his mind, as well as the minds of many other men, the allure of Tahereh is worth the risk.
So our Narrator, without other resources for advice, turns to Asadollah who tells him the same thing over and over that he must take Layli to San Francisco. Somewhere along the line the family has seen the movie San Francisco (1936), starring Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald. The starlet has become the symbol in their minds, representing sexual allurement, and taking someone to San Francisco is a euphemism for matching the stem with the flower petals (I guess describing a euphemism with another euphemism isn鈥檛 exactly a definition, but if you haven鈥檛 figured out what I鈥檓 referring to you might identify perfectly fine with our naive Narrator.).
By making love to Layli, our hapless Narrator will force the hand of the Dear Uncle, and he will have to let them marry or face potentially embarrassing the family with a pregnancy out of wedlock. The plot, of course, must take a different turn.
The police are frequently called to the family compound for anything from potential murder to a missing watch. The police add even more humor to a humorous novel. Their interrogation methods are basically to keep their suspects from thinking too much. 鈥漎our answer? Quick, now, immediately, at the double!鈥� This leads to some hilarious answers that lead to more and more trouble for the family.
Mash Qasem begins every statement with: 鈥漌hy should I lie?鈥� which makes everyone distrust what he is about to say even more. He isn鈥檛 alone; all the characters seem quite comfortable with swearing on everything holy that they are not lying when they are most assuredly telling incredible whoppers.
Everyone is trying to manipulate everyone else. Problems are exasperated by more and more meddling. Those too clever prove too stupid. Those too stupid prove to be too clever. All the characters seem to have too much time on their hands. The plot is like trying to watch three events simultaneously at a circus. It is truly an amazing book and considered by many to be the masterpiece of Persian literature. I haven鈥檛 read enough literature from Iran to make that judgment, but I will certainly agree that it is a wonderful book full of contradictions as to how I perceived Iran. There is rampant adultery, the consuming of vast quantities of alcohol, and the breaking of many Islamic commandments. All of which contribute to several scenes that made me laugh out loud. I think Iraj Pezeshkzad was poking fun at the conservative veneer that exists over the entire nation. Certainly, it is exaggerated for comedic effect.
The book was banned at one time in Iran. Pezeshkzad lives in France due to the fact that he was too politically active in the 1970s to live comfortably in the country of his birth. The book was made into a very popular TV series. There are few people in Iran who haven鈥檛 met Mash Qasem, Asadollah Mirza, or Dear Uncle Napoleon, either through their TV sets or coming to life in their minds through the printed pages of possibly a black market copy of the book. Iranians are discouraged to read the book, but I will say I for one encourage not only Iranians, but people of all countries to read this marvelous addition to literature. These characters will imprint themselves on you, and for most everyone they will recognize someone in their own family who could have been a member of this cast. I want to thank my friend E____ who recommended this book to me. E____, may you someday experience the same freedoms in your country that I do in mine.
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