Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
In 2015 I wrote in the preamble to this republished post, ‘I will come back to an attempt to capture my own enthralled response to this captivating darkly entrancing novel at some point, I hope.’ It looks as though I may be a step closer to just that as I will soon be revisiting the life and poetry of Táhirih and will be trying to compare it against the work of a poet priest of more modern times.
I have just finished reading Bahiyyih Nakhjavani’s masterpiece – The Woman Who Read Too Much. I couldn’t at first work out what her brilliant structuring of the narrative reminded me of, then I suddenly remembered: Robert Browning’s monumental masterpiece – The Ring & the Book. At the centre of this work too is another woman who is murdered, the victim of male pride and a man’s warped sense of honour. The narrative is constructed around the speeches of different people who experienced the events from different angles. Loucks and Stauffer write (in Robert Browning’s Poetry, Norton Critical Edition – 2007 – pages 314-315):
To embody his theme of the relation of truth to human perspective and belief, Browning daringly chose to tell his “Roman murder story” ten times over from as many distinct points of view. The risk of boredom through repetition was minimised by having each character emphasise, suppress, and distort various elements of the case according to his own interests and motives. . . . . [After the verdict of Guido’s guilt is delivered] Browning adds another monologue, in many ways the most remarkable of the ten: Guido speaks a second time, now as a desperate condemned man who discovers belatedly his true identity as a naturally amoral being and the full extent of his loathing for the vapid purity he sees in Pompilia . . . . .
This colossal aggregation of dramatic monologues – each of major length – is a tour de force, one of the boldest literary experiments ever undertaken. It is one that could easily have failed, had it not been for Browning’s deft, inventive treatment, his use, for example, of devices from the epic, the novel, and the drama. Instead of mere talk about the events, there is vivid portrayal, with gesture and dialogue.
This could be a description of the way Nakhjavani shifts adroitly across four different women’s perspectives, as well as across many different points in time, in her account of the days and decades surrounding Tahirih’s death, if we include the important addition of her massive infusion of the spirit of poetry, something that went without saying in Browning’s case.
I will come back to an attempt to capture my own enthralled response to this captivating darkly entrancing novel at some point, I hope, but I feel that Alberto Manguel‘s review in the Guardian does a better job than I could right now as I am still reeling from the power of the narrative. Below is a brief extract: for the full post, see link.
Set down in human language, divine revelation has spawned thousands of exegeses, glosses and interpretations, each demanding to be read as the only true one. Centuries of reformations and counter-reformations, heresies and schisms, crusades and intifadas, and overall bloodshed have been the consequence of differing interpretations of a certain grammatical construction or an obscure metaphor.
Islam tells us that just over 14 centuries ago, God decided to dictate his word to a shepherd chosen as the Last Prophet. From that date on, the faithful have debated its meaning, choosing sides that in turn split to declare that theirs, and no other, is the true reading. Religious faith entails an unreasonable faith in the exactitude of language.
Early in the 19th century, in Persia, a holy man known as the Bahá’u’lláh became convinced that the true reading of God’s word revealed that humanity shared a common spiritual source, and he declared that all races and cultures were equally worthy of consideration. Accused of promoting dangerous heretical ideas, the Bahá’u’lláh was exiled from Persia and died in an Ottoman prison, but the tenets of his faith survive today among more than five million Bahá’í followers.
As if to prove that no theological pronouncement is ever definitive, around 1840 a young Persian poet, Fatimah Baraghani, known as Táhirih (“The Pure One”) and Qurratu l-’Ayn (“Consolation of the Eyes”), proposed a further radical reading of God’s word . . . . . Considered a heretic by the Persian clergy, Táhirih was placed under house arrest and was executed in August 1852. She was 38.
Táhirih’s religious inspiration, poetic genius, philosophical acumen and physical beauty might seem an appropriate subject for hagiography: either a manaqib (the account of a holy person’s merits and miracles) or a fadail (a discussion of her virtuous qualities). Less interested in theology than in literature, Bahiyyih Nakhjavani has chosen to construct, around the figure of Táhirih, a complex fragmented portrait that brings to literary life not only the remarkable personality of someone little known in the west, but also the convoluted Persia of the 19th century, treacherous and bloodthirsty. Under the rule of a weak and capricious shah, traitors and greedy politicians, grand viziers and ambitious mayors, intransigent mullahs and common folk rise and fall at a vertiginous rate. It is, of course, a male society in which women have found ways to manipulate policies and influence the course of events, but from the shadows of the anderoun, the women’s section of the palace. In this, Táhirih stands almost alone as “the Woman Who Read Too Much”, her acquired art granting her access to knowledge and her knowledge the courage to speak. Táhirih marvellously exemplifies the power of the reader, and the fear this power elicits in those placed in positions of authority.
Everybody Means Something 