Hi everyone!
In this video I will tell you 15 things about the Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat, the most famous
20th century Iranian novel. And probably the most misunderstood novel too. These are my own
observations and feelings, so may not be the same as other readers. Let me first confess. It’s dark,
very dark, perhaps the darkest story I have read. But I enjoyed it. In this video I will
tell you why. But I am not endorsing whether you should read it or not. Only you can decide.
First, it is a short novella, only 160 pages or 40,000 words in English. It was written in Farsi,
the dominant language in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan,
but published in India while Sadeq Hedayat was in Mumbai studying old Persian language.
Second, it’s always been associated with suicide. Why? The author gassed himself
in Paris in 1951 at the 48 after years of despair. Also there’s a superstition
that some of its readers have also committed suicide. I don't know if it is true. It was
banned in Iran and many people are too scared to read it, there might be some truth in it.
Third, Sadeq Hedayat was a nationalist and some suggest he was also quite racist towards Arabs.
He blamed Arab Muslims for the fall of the Iranian or Persian civilisation. He also
blamed the Mongols who destroyed Iran in the 13th century. He was part of a movement that wanted to
return to the good old days of pre-Mongol and pre-Islamic Iran. This story is set in Rayy,
a magnificent city that was annihilated by the Mongols. The narrator’s mother was Indian,
perhaps an attempt to link Aryan races.
Fourth, opium is prominent, something the author was apparently addicted to
as well. It creates a different reality. a new way of seeing things. New lenses. New
perspective. It is alternative reality. For example the woman ends up in his bedroom,
he brings some wine but he realises she’s dead. he sleeps with her to revive her with
his own body heat, then he decides to draw her finally after many failed attempts. Then an old
man who laughs a lot with his shoulder shaking, helps him bury her in a ditch inside a suitcase.
Fifth, the writing is beautiful, effortless, flowing, and dreamlike. His description is
so vivid and storytelling draw you in to read more. I think the reason it has
become such a powerful book has to do the way words are weaved together to create a
really profound reading experience. It grabs you. Especially the beginning.
Sixth, two characters dominate the story. The narrator is a painter who is tormented
by a pair of black eyes. Those eyes become the other main character in the story. Perhaps one
could say it is the society that watches him. the people around him. He has to kill
the person attached to those eyes to free himself. Like in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories,
the eyes are the most beautiful as well as the most terrifying part of a human body. Also in
Jean-Paul Sartre’s words that hell is other people. in this book it’s the other people’s
eyes that watch and terrify the narrator. He is never free from those watchful black eyes.
Seventh, shame is central in this novel and repeated a lot. Perhaps he was ashamed of
his culture compared to French culture. The author went to a French school and university
and committed suicide in France, therefore he was aware of the historical Persian empire that
ruled most of the known world, yet now Iran seemed like a small, insignificant pawn in
the 20th century European civilisation. In the story too, his wife, sleeps with other men,
but not him, perhaps he is sexually impotent. In the last scene he is having sex with her while
pretending to be one her regular customer but somehow inserts a knife into her,
suggesting he was unable to perform a proper sexual act therefore ends up killing her.
Eight, your subconscious past includes your people’s past. The narrator eludes to history
and people of thousand years ago. A central scene is when he paints the murdered woman,
many times and only manages to get her right, but later discovers that someone else a thousand
years ago had painted the very same thing on an ancient jar. Most fiction focuses on the
character’s actual past, the day they are born or immediate family’s past, but here the whole
country or civilisation’s past plays a major role in the story. I found this incredibly eye-opening.
Individuality loses its meaning. You carry the historical baggage of those who came before you,
the positives as well as the negatives. Perhaps white privileges is something tangible and real
after all. Those old legacies stays in you, whether you are aware or not.
Ninth, death and life are inseparable, like a con-joined twin. The moment you’re born,
your death is also born with you. It follows you everywhere you go. When time comes,
it liberates you. Life is a sentence, and death frees you from that sentence.
We can understand Hedayat’s feeling as he tried to commit suicide once before. Death
is prominent in the story. It’s another character in the story.
Tenth, death comes before life. In Zoroastrianism, the religion of Iran before Islam, there are two
gods, Ahura Mazda, the good god of wisdom, and Ahriman, the bad god of deceit. Apparently when
these two gods were born, Ahriman came out first. In this novel, it appears that death
existed before life. I found this a new way of looking at life. it might have connection
with Buddhism as Hedayat was drawn to Indian religions so much so that he was a vegetarian.
11th, I had a vague feeling that this book was written by a dead person. The narrator
says that before he dies he wants to write his story, like Marcel Proust. He doesn't
know who he is. A thousand years old or two days old. He suddenly finds himself
to be an old man. He repeatedly says his room a coffin. Wherever he goes,
worms and bees follow him as if he is a carcass. “I am afraid of dying tomorrow , yet still
without knowing myself. I want to introduce myself to my shadow. That’s why I write.”
12th, death is a liberating force in the story. life imprisons him and
death frees him. Also the idea that you cannot escape death,
so why avoid thinking about it. Don't be a baby. It conveys a message that you should
accept death and its presence all the time and enjoy your life. Only death is true,
he tells us. Death rescues him from the lies of life. Life allows us to play different roles,
perhaps none of them is the true self. While death reveals your true identity, no longer able to
rationalise your acts. He kills her when she bites his lip at the end. He wants to end the copulation
but cannot disentangle himself and uses the knife to stop her. to free himself he has to kill.
13th, time is not a good measure of progress. Terrible life is possible
at any time in history. 20th century Iran is a worse place to be than a thousand or
two years ago. Pre-Islamic Iran was a better place to live than the current Iran. Iranian
culture has gone backward so to speak. At one point the narrator tells us that:
“For me, something that happened yesterday might be more ancient, or less effectual,
than an event that took place a thousand years ago.” Linearity of time is not important.
14th Characters are recycled like a low budget movie that hires five people to play
15 characters. The uncle becomes the gravedigger. The wife becomes a muse of his painting, whore,
and an angel. The narrator is a painter in part one and confessor of murder in part two. His
childhood and wife, nanny, uncle, dad are all related. His mother in India.
His wife is his sister. Hedayat openly uses each person to play different characters,
which is perhaps honest about his process of fictional creation.
15th, Reading it is an experience. It’s like you enter the mind of an opium addict,
a romantic painter, a murderer, a dying man or even a death man. All the same person. It
might give you a nightmare but it is like a nightmare that warns you to enjoy life while
it lasts. Despite being a dark novel, it is a life-affirming to me. After finishing it, you
feel you woke up form a bad dream, and perhaps it is time you appreciated life more. For me,
that was the most profound feeling I got. It’s a horror filled story. It is not as morbid as I
thought. The myth of suicide-inducing power of this novella is perhaps exaggerated.
My Overall feeling. Beginning draws you in and in the middle you feel lost and the
ending brings it all together. The voice is comic, dreamy, intoxicated and tragic.
We think of death as distant, unpleasant, ugly. But reading this it feels it is not
that bad. I shouldn't worry too much. Some people might misinterpret this feeling as
suicidal. Not true. It portrays death as something very mundane, natural and almost
beautiful that should be acknowledged and even celebrated. But it doesn't create the feeling,
that ah well I want to die. It liberates you from the fear of death but it doesn't encourage you to
die. It tells you you have nothing you can do, except laugh at it. Thus the terrifying laughter
of death that runs throughout the novel, is always present, so you might as well enjoy your life.