Iraj Pezeshkzad as a Social Critic: A Look at the Satirical Aspects of My Uncle Napoleon and Āsimūn Rīsmūn

Iraj Pezeshkzad as a Social Critic: A Look at the Satirical Aspects of My Uncle Napoleon and Āsimūn Rīsmūn

M. R. Ghanoonparvar

Arguably the most sophisticated Persian satirist of the 20^th century, Iraj Pezeshkzad (1928-2022) occupies a unique position among modernist Persian writers for his talent as a literary artist and a humorist social critic.^[1] Among post-World War II Persian works of fiction, few novels can be found that have been able to attract the attention of the Iranian public, that is, both the educated, including the smaller percentage who read books, as well as everyday people and even the illiterate, than Pezeshkzad’s Da’i Jan Napelon (translated into English as My Uncle Napoleon).^[2] The illiterate, of course, throughout Iran became fans of the story, since a few years after its publication it was made into a most successful television serial directed by the well-known movie director, Naser Taqva’i.^[3]

Perhaps the Persian phrase around which Pezeshkzad’s novel revolves and with which several generations of Iranians were familiar is “zīr-i sar-i īngīlīsīhāst” (“It is a British conspiracy”). With that phrase, many Iranians blamed the British for every true or untrue ill event, whether social, political, or even personal. Regarding the social and political roots of such a belief, much has been written, both in connection with this novel by literary critics and in other contexts by social and political historians, which is beyond the scope of this discussion.^[4] Of interest here is how Pezeshkzad, by creating the character of Uncle Napoleon, casts a critical glance at Iranian society through a satirical lens; paints a picture of the cultural and social climate of a particular era of Iranian history; contemplates the words, actions, lifestyle, and beliefs of his compatriots; and makes other Iranian readers ponder and wonder.^[5]

Satirically, and through the eyes of his protagonist, in My Uncle Napoleon, Pezeshkzad presents a black-and-white world in which the Self is presented as good, and even when an evil Other does not exist, at times, the Self fabricates the evil Other.

The locale of My Uncle Napoleon is Tehran, and the timespan is just before World War II and during the Allied occupation of Iran in the early 1940s. For the most part, the characters are members of an extended aristocratic family, who live in a compound of several houses and surrounding gardens. Uncle Napoleon is the patriarch of the family, who is held in respect and some degree of awe by the other members; but at the same time, privately, they shun his somewhat autocratic attitude, and his Anglophobia in particular, which they find laughable, often evoking subdued giggles. In fact, Uncle Napoleon’s boundless admiration for and obsession with the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte have been the source of his nickname, which the children have given him among themselves. This admiration and obsession is such that he had ordered his other family members to read every book they could find about him; and he quotes and even fabricates quotes from Napoleon, and tries to copy him in everything he does. His obsession with Napoleon, however, is the direct result of his adversity to the British, whose hands he sees in every deed and misdeed and happening and mishap within or outside his family and compound.

Claiming that he had fought and defeated the British in his younger days, Uncle Napoleon seems possessed by his fear of the British, and he is certain that the British have been biding their time for a suitable opportunity to avenge their defeat at his hands. At various times, he becomes suspicious of some members of the family and thinks that they are British spies. On one such occasion, accusing his devoted servant, Mash Qāsem, of being a British spy, Uncle Napoleon arms himself with a rifle and tries to kill Mash Qāsem. Interestingly, the servant is so consumed by his master’s phobia of the British that he even confesses that he has become a British spy unbeknownst to himself with the assignment of killing his master.^[6]

Pezeshkzad’s portrayal of all his characters, but particularly that of Uncle Napoleon, is rather complex, since it kindles comic sympathy for someone with a familiar political obsession, thereby subtly creating a distance between his reader, who may recognize aspects of Uncle Napoleon in themselves, and that character’s Anglophobia. This is also true of his portrayal of other characters, such as Asadollah Mirza, a naughty diplomat whose constant jokes are coloured with sexual innuendos; Shamsali Mirza, a former examining magistrate who is a strong advocate of interrogations in all cases; Dustali Khan, the bungling brother-in-law of Uncle Napoleon whose incompetence is the butt of the family’s jokes; Dr. Nasrolhokama, an old physician who seems to know next to nothing about medicine; Shirali, a roughneck butcher who defends his cheating wife’s honor; and Mash Qāsem, a country bumpkin whose character and language are a mixture of his childhood and an imitation of the language and character of his master, all of whom are to a great extent caricatures of people in the Iranian society of a certain class and specific era.

Even though through his humor in this novel Pezeshkzad tries to gently alert his compatriots of their certain prejudicial attitudes and beliefs, in many instances, especially when they watched the television serial of the novel, they found reaffirmation of their beliefs, for instance, regarding the British. Still pervasive among certain groups of Iranians, in recent decades, even Iranian government officials still see British hands behind many incidents. For example, according to Azar Nafisi in her review of My Uncle Napoleon, after the bombings in London in July 2000, “the powerful Iranian cleric Ahmad Janati, chair of the Council of Guardians of the Revolution, claimed in a nationally broadcast sermon that ‘the British government itself created this situation.’”^[7]

Perhaps the most important secret to the success of My Uncle Napoleon is due to its author’s mastery of satire. In general, satire refers to a literary or other work of art which uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize human or individual vices, follies, or shortcomings. Satire is a genre which, despite its long history in Persian literature, has been rather rare in much of modern Persian fiction.^[8] This novel, however, is not the first work in which Pezeshkzad experiments with humor and satirical writing. In a series of weekly writings that were originally published in Ferdowsi magazine from 1955 to 1960 and were first published in 1963 in book form as Āsimūn rīsmūn (Balderdash),^[9] he had already honed his skills and displayed his talent in this genre. Āsimūn rīsmūn is perhaps Pezeshkzad’s most representative work, since it exemplifies his sophisticated satirical approach to social issues and in particular to what he calls the “amazing chaos that governed the press and publication of books and journals” in the mid-1950s.^[10] In his prefatory remarks to the fourth edition of the book, which was published in the United States in 1997, Pezeshkzad describes that period as a time when “the customs inspector and the neighborhood herbalist wrote medical books and presented Pasteur, one of the greatest people to serve humanity, as the enemy of mankind and even a thief,” or a writer would attack Sa’di “for having said that humans are all parts of the same body, and would not only advocate racial discrimination, but would even regard the innocent rabbit as deserving torture and punishment because it is not Aryan.”^[11]

Pezeshkzad’s satire is precisely so effective and biting because he often merely quotes from the works of his victims without any additional commentary, and simply recommends to his readers to take advantage of the teachings of a “learned” author by reading their book. From the author referred to earlier, Pezeshkzad quotes: “The rabbit is not an Aryan creature. For this reason, it is a coward, even if it lives in Germany. But the animal about whose Aryan origin there is no doubt is the lion. The lion in Africa is a German in exile.”^[12] For the Iranian reader in the 1950s to early 1960s, when these satirical pieces appeared first in a magazine and later as a book, the obvious humor was due to the continued sympathy of some Iranians toward Germany as a result of the Nazi Aryan racist supremacist propaganda before and during WWII, which declared some Europeans as well as Iranians as members of that race. This was of course also due to growing Iranian nationalism, which stemmed from old animosity toward England.

One of the effective and clever devices that Pezeshkzad utilizes to soften the blow of the satirical attacks on his victims, who include some of the best-known literary and political figures of his day, is the creation of a fictional editorial board, which he calls the “adjunct members of the Supreme Council of Āsimūn rīsmūn.” These include: A. P. Ashna, Managing Director; His Learned Eminence, Mr. Seyyed Abu Taleb Khan; Eminent Professor Directeur Mammad Khan; Super Master Professor Eslam Khan; and student, Azizollah Khan. The use of these characters helps make his satirical remarks less direct and less personal, especially at times when, contrary to Iranian traditional respect for poets, writers, scholars, and other well-known and prominent people, as Pezeshkzad puts it, if one opened “any magazine or newspaper, one would see at least one column of attack against some poor creature or a group of poor creatures of God.”^[13]

The charm of Pezeshkzad’s humor is due to a great extent to his mastery of the Persian language and his knowledge of various Persian and non-Persian sources and genres.^[14] His parodies of the works of well-known poets are indicative of his facility with traditional Persian verse, which he spices with colloquial and non-poetic expressions, somewhat reminiscent of the poetry of Iraj Mirza.

Here is an example, with the necessary background context, of his facility with parodying traditional verse, in which he first cites a poem in free verse by a contemporary poet and then produces the same poem in traditional metered and rhymed verse (which of course cannot be accurately duplicated here in translation).

New, Second Hand, and Old Section

Since we are approaching time for the exams of our honorable student consultant, Azizollah Khan, and our duty as his friends dictates that we exercise more care with regard to his education, this week we have assigned him more arduous homework.

Composition Homework: Convert the following New Poem, “Gift,” composed by contemporary poet Mr. Mahmud Kianush, which was published in the literary monthly Sadaf, on the basis of the meter of the poetry of either Abu Abbas Marvazi or Hakim Feyzi-Dakani, making certain not to leave out any word or content.

Gift

A cluster of jasmine petals

A cluster of green stars of dreams;

A cluster of the pure smile of springs

In the playfulness of the breeze

and the dance of the moonlight

and the caress of silence;

*

A fresh red cluster

Pleasant and green,

Laughing and white.

A cluster of all colors

And all scents.

*

A cluster so that I plant it

Among three neighbors:

Among night

The sun

Snow

Vapors of ebony

The aroma of fire

The nectar of pearl

Earrings for your ears

Grafted to your name.

I do not know,

I only search for a gift,

A gift for you

Small

Truthful

Worthy

M. K.

December 1958

Student’s name: Azizollah Khan

Gift

A cluster of jasmine petals and stars all in a cluster

Green stars of dreams followed by a semicolon to muster

A cluster of the pure smile of springs in the playfulness of the breeze

The dance of the moonlight and caresses of silence all to seize

A fresh red, green and pleasant and white

A cluster of aromas like sweetroot, colors and delight

Among these three neighbors, night, the sun, and snow

I want a cluster to plant like a spearhead all aglow

In the vapors of ebony, nectar of pearl, and aromas unfurled

Earrings for your ears with the name Grafted to the World

I do not know, but I am searching constantly adrift

Small and truthful, I seek to bring you as a gift

Worthy

(With apologies to the honorable examining committee, no matter how your humble servant tried, one word, “worthy,” has remained unable to be used.)

Student Azizollah Khan was given oral commendations for fitting the words and content precisely; however, because of utilizing certain similes such as sweetroot, which are frowned upon in New Poetry, in addition to his being unable to include the word “worthy,” which is the most pleasing word in the entire poem, he was issued a written reprimand.

*

Pezeshkzad also makes extensive use of dramatic format, the themes of which are adapted from famous poems or popular books published at the time. The caricature-like characters with their particular idiosyncrasies that Pezeshkzad creates in these short plays and their interaction presented in intricate dialogues are obviously a precursor to his novel, My Uncle Napoleon.

The targets of Pezeshkzad’s satire include many self-promoting authors, some of whom claim to have written a hundred books by the age of forty^[15] or discovered the cure to every disease known to man,^[16] or poets who think that if their divan had not been published, “there would be no poetry.”^[17]

Given the popularity of Pezeshkzad’s column in Ferdowsi as a magazine with relatively high circulation, his satirical treatment of the works of these authors sometimes provoked reactions from them, which would provide even more ammunition for the satirist. Regarding the more serious authors, Pezeshkzad reports in the introduction to the American edition that the famous scholar and poet Parviz Natel Khanlari and the poets Nader Naderpur and Forugh Farrokhzad “would tolerate the mild and almost painless sting Āsimūn Rīsmūn” and Khanlari would especially ask Pezeshkzad to read the piece about him aloud, to which he would respond with a “pleasant smile.” On the other hand, he mentions the novelist Mohammad Hejazi and the poet Ahmad Shamlu as among those who had less tolerance for his witty reviews of their works.^[18]

Among the well-known Persian fiction writers, Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Sadeq Hedayat, and Mahshid Amirshahi devoted some of their work to satire, while other less-known writers, such as Khosrow Shahani, devoted most of their writing to this genre. Perhaps the stifling social and political atmosphere in the country was not conducive to more works in this genre, and satire was not taken as seriously as it had been in the previous centuries. In the over four decades since the Islamic Revolution and the establishment of a theocratic regime in Iran, however, under the often austere social, political, cultural, and religious climate that has governed the country, some talented voices have emerged whose works appear in newspapers, magazines, and books. Government censorship, of course, is even more restrictive when it comes to the humorous treatment of personalities and actions of individuals in power who insist on being taken more seriously than satirists do. But, like their predecessors, these younger writers and artists have also found ways to circumvent the censors, even though they have been caught at times and jailed because of their sense of humor. Among the most notable younger satirists in Iran is Ebrahim Nabavi, who has distinguished himself with his writing in several newspapers and magazines.^[19] In terms of style, use of language, use of satirical devices, and tone, Nabavi’s works, similar to those of many others, owe much to the pioneering work of Pezeshkzad, especially his sketches in Āsimūn Rīsmūn.

All translations from Persian in this article are my own.

R. Ghanoonparvar is Professor Emeritus of Persian and Comparative Literature at The University of Texas at Austin. He has published widely on Persian literature and culture in both English and Persian. His latest books are From Prophets of Doom to Chroniclers of Gloom (Mazda, 2021) and Iranian Cities in Persian Fiction (Mazda, 2022). His forthcoming book is “Disease, Dying and Death in Persian Stories.”

[1] This article is an amalgamation of several pieces published previously in different forms, including my review of the English translation of Pezeshkzad’s Dā’i Jān Napelon by Dick Davis in Iran Nameh, vol. XIV, no. 4 (Fall 1996): 669-672; M. R. Ghanoonparvar, In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), 61-63; and my review of Iraj Pezeshkzad, Asemun Rismun in Iranian Studies, vol. 32, no. 4 (Fall 1999): 590-592.

[2] Iraj Pezeshkzad, Da’i Jan Napelon, (Tehran: Safialishah Publishers, 1970). For the English translation of this novel, see Iraj Pezeshkzad, My Uncle Napoleon, trans. Dick Davis (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 1976).

[3] For instance see Dick Davis’ “Preface” to his English translation of My Uncle Napoleon (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 1996), p. 7.

[4] See for example Masha’allah Ajudani, Mashrūṭah-i Īrānī [Iranian Constitution] (Tehran: Akhtaran Publishers, 2003). For examples of literary works on this topic, see Simin Daneshvar, Savushun, trans. by M. R. Ghanoonparvar (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 1989) and Mohammad Hoseyn Roknzadeh-Adamiyyat, Dalīrān-i Tangistānī, 7^th ed. (Tehran: Eqbal Publishers, 1975).

[5] See Katouzian, Davis, and Shabani-Jadid and Higgins in this issue.

[6] For more on this point, see Homa Katouzian, “My Uncle Napoleon and Iranian Anglophobia” in this issue.

[7] Azar Nafisi, “The Secret Garden.” The Guardian. 13 May 2006. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/may/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview26

[8] For an examination and examples of satire in classical and modern Persian literature, see Hasan Javadi, Satire in Persian Literature (London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1988) and Homa Katouzian, “Satire in Persian Literature,” in A History of Persian Literature XI: Literature of the Early Twentieth Century From the Constitutional Period to Reza Shah, ed. Ali-Asghar Seyyed-Gohrab (London: I.B. Taurus, 2015), 161-239.

[9] Iraj Pezeshkzad, Asemun Rismun, 12^th printing (Bethesda, MD: Iranbooks, 1997).

[10] Pezeshkzad, Āsimūn rīsmūn, v.

[11] Pezeshkzad.

[12] Pezeshkzad, 36.

[13] Pezeshkzad, 1.

[14] See Davis in this issue.

[15] Pezeshkzad, Āsimūn rīsmūn, 141.

[16] Pezeshkzad, 226-234.

[17] Pezeshkzad, 66.

[18] Pezeshkzad, vi.

[19] For information on Ebrahim Nabavi’s background as a writer, satirist, and political activist see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebrahim_Nabavi