The Blind Owl is one of my all-time favourite fiction books. I often talk about that book in the same sentence as the sufferings of young werther or the devil in the flesh by Raymond Radiguet. The latter died very young and similar to Goethe’s classics, the blind owl apparently has over the years led to suicide also. The blind owl was such a surreal, gripping and in places quite frightening book that I knew that I would love reading this book which is an in depth study into the life and times of the author, Hedayat. In many ways the blind owl, his seminal piece of writing (no clue what seminal means but everyone uses that friggin phrase! :) is not meant to be read but felt as you read it. This book about the author gives you a lot of insight and background into Hedayat the troubled soul himself. He died in 1951 at the age of about 48. He had already tried to commit suicide in France at the age of around 25 by jumping into a river but was tragi-comically spotted and eventually saved by a couple apparently making love on a boat under the bridge from which he had jumped. He then showed the usual signs of misunderstood genius; didn’t finish his education, went from one institution in Tehran to another in Paris where he fulfilled mainly sinecure-type roles and wrote quite a lot of other pieces of literature which were recognised on the whole, posthumously only. The book talks a lot about his other works which were of varying sizes; a lot of these I hadn’t heard of and I’m not sure you can get a translation in English which is a shame as some of them sounded really interesting. There is a strong Kafkaesque theme to Hedayat’s writing and a lot of the blind owl and a lot of the other literature that Hedayat wrote reminded me of the Trial by Kafka. I think Hedayat felt that way about life – you are put on trial and almost condemned to death from the start. You wander / stumble through life not knowing what it is you are being condemned for and at the end you die – very similar to the protagonist in Kafka’s book. The book also talks a lot about the political backdrop which heavily influenced Hedayat’s point of views and philosophy and psychology. The abdication of Reza Shah in Iran in 1941 and the consequential founding of the Tudeh Party which Hedayat was in favour of, marked a positive period of his life. In fact his brother in law became prime minister / president of Iran at one point which put his name in a very high position amongst the political elite. However, the brother-in-law’s assassination marked a decline in the respect with which Hedayat was treated and they say that was one of the triggers for his suicide. He committed suicide using gas (similar-ish to Sylvia Plath), except he just blocked up the room and turned the gas on and lay on the floor in an apartment in Paris on 9th April 1951. Hedayat was quite an iconoclast and was super critical of society who he called the rabble. At one point he writes cuttingly “the whole of your attention is concentrated on your bellies and what lies beneath it. In your rotten, sensual society the female of the species is even more seductive than that of the free animals. She spends all the time making herself up so that she can charm the male donkeys. She has turned into a stupid chatter box who has no time for thinking.”
Sadeq Hedayat is one of the best writers in the world and I believe deserves a Noble Prize in literature , even after his death....I visited his tomb in Paris which is one of the highlights of my life.
صادق هدایت پرآوازه ترین و معما برانگیزترین نویسنده ایرانی قرن حاضر به سال 1218 شمسی متولد شد و زندگی پر محنتی را گذراند که به سال 1330 با خودکشی در پاریس به سر رسید. شخصیت و آثار هدایت اثری ژرف بر چند نسل روشنفکران ایران و همچنین تکوین و رشد داستان نویسی مدرن از خود به جای گذاشت. تاثیر بوف کور معروفترین داستان او، به مراتب گسترده تر از حد محافل ادبی ایران بود و توجه منتقدان غربی را نیز بر انگیخت. کتاب حاضر نخستین بررسی جامعه از زندگی و آثار هدایت در چشم اندازهای پیشرفت های ادبی و سیاسی ایران در نیمه اول قرن بیستم است. در این کتاب کوشش شده است تا گره از راز و رمز نویسنده ای که پس از مرگش به عنوان بحث انگیز ترین و موفق ترین نویسنده معاصر ایران مطرح بوده است، گشود شود. فهرست مطالب: 1. هدایت و ادبیات جدید فارسی 2. سالهای نخستین 3. هدایت در اروپا 4. زندگی و کار در عصر طلائی 5. فرهنگ ایرانی و ناسیونالیسم رمانتیک 6. فرهنگ ایرانی و رئالیسم انتقادی 7. روایتی انتقادی از بوف کور 8. خاستگاه های بوف کور 9.امیدها و نومیدی ها 10.حاجیها و کارگران 11.طنز و افسردگی 12.محاکمه: پیام هدایت 13.اجرای حکم: خود کشی هدایت 14:هدایت افسانه و هدایت انسان یادداشتها نمایه تصاویر
اگر بپذیریم که ما امتیاز هرکتاب را با توجه به موضوع آن میدهیم و نه در کل جهان کتابها! ر نظرم را درمورد این اثر ذیل «بوف کور» داده ام فقط باید اضافه کنم: جامع، بیطرفانه، محققانه
really good outline of hedayat's life and his works. really helped me get my head around iranian literary and social discourses at the time and where hedayat fit into it all. super helpful insights into his satirical, surrealist and existential themes. loved the explanations of hedayat's protagonists and how they relate to the masses around them!
یکی از جامع ترین آثار در زمینه ی معرفی هدایت و اثارش، همین کتاب است. از ویژگی های بارز اثر کاتوزیان، بی طرفی و عدم تعصب ملی در مورد هدایت است که در اغلب نقد و تحلیل های فارسی در مورد هدایت به چشم می خورد. برخلاف بسیاری از آثار تحلیلی در مورد هدایت، کار خانم کاتوزیان از هر گونه کلی گویی شبیه "هدایت بزرگ ترین و بی نظیرترین و..." و از این قبیل، خالی است. سوای عاری بودن از تعصب ملی، از هر نگاه دیگر نیز، اثری ست خواندنی و روشن کننده ی بسیاری از جنبه های آثار هدایت، همراه با تحلیلی بی طرفانه از زندگی و زمانه ی او.
There are unfortunately far too few monographs on individual Iranian authors. Thankfully a thorough one has been written about the most famous Iranian prose writer of the 20th century, excellent research done by Katouzian who was close to the select few friends that tried to make life less miserable for Hedayat.