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خواهد
ترجمه ی فصل اول خانه ی ادریسی ها غزاله علیزاده
ترجمه به انگلیسی رزا جمالی
THE HOUSE OF EDRISIS/ A NOVEL BY GHAZALEH
ALIZADEH/TRANSLATED FROM ORIGINAL PERSIAN TO ENGLISH BY ROSA JAMALI
The turn-out of a
misfortune in a household is not all of a sudden , in the wooden cracks, on the
sheets , throughout the hatchways and in the pleats of curtains, the dust
covers everything longing for the wind to release the scattered constituents of
a lurking-place.
In the house of Edrisis
, life was going on; the engraved wall clock with the covered pinnacles of
birds and flowers, a piece of work by the carpenters of Bokhara struck 10.
Legha looked at her
wrist-watch, she set it forward and stood up, she walked away from the
breakfast table and took the bread crumbs for the fish.
Vahhab , the son
of household, gulped down the last sip
of tea after pouring some from that azure Serve tea-cup and stopped yawning,
turned to Mrs Edrisi:”she is better today.” The old lady moved the glasses on
her nose, her eyes behind the glasses were dark blue:” It’s not clear what she
does.”
The fog descended
down to the arcade, fretted the windows, turned around and faced pine and
poplar trees. Down at the end, from the corridor, there came the sound of washing
the dishes. The tap-water popped and turned around and then there was the
bubbling of semavar.
From time to time,
Yavar coughed in the kitchen, sluggishly pulled his feet on the floor.
The lady crossed her
eyebrows:”Poor man, growing old, lost his lung by smoking...!” Vahhab leaned
against the margins of table, stood up.”I should go to the library, I read an
article about the ruins of a city “Nisa”, it was a magnificent place once,
buried now.”
Mrs Edrisi
sighed:”Plenty of them have been buried and one day our city is going to be
buried.” Vahhab closed his eyes, turned back and walked away.
The household were a
kind of quiet in eating, drinking, walking and talking.
Vahhab was thirty
but looked much older, thin and hunchback, a pale face, solemn and lightless
eyes. He had studied at British boarding schools, for any word or movement, he
felt the lashes of punishment on his back. He ate a little and took a shower
before the noon, clipped his nails every week and filed them. Below his eyes
was bloated for the shortage of sleep. He stood across from the mirror, counted
the strands of grey hair in a pile of soft and black hair. The other day he had
twelve of them, all white. He didn’t go out, always residing in a shelter,
twice a month he dropped in “Ashena Bookshop”, the man put aside some new books
for him, Vahhab knitted his eyebrows and with a tight mouth paid for them,
straightly came back home.
In the afternoon if
the weather was good , he would sit by the pool, opened the fountain and looked
at the patterns and the flow of water, he remembered the past, his childhood
was far away.
Gradually when it
was getting dark, the dreams faded away. Birds flew in the garden. In the hot
weather female feeding cows at the end of alfalfa field were mooing. On the second
floor, his elder aunt, Legha sat behind the hatchway with her hand under a
cheek, stared at the mulberry trees, clay-roofs and faded attics till the time
they would turn on the lamps around and drew the curtains. She didn't turn on
the lamp but closed her eyes. Behind the dark dreamy drowned eye-lids,
sometimes a blue and yellow pattern like flowers and silica glass expanded and
amused her.
On the rocking chair
grannie leaned against the mahogany furniture of walnut trees, rubbed the
perfume on the back-ears. The acrid extract of jasmine spread in the house.
Once in a while, she would see the dreadful figure of her late husband, in a
summer suit, with a white bow and salt and pepper whiskers, in a hoarse and
throaty voice caused by tobacco and opium he whispered:” Such a nice smell!”
The time she stared
into the dark, the white phantom had gone, then she heard the creaking hinges
of the doors on the first storey, Yavar was walking in the corridor. He turned
on the candelabra in the vault, it glared on the plaster moulding, the leaves
of vine trees, lotus flowers and clusters of grapes. The wind moved the
candelabra and the chains squeaked .The rainbow prism glowed on the images of
the carpet, the bifurcated winding stairs and bending balustrade all leaped
around.
The first storey had
three corridors, a big anteroom, a library and four bedrooms. On the second
storey, around the balustrade there were ten attached bedrooms, all except
three were locked.
In the morning, when
Vahhab was tired of reading, leaning against the velvet cushion in the drawing
room , half asleep and behind the flower pots,he listened to the creaking of
the springs, there were some pillows with the patterns of peacocks and parrots.
He put them under his elbow, then he drank a cup of coffee and lit a cigarette.
Staring at the
waterdrops, he yawned. There was a slight pain in his bones. shaking his legs
he pondered into the past. He was dreaming Rahila, his aunt who had died young
of a strange fever. After her death, Mrs Edrisi’s hair had grown white
overnight, Vahhab was ten at that time.
She was engaged to a
broad-shouldered stout man with big eyes and a Moorish face. A widower who was
a grand landowner called Moayyed. People said that he lived in a mansion and
had a lot of horses in the stable, in pomp and circumstance he came. They
wanted to buy his chestnut horse for 3000 roubles, he came in hurry with three
servants, the sound of his shoes on the pavement. Rahila would sit by the bed,
didn’t move, her hands on the white satin weary and proud, pouted her lips like
roses, grinned. Her head uplifted, her almond eyes half open. The shade of her
eyelashes on her moonlit cheeks and with a dreamy glance, tall, airy,
introverted and aloof, nothing made her happy. In the end of spring , she would
sit in the courtyard. Sipping her tea on a straw chair under the trellis of
lilacs, white pigeons surrounded her feet while hovering in the trellis. The
rain started then she walked in the garden and her garments were wet. She
looked at the clocks as if she were waiting for somebody, she didn’t have a
friend. Never answered the letters, visits or messages.
Vahhab used to look
at her through the hatches. Rahila tucked up her skirt, skipping over the brook
, soft and agile, pranced and tiptoed on the wet lawn, picked up a rose-bud,
smelled and pinned it to her hair, she closed her eyes and opened them once
more, wandered in the garden for hours, when she became tired, she went to the
shade of that big elm tree then made a house with the rubble stones. She rooted
up the grass and squeezed it with her teeth.At the end while standing up, she
ruined the built-up house with the rubble stones tossing over one another on
the steep lawn.
The memory of Rahila
was deeply moving, Rahila’s room at the end of the corridor, in the north
frontline had two big windows, one to the garden and the other one to the
courtyard and the arbour. The lace curtains had the smell of dust and the
perfume of autumn crocuses, when he went to the mirror, his face looked as a
stranger. He closed his eyes and wanted Rahila to be alive, her straight hair
spreading around, loose on her shoulders , the strands slipped over one another
like a flash of silk. Now Vahhab turned to a small boy, pulling her skirt
naughtily, the young girl with her very charming eyes would send him off.
He opened the
drawers, arranged the perfumes on the dressing table, nineteen hundred from
Paris and Moscow, Italian, Chinese, Indian, the longlasting perfumes of far
oceans : musk and birch and myrtle and black ambergris. In cosmetics she had
nothing but perfume, there were several bottles in each drawer. He bent down
the table, took a deep breath. He opened the closet, his face was lost in the
white garments, muddy stains, flower buttons, dry grass and thorn and beads. In
the dark, it turned up a crack of mouth-worn wood, he tilted his head and
closed the door. He put the perfume bottles in the right place, arranged the
pleats of curtains, spread the bed-spread to the pillows of lace and embroidery
. He left the room, locked the door . In the dark corridor, walked on the
polished parquet and went to the library.
They were some
magazines in a drawer , he took them out and turned the pages over, he looked
at the biography and pictures of Roxana Yashvili, she was a stage actress,
starring in plays such as “Small Bourgeois”, “One Month in the Village”, “The
Blue Bird” and “Chaika”, they called her a wild flower, the glimmering of a
creative will-power in her eyes.
Critics believed she
could show the spiritual images and transfer them to the audience, seemingly
resembled Rahila , Vahhab looked at her pictures in the costumes of Normandy
women, in a black velvet dress with a fan in one hand , beneath an arbour or at
the breakfast table while playing with an actor. Painters had painted her on
several canvases, poets had written many poems for her. Since six years before,
she had been living with “Marenko”; the noted poet.
There was no picture
of Rahila in the house. When Vahhab looked at Roxana’s almond and black and
glimmering eyes and slim figure remembered Rahila. She came from Tbilisi with a
different nature noted for her upheavels. Vahhab didn’t like her complacency,
didn’t read the interviews, just looked at her pictures.
Just at twelve Legha
climbed down the winding stairs, stepped in the hall, knitted her eyebrows,
cross, broad-shouldered and tall, pale with big lips and a sharp chin and
hooked nose, grey eyes, rummaging but lightless, fumbled around , wiggling, her
backbones pricking in hatred , she was sensitive to heel-relief stone, even
disliked the shape and the name.Naked and screaming she ran away and fainted on
the floor. Mrs Edrisi sneered and covered her hanging boobs by a sheet.
The smell of men revolted
Legha, when the workers came for some days to dig the garden or trim the trees
or cut the weeds, she locked herself in the room and didn’t come down. A strike
of smell made her sick. She opened all the windows , the candelabra moved, in
the arcade the wind blew and howled, for two times a day she took a shower. She
had the smell of soap and foam with herself. At nights, right after the dinner
she used to brew sour orange blossoms, she stirred it with a little teaspoon,
the leaves soaked and spread out, the steam on the cup had a smell of moss and
bare moors , she sipped the root beer slowly, in decency and dignity, her lips
were not wet. She stood up and very cold said good night, in a flower patterned
gown and with plait hair, a hand on the banister, she climbed up the stairs and
her pale countenance lost in the dark landing.
Ghazaleh Alizadeh(1947-1996)

Ghazaleh Alizadeh
was born in Mashhad, the central city of Northeastern province of khorasan
.Historically important, Khorasan is
well-known for a number of prominent poets with an exclusive literary school
which has been featured for its high range of archaic vocabulary, diction and
poetic aspects. The tradition has left a great influence on Alizadeh’s style of
writing.
Alizadeh studied Law and Politics at Tehran
University and continued her education in
Illumination philosophy and Mysticism at Paris's Sorbonne. She became a
prolific writer in the 70s, 80s and 90s, quite an influential figure in Iranian
association of writers.
House of
The Edrisis, her main work is best known for its rich and poetical
language, surrealistic aspects, powerful characterisation, narrative
techniques, wealth of descriptions and discourse analysis through different
classes of society. Quite a number of current slangs and colloquial expressions
have been adopted through its dynamic dialogues. The quotations have references
to many other books like classical novels, philosophy, bible, world history,
arts, music and so…. One can see some layers of intertextuality with the poetry
of Rumi and Hafiz.
The setting doesn’t
infer a certain time or place, it has seemingly taken place in Ashkabad; a city
built on the ruins of Nisa, the capital city of Ashkanid dynasty.
The novel depicts a
group of learned people living with an old culture and literary treasury while
they are invaded by commoners and military people.
The house is the
metaphor of land taken by others.
Through the
narrative techniques implied by the writer, we get to know about the life of
the generation past; People who lived in the house many years before and how
they are attached in a mysterious tangled network of relationships. Some
mystical and mythological aspects of codes and symbols could be a subject to
study.
THE HOUSE OF THE
EDRISIS and Alizadeh’s portrait have been partly pictured in Daruish Mehrjoei’s
film“Banoo”.
Alizadeh committed
suicide in 1996; her body was found hanged on a tree in a green spot in
Northern Iran, later the place was cited as the temple of Anahita in ancient
Persia.
Her death was widely
reflected in the 90s poetry; among the elegies written on her death is Reza
Baraheni’s elegy in which he describes her as the bride of Iran’s literature.
THE HOUSE OF EDRISIS
A Novel by Ghazaleh
Alizadeh / Translated into English by Rosa Jamali
Original language:
Persian
Translator to
English: Rosa Jamali
Number of pages:757
pages in Persian
First
publication:Tirajeh, 1991
Type of novel:
Dystopian, river-novel (roman-fleuve), Allegory
Theme: The Age of
Decline, abuse of political power
Plot: A manor house
is occupied by government militia and common people, the house ends up in
confiscation, some die, some go to exile and others put up with a new situation
Narrative style:
Chronological order, flashback
Time: Not specified
Setting: Not
specified, Caucasus, Ashkhabad,a team house
Point of view: The
intrusive omniscient third-person narrator
Literary school :
Realist with traces of Surrealism, Symbolist with digressions to Magic realism,
some elements of Gothic fiction are seen
Similar novels: George
Orwell's Animal Farm
Marcel Proust's In
Search of Lost Time
Checkoff's Cherry
Orchard
Russian classics
Language: The book's success is due to its
polyphonic structure of juxtaposing highly prestigious literature of Khorasan
and street talk used by commoners. Some layers of intertextuality with Persian
classical poetry are seen.
Synopsis: Mrs Edrisi
lives with her grandson Vahhab and daughter Legha in a secluded mansion, a
revolution has just happened in this country, a communist totalitarian
government has taken over the properties, an armed group which is called
firing-squad occupy their place, groups of people and strangers take refuge in
the house; some are recognised to be common people and others are called spies.
Vahhab who is a very educated young man is obsessed with the memory of his dead
aunt Rahila, among the people who enter the house is a young actress who
reminds Vahhab of his aunt. Vahhab falls in love with her,... Roxana who is
from Tiblisi and the previous lover of a noted poet called Yuri Marenko,
becomes a key character to connect old and new time and to connect people
inside and outside the house.
Soldiers of the new
government are told to change the life style of these people, to teach them
about their revolutionary social values and to ask them help the public who are
much in need.
Shoukat who is a
revolutionary character and is called by a "Comrade" title is
supposed to teach them some proletarian values, she usually criticizes Vahab
for being lazy and bookworm, she has a sarcastic way of talking and insults
others easily.
Soldiers and
comrades set new rules in the house and try to teach the residents the
revolutionary goals, they are rough and despotic and they speak very harshly,
command and yell at others. They break the valuable stuff and destroy whatever
which looks ornamental though they might have a sentimental value for Mrs.
Edrisi.
It seems that the
soldiers want to teach these aristocrat people a way of life to live in a team
of comradeship; deep inside you feel that they have taken over the place to
teach their harsh attitudes, radical ideas and inhumane behaviour. They finally
steal the valuable stuff in the house and destroy their decorum and propriety.
In season one, we
see different groups of people in the house, at the end of this season the
house takes a different and new identity when all theses different sorts of
people mix. Even the residents of the house change their tone of speaking when
they are among newcomers.
In the second
season, residents of the house get to know more about the firing centre
(headquarter of the new government) and they try to have a sort of interaction
with them. Some Like Haddadian turn to become an agent, very hypocrite and
manipulative. Little by little fear grows among them and they would like to be
in a sort of connection with them.
Roxana turns out to
be the spy of firing-squad band and helps them loot the treasure in the house,
the residents of the house leave and in a reversal of fortune their lives
change dramatically,..In the third season so many stories of marginal
characters are told, we learn about Rana, Vahhab's mother who was once in touch
with Roxana. Some other characters are created by the descriptions of the main
characters...
In the final season,
the house is going to be confiscated, Vahhab leaves for Kashmir, Legha becomes
a Piano teacher and in the last chapters we face to a sort of ruin in the place
of the house.
The author applies a
sense of humour when different social classes mix and their thoughts and dreams are not understood
well.
The new residents of
the house try to divide the rooms among themselves and at the end they send the
household to a dormitory. They try to persuade them that this lazy life style
should be stopped for the sake of society.
They are supposed to
provide a fair and just life for all members of the society; this is for the
cause of their communist revolution.
There are so many
marginal characters in the second book, their stories are told either by the
travellers or a moment of remembrance in the household.
Characters all
undergo a change and at the end of novel they are totally different people. The
aristocrats turn to civil servants of the new government.
Edrisis family don't
have a special inclination to a specified religion but the way Lagha worships a
holy tapestry might be similar to Christians. The travellers from Moscow and
Yalta speak about churches... no key point is available if they are Muslims.
At the end of novel
residents of the house find out that Yuri Marenko is dead, some say it was
because of a heart attack and some believe he committed suicide.
At the end of novel
we see how all revolutionary slogans have created a new tyranny and how their
propaganda machine could take the self-esteem of people, characters like Ghobad
fought for freedom and equality but at the end they created a new type of
captivity and how their Utopian image turned to a sort of dystopia.
Lives of women have
been described very well, Roxana is in a place which could make anyone green
with envy but sometimes she wishes a kind of stable family life which she could
find a serenity in that. Women like Kokab are acustomed with their oppressed
life; a husband who beats her, Mrs Edrisi who is an example of failure in love
and is dutiful to social standards...
Main characters:
1/THE RESIDENTS OF
THE HOUSE:
-Mrs Edrisi,
Zoleikha : the landlady , aristocrat, speaks a very decent Persian, she has
been in love with Ghobad, a revolutionary Guard from the Fire Centre, she
marries but still in love with him
-Vahhab: Mrs
Edrisi's grandson, immersed in books
-Roxana: Actress,
Vahhab's lover, born and bred in Tbilisi, very much like Nina in Chekhov's THE
SEAGULL(appears at the end of book 1)
-Legha: Mrs Edrisi's
elder daughter, peculiar and weird with strange habits
-Yavar: The old
servant, faithful
2/THE GATECRASHERS:
-Shoukat : A
revolutionary woman from labour party, uses a lot of slangs, she is rough and
masculine. wears yellow
-Haddadian: The
hypocrite mayor, spy of new government
-Borzu: University
student
-Rashid: Factory
worker
-Qouqan: Tailor
-Younas: Poet
-Rokhsareh: laundry
woman
-Kaveh: Drama
Student
-Golrokh
_Shirin
-Koukab
-Pari
-Tourkan
-Rashid
-Ghadir
-Teimour: Gardener
And the guards of
the new government mentioned as firing-squad band
3/PEOPLE FROM THE
PAST:
Rahila: Mrs Edrisi's
daughter who died young of a strange fever and her memory has haunted the house
Mr Edrisi: Mrs
Edrisi's late husband, opium addict
Ghobad: Mrs Edrisi's
previous lover, joined the firing-squad band
Yuri Marenko:
Well-known poet, Roxana's previous lover, much like Vladimir Mayokovski
Rana:Vahhab's mum
who has left them
4/ Fire Centre Panel
Ghobad: Mrs Edrisi's
previous lover, joined the firing-squad band
Soldiers
Note on the title:
The title implicitly refers to prophet Idris and Shahab al-din Sohrawardi's
theosophy who is the founder of Persian wisdom and illumination philosophy and
a follower of prophet Idris, the title has also some significance in secret
societies of mystics.
Influences:Apart
from the influence of 19th century mode of fiction writing in the West, the
book has taken a lot inspirations from narrative versification of Persian
Classics in which a labyrinthine mode of story telling develops when a tale is
told within another tale, Season three is the peak of such a style.
(Provided by the
translator)