Omid Tabibzadeh Ghamsari,
Volume 17, Issue 66 (8-2024)
Abstract
Malakout is a postmodern novel, and what is important in the analysis of a postmodern novel is related mostly to the description of certain literary techniques, which are used to emphasize the futility of the old meanings. These works have characteristics that without paying attention to them, one cannot expect a logical evaluation of the work. Some of these postmodern features and techniques which are very important in this novel and will be discussed here are as follows: meta-fiction, intertextuality, fragmentation, black humor, pastiche, temporal distortion, minimalism, and finally grotesque.
Extended Abstract
Bahram Sadeghi first published his short novel Malkout in a journal in 1340/ 1961 (Sadeghi, 1961). He made some additions and corrections in it shortly after that publication, but he himself did not take any action to republish the work. About 10 years later, Abolhasan Najafi, Sadeghi’s friend and master, edited this novel and some other short stories by Sadeghi and published them all in the form of a collection of Bahram Sadeghi's works. Since then, this novel and other short stories have been published several times by various publishers.
The first chapter of the novel Malkout by Bahram Sadeghi has an epigraph that is in fact a verse from the Qur'an:فَبَشِّر هُم بِعذاب الیم [Give them good news of a painful torment] (Q 84: 24). “فَبَشِّر” in Arabic means “give good news”, but in this verse, the word "good news" is used to express painful and tormenting news! Here we are dealing with a so called sarcastic metaphor, and the novel Malkout by Bahram Saldaghi (1340/ 1962) can be considered altogether as an extended form of this sarcastic metaphor (see also Aslani, 2019; 2021).
The fact is that Malakout is a postmodern novel, and neglecting this fact has caused many critics of the novel to pay more attention to its epistemological details rather than to its ontological nature. What is important in the analysis of a postmodern novel, rather than revealing its meanings, is related to the description of certain literary techniques, which are used to emphasize the futility of the old meanings. Malakout, like detective novels, has many secrets and there are many clues with the help of which one can unravel some of its mysteries and riddles (Shiri, 2005; Sᾱ’edi, 1992). If the mysteries and riddles in detective novels are finally solved completely, the solution of many mysteries of Malakout, like many other postmodern novels, are due to the readers themselves. Each reader must solve the mysteries and riddles in his or her own way and gives his or her own meaning to the novel (Ebrahimi Fakhari, 2019).
Apart from the importance of the reader's role in the interpretation of the novel, these works have other characteristics that without paying attention to them, one cannot expect a logical evaluation of the work. Some of these postmodern features and techniques which are very important in this novel and will be discussed here are as follows: meta-fiction (Waugh, 1984), intertextuality, fragmentation, black humor, pastiche, temporal distortion, minimalism, and finally grotesque (Lehmann 2005; Barry, 2002; Imhof 1986; Imhof 1986).
Malkout can be seen as a satirical imitation of texts such as the Old Testament and the New Testament, and Ykolia and her Loneliness (Modarresi, 1334/ 1955). One of the most important features of postmodern novels is satire and ridicule of moral beliefs and social and cultural institutions ruling the society (Safi Pirludje, 2015; Hutcheon, 1988; Genette, 1980); Sadeghi by using techniques such as meta-fiction, black humor, pastiche and grotesque, mocked the images of mythological characters such as Jehovah, Satan, Ab (Father or Christian God) and Christ. He mocked the authority of the strongest cultural institutions of his time, which ironically and day by day were to take a greater importance and power so that they finally took the upper hand in Iran.
This novel is the first successful post-modern novel in the Persian language, and apart from its aesthetic values and literary importance, it shows the great power of the Persian language in expressing new mentalities and creating new spaces that have not had the slightest history in this language. The modern Persian novel started with the Blind Owl of Sadegh Hedayat, and Persian novel with Malkout Bahram Sadeghi stepped into another completely new stage called postmodern (see also Ghasri 2022; Nadjafi 2020; Honarmand 2011).
References
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