Kader Abdolah; translated by Susan Massotty
Kader Abdolah, the pen name for an Iranian political exile currently living in the Netherlands, wrote My Father’s Notebook in Dutch. Translated by Susan Massotty, the novel is in three parts. Part 1, told by an omniscient narrator, is the story of Aga Akbar and his son, Ishmael. Part 2 is told by Ishmael in the first-person. And Part 3 returns to the omniscient narrator to conclude the story. This structure allows the narrator to provide the back story of Aga Akbar and Ishmael while later allowing direct access to Ishmael’s interiority.
Part 1 introduces us to Aga Akbar, an illiterate deaf-mute who mends carpets and lives in an Iranian village at the foot of Saffron Mountain. Aga Akbar communicates using a rudimentary form of sign language that few people can understand. He writes cuneiform characters in a notebook that no one can decipher. When Ishmael is old enough, he acts as his father’s interpreter, going everywhere with him and mediating his father’s conversations. The two form such an inseparable bond that one becomes almost an extension of the other.
Part 2 unfolds in the first-person point of view of Ishmael, now living in the Netherlands. While describing his daily activities as an exile, he pours over his father’s notebook, trying to decipher the cryptic characters. This triggers flashbacks to his life and family in Iran. As a former political activist and an engaged member of the communist party in Iran, his life was in constant danger for opposing the shah and the mullahs who succeeded him. Forced to escape Iran when his identity is discovered, he loses connection with his family.
Part 3 is picked up by the omniscient narrator and includes the fate of Ishmael’s family after his departure from Iran.
Kader Abdolah weaves Persian legends, songs, myths, poems, and verses from the Koran throughout the novel. And intricately threading the narrative is the history of 20th Century Iran beginning with Reza Shah and concluding with the Khomeini government. The history, plagued with torture, disappearances, and the violent crush of dissent, renders the suffering of the Iranian people in somber detail.
The novel forms a rich tapestry in which the personal lives of Aga Akbar and Ishmael play out against the larger political framework. Infused throughout its pages is the profound love father and son have for each other. The vocabulary is unadorned and concise. The characters are vividly portrayed. Ishmael emerges as a soul adrift in a foreign land, desperately trying to decipher his father’s notebook as if to mitigate the guilt he feels for abandoning him and fleeing his homeland. His struggle to understand his father’s notebook can be read as a metaphor to reconnect the severed lines of communication between the simple, trusting Aga Akbars of this world and their educated, politically savvy offspring cut off from their origins.
The character who garners the most sympathy is Aga Akbar. He painstakingly struggles to make sense of the world around him, communicates in a sign language few people can understand, and writes in a notebook that only he can decipher. He is out of step with the times. His unwavering love for his son remains constant. A kind, generous, compassionate man, his silence speaks volumes.
Highly recommended.