From: nsohrabi@athena.mit.edu (Naghmeh Sohrabi)
Subject: Re: A few pure Persian words from Shah-Nama
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 04:43:19 GMT

Dariush writes:

>May I suggest to you, Behzad, that you may be generalizing and
>looking at the Shahnameh from a very negative perspective? Could it
>be possible that the Shahnameh is not "a bunch of deceptions and lies"
>as you put it, but mythical stories in an epic setting that serve a
>special purpose in the long term life of a people by safekeeping and
>tranferring the culture from generation to generation? 

[stuff deleted]

>Let's start with what is in Shahnameh, a bunch of stories. Great stories.
>I think we can agree on that. The power in mythical stories lies in the
>fact that they implicitly engage all manners of our humanity while 
>seducing us with the passion and promise inherent in narrative. This way
>they are far more effective vehicles for transformation than volumes of
>didactic and theoretical material.

What I find interesting in this exchange of ideas over Shahnameh is the
unquestioning "faith" that almost everyone has towards this book.  What Dariush
calls "mythical stories in an epic setting" does not outrule Behzad's claim that
it is a bunch of lies, it also doesn't mean that this "culture" that's being
passed from generation to generation as Daiush says, does not contain lies and
deceptions.  

>All Great Stories draw their power from an archetypl world, the world of
>pattern, the world of soul's authority, which is common to people of all
>cultures and all times. All fairy tales are essentially narrative
>complexes that collapse many mythical archetypal structures into one
>story. Myth, however, has a more universal formulation that speaks to
>the codings of the deep unconscious.

What you Dariush AghA and some others forget is that no story is a Great Story by
virtue of its nature. We are the ones who have come to see them that way. The
Shahnameh thing is driven into our heads since "Ferdowsi knows when" as "the greatest
 monument of the Persian language", and while it can be a masterpiece of the
Persian language, it does not mean that it is the pure and holy book that some
people make it to be.

Why do people find it hard to question such "Great Stories"?  What makes such
Stories so great that they "seduce us with the passion and promise inherent in
narrative"? As a twentieth century person, who has at least heard about different
socialist and populist movements, I can logically question how much of a "great
epic" CULTURALLY can the SHAHNAMEH be?  Notice that I don't mean as a literary
work, but rather as this great symbol of culture. Even without knowing anything
about this book, logically you can conclude that a book written FOR the kings, as
an ode to them can not be much sympathetic to the values that I, an immigrant
female in 1993 can adhere to. 

It's funny how everyone assumes that Mr. Behzad Sadeghi says these "godawful"
things about the Shahnameh cause he "really doesn't understand it" or that he
lacks in something called "national pride."  If national pride means blindly
accepting something as GREAT cause we've always been told to, and if national
pride means engagement in "pure" ethnic discourses, and if national pride means
not questioning our past, and not having a critical eye towards oneself, then
don't you think we ALL should lack in this "national pride"?

Anyway, I'll be away from this place for about 7 months.  Enjoy flaming each
other.

naghmeh