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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
This article is concerned with ways in which grotesque corporeality shapes Sadeq Chubak's controversial novel The Patient Stone (Sang-e Sabur, 1966). Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's understanding of grotesque realism in Rabelais and His World, the discussion demonstrates that Chubak employed devices associated with grotesque aesthetics, and that these devices were used to invert and contest social and literary conventions in Iranian culture, although it seems he remains caught to a certain extent within the very systems he challenges. Grotesque realism involves estrangement of the familiar, and leads to degrading the abstract, spiritual and sublime to the material level of physicality and the body. In The Patient Stone, Chubak replicates motifs of classical Persian epics, religious scriptures and the myth of creation and debases them by excessive depictions of bodily conditions and grotesque corporeality (such as deformity, paralysis and decay). The use of grotesque corporeality embodied in the style, content and characters of Chubak's novel facilitates a variety of paradoxes of being and non-being, appearance and reality, death and rebirth, hope and anxiety of a fragmented and alienated society in desperate need of change.
Liora Hendelman-Baavur is grateful for the beneficial and constructive comments provided by Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and the anonymous reviewer.
1 For the convenience of readers in both languages, this article refers to the English translation by Ghanoonparvar, M.R. of Chubak, Sadeq, The Patient Stone (Costa Mesa, CA, 1989)Google Scholar; and the second edition of the novel in Persian, Chubak, Sadeq, Sang-e Sabur (Tehran, 1973)Google Scholar. In some cases, the English quotations contain incorrect grammar and various idiosyncrasies in language patterns, which correspond with the different idioms employed in the Persian text. On the translation see, M.R. Ghanoonparvar, in Chubak, The Patient Stone (1989), xxii–xxiii.
2 This article does not claim Chubak was familiar with Bakhtin's work or Rabelaisianism at the time he wrote the novel, although he was unequivocally acquainted with writings of other authors who experimented with grotesque aesthetics, most notably Edgar Allen Poe, James Joyce and William Faulkner, see in Bagley, F.R.C., Sadeq Chubak: An Anthology (Delmar, NY, 1982), 10Google Scholar; Dorri, Jahangir, “The Satire of Sadeq Chubak,” in Critical Perspectives on Modern Persian Literature, ed. Ricks, Thomas M. (Washington, DC, 1984), 327–8Google Scholar.
3 Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and his World, trans. Iswolsky, Helene (Bloomington, IN, 1984), 26Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., 9–10.
5 On the traditional improvisatory theatre, see Beeman, William, “Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre,” Journal of American Folklore 94, no. 374 (1981): 506–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaffary, Farrokh, “Evolution of Ritual and Theatre in Iran,” Iranian Studies, 17, no. 4 (1984): 361–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Safa-Isfahani, Kaveh, “Female-centered World Views in Iranian Culture: Symbolic Representations of Sexuality in Dramatic Games,” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6, no. 1 (1980): 33–53Google Scholar; Shay, Anthony, “‘Bazi-ha-ye Nameyeshi:’ [sic.] Iranian Women's Theatrical Plays,” Dance Research Journal 27, no. 2 (1995): 16–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, 10.
7 Ali Ferdowsi, “Sang-e Sabur,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (2011), http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sang-e-sabur; Kinga Markus, “Experiments with the Kunstlerroman in the Modern Persian Fiction: The Patient Stone of Sadeq Chubak and The Night's Journey of Bahman Sholevar,” The Journal of Sophia Asian Studies 3 (1985): 235.
8 Yar-Shater, Ehsan, “The Modern Literary Idiom,” in Iran Faces the Seventies, ed. Yar-Shater, Ehsan (New York, 1971), 307Google Scholar.
9 Ferdowsi, “Sang-e Sabur.”
10 Yar-Shater, “The Modern Literary Idiom,” 306.
11 Markus, “Experiments with the Kunstlerroman in the Modern Persian Fiction,” 231.
12 The twenty-six short chapters of the novel are divided as follows: ten are presented under the heading of Ahmad Aqa, Kakolzari lends his name to six, Belqeys to five, Jahansoltan to four and Seyf ol-Qalam to one.
13 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 25; Sang-e Sabur, 57.
14 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 33–4, 37; Sang-e Sabur, 76, 84.
15 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 35; Sang-e Sabur, 79.
16 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 35; Sang-e Sabur, 78–9.
17 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 151.
18 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 148.
19 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 3; Sang-e Sabur, 14.
20 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 136–7; Sang-e Sabur, 289–90.
21 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 86; Sang-e Sabur, 189.
22 Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar, “Chubak, Sadeq,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (2009), http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chubak-sadeq.
23 For further discussion on the situation and trends of Iranian writers during the 1960s see Michael Hillmann, C., “The Modernist Trend in Persian Literature and its Social Impact,” Iranian Studies 15, no. 1–4 (1982): 7–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Critical Perspectives on Modern Persian Literature, ed. Thomas M. Ricks (Washington, DC, 1984); M.R. Ghanoonparvar, Prophets of Doom: Literature as a Socio-Political Phenomenon in Modern Iran (Lanham, MD, 1984); Sandler, Rivanne, “Literary Developments in Iran in the 1960s and the 1970s Prior to the 1978 Revolution,” World Literature Today 60, no. 2 (1986): 246–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Talattof, Kamran, The Politics of Writing in Iran: A History of Modern Persian Literature (Syracuse, NY, 2000)Google Scholar; Pedersen, Claus V., World View in Pre-Revolutionary Iran—Literary Analysis of Five Iranian Authors in the Context of History of Ideas (Wiesbaden, 2002)Google Scholar.
24 Hillmann, Michael C., “‘The Sigh of Mankind’ and ‘The Kerosene Man’ 1945,” Literature East and West 20, no. 1–4 (1976): 71Google Scholar.
25 Chubak's first collection of short stories, the Puppet Show (Kheymeh-shab-bazi), was published in 1945; a second collection of short stories, The Baboon Whose Buffoon Was Dead (Antari keh lutiyash ordeh bud), appeared in 1949; his first novel, Tangsir, was made into a motion picture in 1974; a third collection, The First Day in the Grave (Ruz-e avval-e qabr), was published in 1965 and the fourth collection, The Last Alms (Cheragh-e akhar), in 1966. For further reading on Chubak's works see, for instance, the collection of essays published in the periodical Iran Shenasi 18 (1993): 231–97; Yad-e Sadeq Chubak, ed. Ali Dabashi (Tehran, 2001); and M.R. Ghanoonparvar, Reading Chubak (Washington, DC, 2005).
26 Ghanoonparvar, “Introduction,” in Chubak, The Patient Stone, xv.
27 For further reading see Hendelman-Baavur, Liora, “The Odyssey of Jalal Al-e Ahmad's Gharbzadegi - Five Decades After,” in New Leaves, Fresh Looks: Essays on Persian Language, Literature and Culture, ed. Talattof, Kamran (London, Routledge), forthcoming in 2014Google Scholar.
28 See especially the commentary of Feraydoon Tonokaboni quoted in Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, “The Unwanted Woman,” trans. Bogle, Leonard, in Iranian Society: An Anthology of Writings by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, ed. Hillmann, Michael C. (Lexington, KY, 1982), 70–80Google Scholar. For further reading see Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, “Pink Nail Polish: A Story,” trans. Navabpour, A. Reza, Iranian Studies 15, no. 1–4 (1982): 81–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, “Someone Else's Child,” trans. Gochenour, Theodore S., Iranian Studies 1, no. 4 (1968): 155–62Google Scholar.
29 Moayyad, Heshmat, “The Persian Short Story: An Overview,” in Stories from Iran: A Chicago Anthology 1921–1991, ed. Moayyad, Heshmat (Washington, DC, 1997), 22Google Scholar.
30 Gniadek, Melissa, “The Act of Becoming: Sherwood Anderson, Frank Sargeson and Grotesque Aesthetic,” Journal of New Zealand Literature 23, no. 2 (2005): 24Google Scholar.
31 Rahimieh, Nasrin, “Capturing the Abject of the Nation in The House is Black,” in Forugh Farrokhzad Poet of Modern Iran, ed. Brookshaw, Dominic Parviz and Rahimieh, Nasrin (New York, 2010), 127Google Scholar.
32 Ahmad Aqa questions, for instance, the tendency to regulate sexual relations by claiming that “this is the very act that every bastard who's come along has, right off, set up rules for, to the extent that it's become like going to the outhouse, it's got to be done secretly, brushed under the carpet, with fear and anxiety.” Chubak, The Patient Stone, 133; Sang-e Sabur, 283.
33 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 25; Sang-e Sabur, 57.
34 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 34, 38; Sang-e Sabur, 78, 86.
35 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 38; Sang-e Sabur, 86.
36 Mostaghel, Deborah Miller, “The Second Sadeq: The Short Stories of Iranian Writer Sadeq Chubak,” World Literature Today 53, no. 2 (1979): 227–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bagley, Sadeq Chubak: An Anthology, 3–4; Ghanoonparvar, Reading Chubak, 4–5.
37 Hillmann, “The Sigh of Mankind,” 72.
38 Houra Yavari, “Fiction II(b)—The Novel,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fiction-libthe-novel.
39 Quoted respectively in Pederson, World View in Pre-Revolutionary Iran, 107; Ghanoonparvar, “Introduction,” xvii; Bagley, Sadeq Chubak, 7.
40 Saad, Joya Blondel, The Image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature (Lanham, MD, 1996), 51, 129Google Scholar.
41 Amirshahi specifically refers to Chubak's description of a paltry brothel in his short story Under the Red Light (Zir-e cheragh-e qermez), and to the female characters in The Maroon Dress (Pirahan-e zereshki), who survive thanks to the corpses they wash. For further reading see Mahshid Amirshahi, “The Image of Women in Contemporary Persian Prose,” a lecture delivered at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of California at Berkeley and Utrecht University (Holland), http://www.amirshahi.org/english/1000-bisheh/The%20Image%20of%20Woman%20in%20Contemporary%20Persian%20Prose1.htm.
42 Ghanoonparvar, “Introduction,” xix–xx. An extended analysis of The Patient Stone also appears in chapter 4 of Ghanoonparvar's Reading Chubak, 68–115.
43 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 34; Sang-e Sabur, 78.
44 Chubak chose Shiraz as the locale of The Patient Stone probably because a series of murders actually took place there in the 1930s, after his family moved to the city from Bushehr, which was chosen as the setting of his first novel Tangsir (Ghanoonparvar, “Introduction,” x). Kinga Markus further implies that by setting the story in Shiraz, Chubak mocks the city, famous for its poets, saints and mystics, by presenting it “at the height of the police regime of Reza Shah” as a “dull provincial town with sinister implications.” See Markus, “Experiments with the Kunstlerroman in the Modern Persian Fiction,” 232.
45 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 7, 33; Sang-e Sabur, 21, 75. For a discussion of Chubak's naturalistic approach see Shahla Haeri and Saadi Jaafari, “Sadeq Chubak, Farasoo Naturalism,” Qalam 11 (2010): 73–84.
46 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 1; Sang-e Sabur, 11.
47 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 139; Sang-e Sabur, 296.
48 F.R.C. Bagley notes that many of the stories in the classical Persian literature were probably taken by later authors from contemporary folklore, while others were not written down, but preserved in the memories of reciters, Bagley, Sadeq Chubak: An Anthology, 2.
49 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 2; Sang-e Sabur, 12.
50 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 7; Sang-e Sabur, 23.
51 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 59; Sang-e Sabur, 131.
52 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 6; Sang-e Sabur, 12–13.
53 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 52; Sang-e Sabur, 116.
54 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 325.
55 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 59–60; Sang-e Sabur, 131.
56 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 34, 19; Sang-e Sabur, 77, 44.
57 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 136–7; Sang-e Sabur, 290.
58 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 26; Sang-e Sabur, 58.
59 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 309.
60 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 19–20.
61 The Bible, Book of Proverbs, 31:30.
62 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 10, 137; Sang-e Sabur, 27, 290.
63 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 42; Sang-e Sabur, 92.
64 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 3; Sang-e Sabur, 13. Hajji Esma'il was also the name of Chubak's father, who was an affluent merchant.
65 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 31; Sang-e Sabur, 69–70.
66 Walther, Wiebke, Women from Medieval to Modern Times, trans. Salt, C.S.V. (Princeton, NJ, 1995), 183Google Scholar.
67 Milani, Farzaneh, Veils and Words—The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (Syracuse, NY, 1992), 187Google Scholar.
68 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 176; Sang-e Sabur, 384.
69 Bakhtin also indicates that the grotesque body is presented “differently than in the classic and naturalist images.” Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 315.
70 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 137–8; Sang-e Sabur, 289–90, 293–4.
71 A sixteenth-century Italian painter known for experimenting with Renaissance-style grotesque. Chubak, The Patient Stone, 152; Sang-e Sabur, 325–6.
72 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 317.
73 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 75; Sang-e Sabur, 166. Grotesque bodily conditions apply to the descriptions of other characters in The Patient Stone as well; see, for instance: the snorting, yawning and contraction of Jahansoltan's dying body; Ahmad Aqa vomiting the bread and kabob he ate for lunch following the death of Jahansoltan (The Patient Stone, 105; Sang-e Sabur, 224); the nose bleeding of Kakolzari (The Patient Stone, 117; Sang-e Sabur, 247); in Belqeys's derogatory interior monologues with her husband, Bemunali, she repeatedly blames him for being an impotent, unable to “shove his donkey's handle in once in a while” and due to the consumption of drugs cannot even fart (The Patient Stone, 11; Sang-e Sabur, 29).
74 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 11, 12; Sang-e Sabur, 28–9, 32.
75 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 77; Sang-e Sabur, 171.
76 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 11; Sang-e Sabur, 29.
77 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 13; Sang-e Sabur, 33.
78 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 13; Sang-e Sabur, 34–5.
79 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 21; Sang-e Sabur, 49.
80 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 322.
81 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 25.
82 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 105; Sang-e Sabur, 225.
83 For further reading on women's traditional improvisatory theatre in Iran, see: Safa-Isfahani, “Female-centered World Views in Iranian Culture,” and Shay, ““Bazi-ha-ye Nameyeshi.”
84 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 100; Sang-e Sabur, 213.
85 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 114; Sang-e Sabur, 242.
86 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 3; Sang-e Sabur, 13.
87 Despite earlier legislative restrictions on the marriage of girls before reaching the full age of fifteen, Momeni indicated that in the 1960s child marriages were still very common in Iran. For further reading, see Momeni, Djamchid A., “The Difficulties of Changing the Age at Marriage in Iran,” Journal of Marriage and Family 34, no. 3 (1972): 545–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Momeni, Jamshid A., “Determinants of Female First Marriage in Shiraz, Iran,” Canadian Studies in Population 6 (1979): 81–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
88 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 43; Sang-e Sabur, 95–6.
89 Although no reliable figures existed on the number of polygynous marriages in the 1960s, they were believed to be on the decline and largely confined to the older generation, see “The Family,” in Iran: A Country Study, ed. Helen Chapin Metz (Washington, DC, 1987), http://countrystudies.us/iran/52.htm; Djamchid A. Momeni, “Polygyny in Iran,” Journal of Marriage and Family 37, no. 2 (1975): 453–6.
90 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 29–30; Sang-e Sabur, 65–7.
91 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 44; Sang-e Sabur, 98.
92 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 79; Sang-e Sabur, 175.
93 Haleh Afshar indicates that in the 1960s and 1970s desertion was identified as the primary cause for prostitution in Tehran. See Afshar, Haleh, “Women, Marriage and the State in Iran,” in Women, State, and Ideology: Studies from Africa and Asia, ed. Afshar, Haleh (Albany, NY, 1987), 82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
94 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 10, 33; Sang-e Sabur, 27, 76.
95 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 10; Sang-e Sabur, 27.
96 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 75; Sang-e Sabur, 168. It is important to note that there is no reliable data on the number of temporary marriages or to what extent they were practiced in the 1960s, mostly because they were not officially recorded and censuses in Iran did not include questions regarding the practice. See Haeri, Shahla, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran (Syracuse, NY, 1989), 14Google Scholar.
97 See the complete dialogue between Ahmad Aqa and Sheykh Mahmud in Chubak, The Patient Stone, 83–8; Sang-e Sabur, 183–92.
98 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 75–76; Sang-e Sabur, 167–9.
99 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 145; Sang-e Sabur, 310.
100 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 13, 135; Sang-e Sabur, 33, 286.
101 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 125; Sang-e Sabur, 265.
102 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 29; Sang-e Sabur, 65.
103 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 15, 90; Sang-e Sabur, 35, 195.
104 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 40; Sang-e Sabur, 89.
105 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 57–8; Sang-e Sabur, 127–9.
106 Pedersen, World View in Pre-Revolutionary Iran, 107.
107 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 33; Sang-e Sabur, 74–5.
108 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 133; Sang-e Sabur, 283.
109 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 20; Sang-e Sabur, 46.
110 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 19, 127; Sang-e Sabur, 45, 270.
111 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 17–18; Sang-e Sabur, 39–41.
112 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 85; Sang-e Sabur, 185–6.
113 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 17–18, 20; Sang-e Sabur, 39–40, 47.
114 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 91.
115 In Chubak's version of the Myth of Creation, appearing in the final scenes of his novel, heavenly creatures manage to kill the tyrannical God of Time (Zurvan) only after they overcome the fear of the huge and fiery sword hovering over the Tree of Knowledge, see Chubak, The Patient Stone, 162; Sang-e Sabur, 350.
116 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 119–31; Sang-e Sabur, 251–79.
117 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 128; Sang-e Sabur, 272.
118 Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, 316, 303.
119 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 137; Sang-e Sabur, 291–2.
120 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 146; Sang-e Sabur, 312–13.
121 Markus, “Experiments with the Kunstlerroman in the Modern Persian Fiction,” 233.
122 Chubak, The Patient Stone, 4, 59, 132; Sang-e Sabur, 16, 130, 281.
123 Nafisi, Azar, “Images of Women in Classical Persian Literature and the Contemporary Iranian Novel,” in The Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, eds. Afkhami, Mahnaz and Friedl, Erika (New York, 1994), 124–5Google Scholar.
124 Tohidi, Nayereh, “Modernity, Islamization, and Women in Iran,” in Gender and National Identity, ed. Moghadam, Valentine M. (London, 1984), 130Google Scholar.
125 Nafisi, “Images of Women in Classical Persian Literature”, 124–5.
126 Markus, “Experiments with the Kunstlerroman in the Modern Persian Fiction,” 231–2.
