The Age of Orphans is a no-holds barred war story. It offers an intriguing, powerful and tragic storyline from start to finish. The densed plot reflects battlefronts with an almost atmospheric flavour.
In The Age of Orphans, the reader is treated to shocking disclosures of barbaric violence attributed to torture of rebel fighters and the odd sexual encounter, through mismatched opportunity between hero and villian. In the same breath, Khadivi’s brilliant literary genius, is careful to caress ruffled feathers and brutal scenes, using an assortment of poignant and tangy reflections. Her refined and elegant vocabulary that lies very much in the tone of Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence, is beguiling to say the least.
Briefly, the crux of the plot is that it starts off being set, in the early turn of the 20th century, before the Shah of Persia, came into power. It will eventually work its way down into modernity. Reza, a little Kurdish boy, living with his father’s rebel and misplaced tribe, high up in the Zagros (Persian) Mountains, idolises his Maman (mother), while all around him, brave men prepare to take on the army. The Kurds want their own land and country. Unaware, Reza appears tender, gentle and sensitive…a kind, pensive little boy who takes delight in heaping affection upon his mother, by feeding at her breasts, every chance he gets. However, he is prepared for early manhood by his father and neighbouring men. They take him into the caves and through a painful ritual, announce his manhood.
Reza suffers the first injustice at being separated from his Maman. ‘A man no longer suckles at his mother’s breasts.’ He is warned about this with fury by an irate, rude father…often callous to his son’s demands. To Reza’s red-faced candour and very much a misfit in his own society, he is laughed at by the others and teased by the girls. He and his mother meet in a secret place, so that Reza may still feed on her milk. This secret tryst is soon discovered by the menfolk. They laugh out loud and make his maman go insane. Being unofficially mad, she takes to hovering about in an isolated garden. Reza is eventually taken into battle with his father, where ambitious plans fail dismally in an army massacre. Reza watches horrified, at the series of brutal murders and at the sight of his own father, being stabbed and kicked to death. I felt that the foundation of the novel actually began here.
Reza is eventually adopted by an insensitive but amused army, together with other orphaned little boys who all vye for favour, clinging to rivalry as a broad excuse. They soon begin their training as soldiers. Eventually, Reza rises into a powerful rank and with a stern, po-faced conjecture but terribly guilty conscience at the same time, fights against his own people. The Kurds naturally see him as a traitor but are too afraid of his power. However, one cruel farmer, takes actions into his own hands that will change Reza’s destiny in a shocking, unexpected way. By now, our protagonist has properly hardened his heart and turned appropriately cold and distant, towards everyone in general. He contains all the attributes of an actor, heroic, handsome, brooding and charismatic.
Reza marries a beautiful Persian woman, with a mind of her own. She hates the Kurds and brings their children up to reflect the same misgivings. Materialistic and selfish, she takes revenge on Reza, whom she feels has short-changed her with a failed promise of glitzy wealth and status. Reza’s wife sleeps with other men in earnest and along the way, earns herself a scarlet reputation.
Not that Reza minds of course.
As the years flee and we now find ourselves in modern-day Iran, we also observe an increasingly brooding Reza. Here is a weary man who carries a heavy cross; one who feels an immense sadness at having betrayed the Kurds. He has never got over missing and losing his mother and through a chained series of events, this is naturally reflected in Reza’s initial experience with women.
The novel grows with sharp strength as the plot progresses through Khadivi’s easy ability, that allows her to reveal the often hidden but affectionate heart of Reza. Slowly but surely, despite all his brutalities, the reader learns to love him. Khadivi avoids the usual sentiment associated with heartbreaking novels, that trace a deep sense of emotion.
She does this by seeming to write with a strong masculine hand and one suspects that she rides through her own played out brutal scenes, with nary the blink of an eyelid. Her story is devoid of emotion and sentiment is played out through narration. One expects a thick maze of skilled literary metaphors and complex wordplay, poetic in rhythm and structure, and all of which are honed beautifully by Khadivi herself. A brilliant novel, complexx in personality and not your everyday easy-to-devour read.
Filed under: Older Book and Film Reviews
