The Eternal Loneliness of Human Beings in a Noisy World.
Silence as a narrative device creates a space in which the reader can reflect on events and draw conclusions. Silence, or what remains unspoken, by withholding what could be said, intensifies the sense of loneliness and the depth of a character’s emotions and reveals the character’s inner reality.
Works such as The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Waves by Virginia Woolf, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, as well as writings by Samuel Beckett and Henry Miller, are striking examples of this kind of literature. The novel For You by Hossein Nooshazar (Mehri Publishing, London, 2023) also belongs to this literary tradition.
The novel For You was first published in the United States in 2007 in the journal Barresi-ye Ketab (Book Review). Later, after changes were imposed for publication in Iran, it appeared in 2010 under the title And His Shadow Will Never Again Darken the Earth, published by Morvarid in Tehran. According to the author, that version had been altered and, to some extent, distorted under pressure, reducing the social dimension of the story to a more personal narrative. Eventually, in 2023, Hossein Nooshazar decided to release the original version, without omissions, under its original title through Mehri Publishing.
The novel tells the life story of a man named Yousef Bani-Alami from childhood to the present through a non-linear narrative. Yousef, who works as a lawyer, believes that justice does not exist in the world and that the structure of life is fundamentally built upon injustice. This injustice, he believes, has accompanied him since birth: being born ten minutes earlier than his twin brother changed the course of his entire life and destiny. Yet he submits to fate. He says nothing, takes no action, and remains silent.
In a conversation with BBC Persian, Hossein Nooshazar describes the “literature of silence,” referring to the American-Egyptian theorist Ihab Hassan, as a branch of postmodern literature. He explains it as follows: “Hassan argues that ‘the literature of silence’ emerges from the tension between a writer’s impulse toward self-destruction on the one hand and the need for inward reflection on the other. According to this theory, the literature of silence has two branches. In one, writers such as Henry Miller attempt to erase the boundary between art and life, writing in such a way that their work becomes part of life itself. In the other branch, represented for example by Samuel Beckett, the writer attempts to show the meaninglessness and inadequacy of language, the inability of language to create genuine communication, and thus the ultimate isolation and enduring loneliness of human beings.”
The author of For You describes the manifestation of this idea in everyday life in these terms: “The issue is simple. If you live in a family where communication among its members is damaged, if you live in a society where public trust has been undermined or destroyed, if you live under a government that has lost its legitimacy, then human relationships inevitably become fractured, and in a sense a silence flows between people. In the millions of posts that appear on social media every day, I hear the sound of silence. I have worked for years in psychiatric hospitals and mental institutions. They are noisy places, yet filled with meaningless words. You may live for years beside a spouse, a mother, a father, or a brother and still have nothing to say to them. If a writer finds a literary expression for such a condition, then, in Hassan’s terms, the work belongs to the realm of the literature of silence.”
Who is the audience of the novel For You?
Does the character Yousef in For You truly live in such a way that he has nothing to say to his mother, his brother, or his wife? In the novel he addresses a woman named Soraya Hatami, the only woman in his life. Referring to the final passage of the novel, he declares that he will not keep his appointment with her; instead, he writes the present book and leaves those he does not wish to portray faceless, storyless, and without character within the text. But what does the author say about the confrontation between the two sides of this character, Yousef and Bani-Alami, and to whom is For You actually addressed?
Hossein Nooshazar answers: “To Bani-Alami himself, the unfortunate narrator of the novel. He wants, at least once, to be honest with himself. A critic once wrote: ‘The narrator of For You, recalling the dragging sound of his disabled brother’s footsteps in the courtyard of an old house, begins to examine suffering and ultimately transforms from a domineering individual into a self-renewing one.’ Everything that happens in the story should move in that direction.”
Did the subject of the novel require such a form of expression, or did the author consciously choose this style? Nooshazar replies: “It is clear. Communication among us Iranians is damaged. I do not say it is impossible or that all paths are blocked, but it is not easy. Corruption usually spreads from the top downward. There is no doubt that Iran’s civil society is alive. Yet it is also undeniable that in the past twenty years sanctions and inflation, sudden fortunes and devastating bankruptcies have damaged human relationships. Few people feel they are in their rightful place. This story, in its particular form and structure, tries to show one corner of this condition through the life of a single person. Therefore its primary audience is also in Iran. Someone observing Iranian society from outside has seen a figure like Bani-Alami. For that reason I do not expect readers to necessarily like him. Who likes to see their own wound in a mirror? Those who lose a limb often cannot look at the empty space for a long time. I believe a writer’s style is closely connected with his experiences. For many years my life has been intertwined with people who suffered from something but could not express it in words. The style of this book reflects that condition. What percentage of Iranian society is depressed? What percentage must care for a disabled or elderly family member while struggling with conflicting emotions?”
A suggestion for changing an undesirable situation
One of the secondary characters in the novel is a man named Ahghari, a retired member of the Revolutionary Guard who benefits from corruption and privilege. Yousef despises him, yet acts as his lawyer, gains wealth through him, and even meets his wife Soraya Hatami through him. Yousef also remains silent in his dealings with this man; his tolerance appears as a refusal to react or intervene. In the censored Iranian edition, this character was transformed into one of the suitors of Yousef’s mother, and the central theme—questioning justice—was reduced to Yousef’s personal revenge against this man and his power and wealth. In the afterword of the book, the author clearly refers to this issue and criticizes the tendency to “pretend not to see and not to understand.”
In response to BBC Persian’s question about how to move beyond difficult times and improve such an undesirable situation, Hossein Nooshazar says: “In one of Golshiri’s books, I think The Lost Lamb of the Shepherd, the narrator says with regret: ‘We wanted to change the world, but we changed ourselves.’ We do not need to change the world. We should start with ourselves. My younger colleagues sincerely respect the rights of others and show great readiness for work and creativity. So we should hope that one day the country will be in their hands. Women are often better at building relationships. Let us entrust matters to them. In that case trust will surely return and the silence will be broken.”