Michael M. J. Fischer,
Mute dreams, blind owls and dispersed knowledges: Persian poesis in the transnational circuitry.
Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2004.
ISBN: 0 8223 3298 1
475pp
US$24.95 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by Duke University Press)

Michael M. J. Fischer’s comprehension of the dynamics inherent in Iranian culture is more than substantial. An anthropologist, Professor Fischer spent considerable time in Iran in the decade leading up to the Islamic revolution in the late 1970s and he has since maintained close ties. His particular interest is in what he calls “the dialectic between Zoroastrian and Muslim’ ideologies at work in the nation’s cultural practices” (168). While officially a Muslim state, it is not widely recognised that Iran has never fully abandoned its pre-Islamic Zoroastrian roots. In northern Iran, this heritage is particularly evident in the region’s large minority population of practicing Zoroastrians. Twenty-five years of on-again, off-again persecution from Tehran has had little success in eliminating these living remnants. More widespread practices like the national celebration of Now Ruz (New Year) represent a more comprehensive, if diluted, impact of Iran’s pre-Islamic past on contemporary culture. In Mute dreams, blind owls and dispersed knowledges Fischer concentrates on two important representations of Zoroastrianism – ritual practice and the national epic poem Shahnameh – in an attempt to uncover an historical explanation for the modes of narrative prominent in contemporary Iranian literature and, in particular, the internationally celebrated New Iranian Cinema.

Part of the problem official Iranian ideology has found in confronting and eliminating Zoroastrianism lies in the latter’s fundamental expression through ceremonial ritual. Zoroastrianism, Fischer explains, survives principally as a ritualistic faith (as opposed to a scholastic code of belief). Its practitioners define themselves through Yasna, “the basic high liturgy of Zoroastrianism”, which, Fischer believes, “provide(s) one of the most direct entries into the religion” (27). To understand Zoroastrianism, western analysts (and Middle-Eastern for that matter) must subdue the desire to translate and categorise the religion’s ritualised ‘illuminationist’ acts of worship: acts wherein language is not dominant. Repetitions of gesture, vocal chanting and the ingestion of elixirs carry autonomous spiritual meaning, and are performed by Zoroastrians as steps towards personal clarity of vision and the continued realisation of the spiritual awakening initiated by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra). Fischer finds that these practices have carried over into, what he calls, the “modern Iranian consciousness” (21) exemplified for westerners in contemporary Iranian fiction and films. “The central ambivalence of (contemporary) Iranian nationalism” represented in these texts should, he argues, be understood as stemming from the nebulous tension between Zoroastrianism and Islam, in particular their divergent approaches to symbolic religious practice.

The second important Zoroastrian influence that Fischer discusses is the early eleventh-century epic poem, theShahnameh. He charts his concern with this text on three fronts: “its power as a purveyor of pre-Islamic lore”, “its exemplification of the ambiguities of Iranian nationalism” and “its status as a prototype for studies of codification of an oral tradition” (68). Perhaps of greatest interest is the importance Fischer places Shahnameh‘s parabolic logic, central to which is its structure of intersignification, wherein “each story comments on prior and later ones” (18). The direct relevance he finds with contemporary Iranian filmmaking is convincing. Modern Iranian cinema, Fischer argues, is “intertextual (one film referring to others) and a moral resource for parables.” (257) His comparison of Bahman Gobadi’s A time for drunken horses (Iran 2000) with Samira Makhmalbaf’sBlackboards (Iran/Italy/Japan 1999) sheds particular light on the intersignifying aspects of Iranian filmmaking.

In the second half of his book, Fischer shifts his considerations to an analysis of various contemporary Iranian narratives. Central to his discussion is a concern with understanding what he describes as the ‘surrealist modernism’ typical of Iranian narrative art since the publication of Sadegh Hedayat’s 1939 novella The blind owl. For Fischer, The blind owl’s technique and imagery constitute the central reference point for understanding the modernist agenda at work in contemporary Iranian literature and the New Iranian Cinema. Incorporating Indian symbolism and modernist European narrative techniques, The blind owl stands as a challenge to those Iranians (and foreigners) who would restrict Iranian culture to Iran’s political boundaries.’ (167) Fischer goes on to discuss a selection of seminal examples from the New Iranian Cinema – including Gav (1969), Towers of silence (1975) and Close up (Iran 1990) – as continuations of the artistic and political values initiated by The blind owl. In the final section of his book, Fischer applies these concepts to a wide range of more recent internationally successful films, including A taste of cherry (France/Iran 1997), A time for drunken horses,Blackboards, Kandahar (Iran/France 2002) and Osama (Afghanistan / Netherlands / Japan / Ireland / Iran 2002).

While the breadth of Fischer’s discussion is admirable (and most certainly vital for any Iranian film scholar), the information contained within Mute dreams comes with an unnecessary cost. As his book’s full title probably indicates, Fischer is a writer who devotedly follows a now weary tradition of radical theoretical re-evaluation. Throughout the book he consistently indulges in covering his tracks with a string of post-modern uncertainties. “Categorical definitions,” he claims, “are rarely useful; the rewards of cultural comprehension and of cross-cultural conversion emerge in the process” (153). Whatever else such an irresponsible notion might mean, it clearly reflects a crisis in Fischer’s attitude to academic writing (in which categorical definitions are very useful). His regular flip-flopping between predictably simplistic references to Benjamin, Deleuze, Lacan, Bakhtin etc and his fondness for complete submission to the authority of Derrida only deepen this problem. I cannot endorse this book. Unfortunately, Fischer’s aversion to accountability for his ideas (coupled with a seriously disorganised approach to structure) renders Mute Dreams a far less useful study than it should have been.

Thomas Redwood
Flinders University, Australia.