I’ve been thinking a lot about why I appreciate magical realism but fantasy does nothing for me. For me, it reaches truths that fantasy (and other genres) can’t quite grasp. It gives a voice to othered writers, be they minority writers or from the Global South, or more often than not, both. In the hands of a skilled writer, it can express deep emotions like grief, love, and those invisible bonds that link us across generations. It can feel like a folkloric tale, touching something deeper within us. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar brings these ideas together beautifully in her tale of an Iranian family in the village of Razan allowing us to step away from the usual Iranian narratives of Tehran and the Islamic Republic.
An aspect of magical realism that’s not always obvious is how it’s about the margins of existence, life on the borders. Running through the book is the idea of two sides living alongside each other, effecting and affecting each other but never of the other. The supernatural bordering on the natural world is found throughout this book, with spirits of ancestors reminding the living of their roots while also showing us the long arc of Iran’s cultural heritage. Other spirits show us the recent grief of Iran’s recent history, ghosts of loved ones’ not so much haunting as reminding their families of the burden of loss.
Modernity brushing against tradition is a theme running through the book. Characters become mermaids, and their innocence almost lost savagely but is ultimately saved and kept, escaping the darker, more brutal aspects of a revolution. By basing the story in rural Iran, we see a side that’s not often spoken of. Razan is no Tehran. Modernity is encroaching on their way of life but hasn’t yet made its demands of people’s time. The bleakness of chaos is tempered, tamed, and brought to heel by the otherworldliness of the genre.
The sheer buffoonery of regimes and the dark satire thereof is a hallmark of the genre, and Azar does it well here. From the chief who gets lost in a hall of mirrors style house, to the delicious turn of phrase calling out the intellectual pygmies who burn books and stymie thought. Regimes often struggle to exert their influences outside of urban areas and Azar does well in showing how utterly ridiculous the town mice can look through the country mice’s eyes. The magic of Razan is more real than the tomfoolery of the regime.
Capturing the true richness of Iran’s heritage and culture while not allowing the current focus of the world’s attention on its government to become the focus of a book isn’t easy. This book uses magical realism cleverly, reminding us that our ghosts are what we owe to our cultural past for one day we’ll be ghosts too.
