“The Zar Tales”, Chapter VI.

CHAPTER VI.

The heat of the day faded and the soft, cooling winds came down from the mountain, swirling around the trees in the woods. The village was high up the mountain, with pine forests peppering the area. Ali and other Zars met in a clearing, far up that mountain, hidden from any mortals who might travel up the steep terrain. It was easy for the Zars, for they could float upwards, where they would perch on tree branches. They gathered to smoke the sweet hashish together and discuss details of the mortals around them. They would fill the bowl at the top of a big hookah, light it with a little small magic, sit cross-legged around the big glass bottomed pipe and each take a hose and suck in a lungful of the potent smoke. After a while each Zar would float to a branch in a tree, until the trees surrounding the clearing were hung with glimmering Zar-fruit.

Most of the Zars were around the same age. They were transformed into Demons at a time of life when they were still full of the vitality of men, just not their mortal lives. However they became to be, and of course the reasons varied, they seemed to have mortal interests. They gathered to discuss the business and gossip of the villages, the politics, the secrets and rumours of the prominent. Like men everywhere, they complained and groaned about the women they possessed. If human ears could hear this Zar-talk, they would hear the common, everyday concerns of men. Alas, they would only hear the sighing of the wind, the rustle of leaves whirled by eddies of air swept down from the mountain passes. No language for mortal ears to discern, but a constant moaning in the woods, enough to make a man turn back and run down to the world he knew. The woods in this region were known to be haunted by spirits, and though they suspected there were Zars up there, no one had ever seen evidence. There was just the sigh of the wind and the sweet lingering smell of hashish.

This evening the Zar-fruit discussed the Shahnamah. For thirteen centuries this book of wisdom ran like a river through the minds of Persians to the ultimate ocean of life. The book spoke of wisdom, and to some of the men-spirits this was to know good from evil. To others, sitting on the branches, with eyes distant and unfocused by the hashish, wisdom was the dispensing of justice and fairness. Whatever an individual Zar thought, there was sure to be an opposing opinion. For Adil, Benan, Emir, Ali, Hasan, and quiet Derin, all were Zars of intelligence and former distinction. At one point, Emir, who was considered by some to be a poet, quoted an old verse he had worked upon for many centuries. He revisited the garden of memories to versify his experience and refine it now when mortal toil was beyond his reach.

“Take to delight the presence
from this two-way abode.
We would not meet each other
Once we pass through.”

Ah! To some of the Zars this was the sad essence of life. To others, it was not. Good they had taken of the pipe before they began to discuss Emir’s verse, for the argument could have grown fierce. Sadly, they were just spirits. Their impact upon mankind was long past.

But not in the plans of Ali.

In life, he had been a Berber chieftain of the Tuaregs tribe. He was a natural leader of men, had been known for his courage and fierce sword play. He had stood on the edge of the desert, robed in blue gowns and indigo veils, looking out from his encampment, and counted the horses grazing before him. He had raided other tribes, and the scars on his body were the badges of his courage. He was a tall man in life, with flashing dark eyes and flowing dark hair he wore braided with gold coins. Gold earrings glittered in his ears and a gold torque around his neck signified his status in the tribe. He came from warriors, and his young sons by his wives would be raised as warriors.

He was killed by a traitor while in the arms of his second wife, in the throngs of passion. When he was judged by the Mullahs in Paradise he was found wanting, for he had chosen to remain with the gods and goddesses of his ancestors. Plus he made the foolish mistake of not having his sword by his side. This condemned him more for they once had been men themselves. So Ali ben Gaia du Naravas, first son of the illustrious father of the tribe, and a new Berber poet, was cast out of Paradise, and condemned and branded a Demon. No longer would the smell of the wind from the desert fill his nostrils. No longer would he see the sun fall to the horizon over endless dunes. He would not hear the ney and soft drums played by Berber tribesmen around a fire at night, nor see the women dance, their hair swirling outward like black waves upon a roiling nighttime sea.

Ali’s fate was to roam the mountains far north of the desert, where other demons, some with similar crimes, some from countries unknown to him, shared their sad stories and their longings for home and family. Most had been wandering for thousands of years, taking residence where they could fine suitable quarters. Ali was fortunate in the choice of Shakira, for she was intelligent and comely. She was also passionate and demanding. Ali expected to remain with her for a long time, though it was a matter of opinion who was possessed by whom. Ah! That Shakira was a strong woman, and never boring. Sometimes annoying but all women were to some extent.

These mullahs would upset the apple cart in the name of their one God, Allah. He was a jealous god, no different from the Christian’s Christ or whoever the Jew’s God was when you thought about it. Ali missed the tolerant and easy gods of his youth. So, he had a reason for bringing together these Zars this fine evening. If he could get these hashish-sodden demons to agree, together they could have one sweet revenge on the Mullahs.

“Ali my friend!” Hasan , from a village across the great ridge, called out to Ali.

“We hear all over the mountain the Mullahs from Ankara are interested in our women. What do you my fine friend, know of these rumors?”

Ali smiled from his perch in an alder tree. His white teeth gleamed like bleached bones in the gathering darkness.

“Hasan, my brother! I hear the Mullahs have been warned by the mayor of our village that our women are holding zars. They must stick their narrow noses where the women are concerned.”

The sound of sighing wind was heard amongst the trees. This concerned them all, and they struggled to focus their attention on the words of both men.

“Ah”, chimed in Benan, from the village closest to Ali’s. “So that’s why those men were closed up for a day. Our elders went from the mosque to the home of Imam Kaleel and stayed there for hours. I only heard bits and pieces over the wind. May Ammon and Isis protect us!”

At the mention of these two earliest gods of the Berbers and their cousins, the Egyptians, the Zar Demons kissed their closed fist and touched their foreheads in the old Berber self-blessing.

Ali’s eyes flashed, his heart lept in his chest. Each Zar perched on a branch would have had the same reaction. Ah, thought Ali. Our Gods are forbidden to us. The religion of the Arabs has replaced the true religion of our ancestors. Ammon will have his revenge. The defeat of our culture has taken them ten centuries, but there still is resistance amongst our living tribesmen to the north and south of the desert.
.
Berbers still, and with this Ali concocted a plan.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2010-2014

With a Lot of Help from my Friends…..

“For writers, for those of us who write fiction, it is good to dip into history and other cultures.  The richness and beauty of these things can only add to our attempts.” – Jane Kohut-Bartels, from her online review of Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner (https://ladynyo.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/the-kite-runner)

Steve Isaak (“Can’t Sleep”, poems, 1987-2007″, available from Lulu.com: ID: 8482600) sends out a listing of quotes either from movies, new books or reviews he has come across.

His list of 6/15/10  included this quote from me, as I reviewed Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner”.  I forgot about this review, but I didn’t forget about “The Kite Runner”.  I’m reposting this review, because, hey…it’s almost summer and I need a vacation.  I’m posting Isaak’s comment at the end of the review.

Steve Isaak is one of my favorite writers and also an incredible poet.  Check out his new book from Lulu.com.  It’s a slim volume of 94 poems but one you will revisit  over and over.

Lady Nyo

“The Kite Runner”, by Khaled Hosseini

REVIEW:

For two years or more, I have had this book, stuffed on my shelf and I haven’t done more than to read a few pages.  For some reason I took it down and started to read it a couple of days ago and I couldn’t put it down.

Although a work of fiction, it really isn’t.  It is more a contemporary historical work, with an old-fashioned storyteller style.

I have been stumped lately.  Not blocked because when you are preparing a manuscript for any publication, you aren’t really creating something new, you are going over what has already been written and you are refining it.  Hopefully.

Perhaps to say there is nothing ‘new’ is wrong.  You are doing so, even in the rewrite.

Where I have been stumped is the ‘why’ of my stories, especially those written for “The Zar Tales” and also the novel, “Tin Hinan”.  They are written in the framework of cultural issues and a place I have no experience or knowledge.  But that didn’t seem to stop me and I wondered about the ‘why’.

I borrowed from my experiences in Belly Dancing, but that is just part of the issue of the ‘why’.

Reading “The Kite Runner” I fell under the spell of what Hosseini was doing: he was weaving a wonderful, elaborate, moral and timely ‘tale’:  Perhaps the Persians, the vastness of the history and literature, the poets Rumi, Khayyam, Beydel, Hafez, the Shahnamah, (book of 10th century Persian heroes) can turn our hearts and minds from the horrors of what Afghanistan and those parts of the Middle East have become to us in the West.  It is more than terrorism.  These writers and stories are part of the heartbeat of humanity that knows no walls.

“If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother.  But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting….”

(From the Shahnamah, a story about Rostam and his long-lost son, Sohrab who he mortally wounds in battle.)

For writers, for those of us who write fiction, it is good to dip into history and other cultures.  The richness and beauty of these things can only add to our attempts.

Funny. In writing one of the final chapters of  “The Zar Tale”, I took the sense of  “Now is the time gone for meeting” for the poetry of the stumped, second-rate poet Emir, who finally (after ten centuries of mulling over the same three  opening lines) gets it together in his indictment of the three Mullahs.  Then his poetry soars and he is able to complete it.  I must have read something of the Shahnamah somewhere, but I don’t remember.  It’s funny how the mind holds onto something in secret and then gives forth when needed.

“Take to delight the presence

That from this two-way abode

We would not meet each other

Once we pass through.

For our chance meeting is but

A reflection of life’s mysteries

Not to be counted upon,

But to acknowledge the wonder.

But!

You have barred our spirits from Paradise!

You, and your One God, have condemned us

To wander the earth inconsolable to human kindness.

Now is the time for our answer!

Now is the time for the quick slash

Of a sword!

Now we delight  we will not

Meet again

Once you pass through this

Vale of tears you have created.

Heaven or Hell-

You have made it the same!”

–From “The Zar Tales”

And perhaps the real reason of the ‘why’ is that humanity suffers the same issues all over the map. When we do read and understand at a deeper level these human issues, we begun to understand ourselves.

If the upshot of all this means  our writing is fuller, the colors richer, well, that is good. When  we understand that alien cultures are no barriers to the human heart and compassion…well, that is even better.

Lady Nyo

Tags: “The Kite Runner”, Afghanistan, fiction writers, Khaled Hosseini, Persian mystics, Rumi, the Middle East, the Shahnamah

1. Steve Isaak Says:
   December 8, 2009 at 10:05 pm editThis book review transcends the usual book review in that it’s more philosophical in its view than the book reviews that focus on the nuts n’ bolts of the writing: characterization, structure, theme, taking it into a more PERSONAL realm for you, and us, the readers.I tend to be less philosophical in my book reviews — I’m a nuts n’ bolts guy, because, at the end of the day, writing is not a mystical experience, it’s everyday grunt-through-it, deal-with-the-writing-elements work. There’s delicious inspiration, and moments of glee (especially during the plotting/characterization phase), but you’re more spiritual about it.

   I sometimes wish I could be that way, but we’re built the way we’re built, right? Might as well celebrate our strengths in a world that would tear us, as individuals and groups, down.

   That’s why I enjoy your writing, and why I could appreciate why you appreciated “The Kite Runner,” a novel I couldn’t get into.

   Hosseini has plenty o’ mood, and he’s done everything right (in terms of building characters, structuring the story), but it felt too technical for me — like he was trying to build up to some momentous event that would be less-than-momentous for me, the reader.

   Bear in mind, I’m mostly a crime and horror-fiction reader, with occasional reader-forays into non-fiction books.

   Your take on it has me admiring the novel a bit more than I did, but I think my cultural differences with the author were too much to surmount. Other readers, thankfully, felt differently.

   Thanks for the recommend, Jane. Any experience that prompts us to think and appreciate beauty (that is, become better people) is a worthwhile one, and you’ve certainly added one of those to my daily life.

“The Kite Runner”

By Khaled Hosseini.

For two years or more, I have had this book, stuffed on my shelf and I haven’t done more than to read a few pages.  For some reason I took it down and started to read it a couple of days ago and I couldn’t put it down.

Although a work of fiction, it really isn’t.  It is more a contemporary historical work, with an old-fashioned storyteller style.

I have been stumped lately.  Not blocked because when you are preparing a manuscript for any publication, you aren’t really creating something new, you are going over what has already been written and you are refining it.  Hopefully.

Perhaps to say there is nothing ‘new’ is wrong.  You are doing so, even in the rewriting.

Where I have been stumped is the ‘why’ of my stories, especially those written for “The Zar Tales” and also the novel, “Tin Hinan”.  They are written in the framework of cultural issues and a place I have no experience or knowledge.  But that didn’t seem to stop me and I wondered about the ‘why’.

I borrowed from my experiences in Belly Dancing, but that is just part of the issue of the ‘why’.

Reading “The Kite Runner” I fell under the spell of what Hosseini was doing: he was weaving a wonderful, elaborate, moral and timely ‘tale’:  Perhaps the Persians, the vastness of the history and literature, the poets Rumi, Khayyam, Beydel, Hafez, the Shahnamah, (book of 10th century Persian heroes) can turn our hearts and minds from the horrors of what Afghanistan and those parts of the Middle East have become to us in the West.  It is more than terrorism.  These writers and stories are part of the heartbeat of humanity that knows no walls.

“If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother.  But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting….”

(from the Shahnamah, a story about Rostam and his long-lost son, Sohrab who he mortally wounds in battle.)

For writers, for those of us who write fiction, it is good to dip into history and other cultures.  The richness and beauty of these things can only add to our attempts.

(Funny. In writing one of the final chapters of  “The Zar Tale”, I took the sense of  “Now is the time gone for meeting” in the poetry of the stumped, second-rate Emir, who finally (after ten centuries of mulling over the same three  opening lines) gets it together in his indictment of the three Mullahs.  Then his poetry soars and he is able to complete it.  I must have read something of the Shahnamah somewhere, but I don’t remember.  It’s funny how the mind holds onto something in secret and then gives forth when needed.

“Take to delight the presence

That from this two-way abode

We would not meet each other

Once we pass through.

For our chance meeting is but

A reflection of life’s mysteries

Not to be counted upon,

But to acknowledge the wonder.

But!

You have barred our spirits from Paradise!

You, and your One God, have condemned us

To wander the earth inconsolable to human kindness.

 

Now is the time for our answer!

Now is the time for the quick slash

Of a sword!

Now we delight  we will not

Meet again

Once you pass through this

Vale of tears you have created.

Heaven or Hell-

You have made it the same!”

–From “The Zar Tales”

 

 

And perhaps the real reason of the ‘why’ is that humanity suffers the same issues all over the map. When we do read and understand at a deeper level these human issues, we begun to understand ourselves.

If the upshot of all this means  our writing is fuller, the colors richer, well, that is good. When  we understand that alien cultures are no barriers to the human heart and compassion…well, that is even better.

Lady Nyo