Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey into the Heart of Iran [IMPORT] (Hardcover)

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“A fine, fine talent to be savoured.”
–Wayson Choy

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Marcello Di Cintio prepares for his “journey into the heart of Iran” with the utmost diligence. He takes lessons in Farsi, researches Persian poetry and sharpens his wrestling skills by returning to the mat after a gap of some years. Knowing that there is a special relationship between heroic poetry and the various styles of traditional Persian wrestling, he sets out to discover how Iranians “reconcile creativity with combat.”

From the moment of his arrival in Tehran, the author is overwhelmed by hospitality. He immerses himself in male company in tea houses, conversing while smoking the qalyun or water pipe. Iranian men are only too willing to talk, especially about politics. Confusingly, he is told conflicting statements–that all Iranians love George Bush, that all Iranians hate George Bush; that life was infinitely better under the Shah, that the mullahs swept away the corruption of the Shah’s regime and made life better for all.

Once out of Tehran, he learns where the traditional forms of wrestling are practised. His path through the country is directed by a search for the variant disciplines and local techniques of wrestling and a need to visit sites and shrines associated with the great Persian poets: Hafez, Ferdosi, Omar Khayyám, Attar, Shahriyar and many others. Everywhere his quest leads him, he discovers that poetry is loved and quoted by everyone from taxi-drivers to students.

His engagement with Iranian culture is intimate: he wrestles (sometimes reluctantly) when invited, samples illegal home-brew alcohol, attends a wedding, joins mourners, learns a new way to drink tea and attempts to observe the Ramazan fast, though not a Muslim himself. Though he has inevitable brushes with officialdom, he never feels in danger, even when he hears that a Canadian photo-journalist has apparently been beaten to death in a police cell during the author’s visit. The outraged and horrified reaction of those around him to this violent act tightens the already close bond he has formed with the Persians.

His greatest frustration is that he is unable to converse freely with Iranian women aware that an important part of his picture of Iran is thus absent. Yet the mosaic of incidents, encounters, vistas, conversations, atmospheres and acutely observed sights, smells and moments creates a detailed impression of a country and society that will challenge most, if not all, preconceptions.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Canada (August 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676977324
• ISBN-13: 978-0676977325
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,518,879 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poets and Pahlavans a Pleasure!, December 22, 2007

By	Iran Writes (Brooklyn, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey into the Heart of Iran (Paperback)

"Elegant and tasteful" may not fit the language of wrestlers, even if the wrestler is a poet. However, this travelogue was indeed tasteful and elegant.
The author visited only few standard tourist attraction cities; the rest were humble, dusty villages in the middle of nowhere, where he was looking for some zoorkhanehs (sport centers) to see the demonstration of some local wrestling techniques. Wherever he goes, he not only finds someone to demonstrate his wrestling, but he finds a dead poet under a tombstone which most of the time, though not so officially, serves as a shrine for the local people and the visitors. We find the author either wrestling on a wrestling mat or kneeling next to a tombstone of a poet...
I learned a lot about this sport through this book, and I have found its significance and its function in our history. Though this sport was the primary reason that Di Cintio went to Iran, what he came back with is something greater. If I learned one thing about wrestling, it is that it is a game of balance, which is so central to the Iranian life. It is this underlying idea which makes it such a ritual in Iran and compensates for its lack of glamor.
While traveling from village to village in search of a method which those local people use to test their ability to maintain their balance, the author comes to another central issue in Iranian life, and that is poetry. From Mashhad to Tous to Kashan to Isfahan to Shiraz and Kerman and Yazd or even tribal Luristan, our author finds the tomb of a poet. He is astounded to see that he is not the only visitor to those graves. Some of them are elaborate monuments and are shrines for the Iranian people. Hafez, Saadi, Khayyam, and Ferdowsi, are among the most popular and the most visited graves, while others, less famous, still receive their own share of attention. Once he asks two women why Iranians visit the grave of these poets as if they are shrines of saints. One of the women says that it is because "Iranians love their poets." "Well," the author replies, "We all love our poets too, but it would never occur to us to visit their graves as pilgrimage." The woman, not having an answer, says, "Or maybe because we do not have anything else to do."
I do not think that if Di Cintio would have stayed in Iran for another four years, or for that matter another forty years, he would have found the answer to that question, just as I still do not know why in the case of domestic hardship and family dispute, or when I am confused about something important, I run to Attar or Hafez or press my mind to come up with a similar situation in a novel or a short story and use it as a guide. But I know that when for months I woke up every two hours to take my sick dog back and forth to the street to relieve himself, it was the poem "It is a rare fortune to serve the elder of the wine house," and its command of "love and servitude" which made me do so without knowing "its why." As the author noted, these poets' poetry is not valued just for its rhythm and beauty, but as a consultant and a companion for us all. The solutions we seek are not in their answer to us, but the virtue of our "seeking" the answer in their poetry. In almost every case, no matter what the question is, the answer is "love," which is supposed to keep the balance.
The book, indeed, was a balanced report of its author's findings in Iranian life, among the poor and humble, among the strong and the weak, among the generous and the not so generous, among the love and sometimes the hate, among those who are greedy and those who are not, he is able to see with balanced eyes, and not get carried away. Whatever he tells us comes from a good dear place, his heart and mind of a poet and athlete with no exaggeration.
Missing are photographs, though. I wished he had printed some of those pictures he took from those remote places in Kurdistan, Luristan, and Kerman or Yazd, which are off the beaten path. I think that, being a poet, he felt rightly confident that his words would draw the picture, but still I wish he had indulged us to a little more of real visual pleasure and not to relied so much on our imagination, which is sometimes poor.