Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran

I rarely read a book and watch the movie one after the other, but in this case, it was a very interesting experience, as both the book and the movie maginifies the ideas and meanings.

THE BOOK

Women without Men. A Novel of Modern Iran by Shahrnush Parsipur is a cruel read. That world, of a modern Iran, is not safe for women. Men are temperamental, demanding, mean, cheaters, abusers, absent. The women from the book try to escape or face them. There are times of change, as the events are taking place with the 1953 coup against the prime minister Mossadegh in the background. In the book, this is just the context, but women´s fate is not necessarily influenced by the events. Out of time, they are the victims.

´Unfortunately, it is still not a time for a woman to travel by herself. She must either become invisible, or stay cooped up in a house. My problem is that I can no longer remain housebound, but I have to, because I am a woman´. The women before being without men are deeply sad and overwhelmed by an emptiness that has no clear cause. They cannot be emancipated because there is no word for what they want. Not yet. One of them turns into a tree that should grow up when watered with breast milk. 

´A sane person does not turn into a tree´, said the man, the green thumb gardener. At least a tree can breath free.

´They embraced the morning glory. The morning glory wrapped its foliage around them and they all rose to the sky in a puff of smoke´. The sanest way to disappear by necessity. No need to read through a miraculous alphabet here. There is a loveless world here.

For writing this book, Shahrnush Parsipur spent 4 years and seven months in prison. Since 1994, she lives in USA. The book is banned in the Islamic Republic since the mid-1980s.

THE MOVIE

Creating a movie after the book lasted 6 years and was done by the USA-based Iran-born visual artist Shirin Neshat together with the author. The movie lasts 1h36 and is available on Amazon Prime, part of the monthly membership. For obvious reasons mentioned above, the movie could not be filmed in Iran, but in Casablanca. 

What the book is lacking in terms of visual appeal, the movie made justice. The silent, word-free nature inuendo is speaking straight the language of sadness and overwhelming emotions. Words are not needed any more.

The movie is also more political than the book, with a stronger echo and a clearer contextualisation, but also with grotesque situations that are not obvious in the book. 

I cannot tell which one is the best, but I am glad I took the chance of following one after the other, as there are details in the movie which are not clear unless one´s read the book. 

I do have another book by Shahrnush Parsipur on my TBR but I would prefer to wait a little bit until I digest all the strong impressions from Women Without Men.