My Uncle Napoleon.

My Uncle Napoleon, written by Iraj Pezeshkzad, is an Iranian novel written in the 1970s and later banned by the theocrats who took power in the 1979 revolution, likely for indecency, as the book is really a comic romp set during World War II in Iran. Based loosely on some of the author’s own experiences in childhood, the book follows the narrator as he falls in love with his cousin Layli and watches his father, his Uncle Napoleon, and another uncle squabble over trial things and plot against each other, often with unexpected consequences, as they all live in attached houses owned by the titular blowhard.

He’s usually called Dear Uncle in the book itself, however, and he is its Ignatius J. Reilly, a bombastic, self-important tyrant, trying to rule his house but finding himself thwarted by his brothers and often other members of the household. He’s assisted by his butler, Mash Qasem, who prefaces nearly every statement with “Why should I lie … to the grave it’s ah, ah … !” The two have concocted an elaborate fantasy of fighting for independence against Britain and in Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, and Dear Uncle is convinced that the English are still out to get him, something the narrator’s father frequently uses to his advantage. The narrator’s mischievous, philandering uncle Asadollah Mirza often helps in various schemes or tries to prevent them from getting out of hand, all the while speaking of sex in code, referring to it as “going to San Francisco” (and later referring to other sex acts as other cities). Dustali Khan shows up thinking his wife is trying to cut off his “noble member,” and maybe he deserves it, although she is quick to fly off the handle and scream bloody murder. Other eccentric relatives and neighbors wander in and out of the story, which doesn’t have a real narrative arc to it other than the loose background story of the narrator’s pursuit of Layli, who is promised to another cousin, the feckless wimp Puri.

Although some of the humor in the book is rooted in Persian culture, most of it feels very universal – this could just as easily be a comedy of manners set on some English lord’s estate, a Downtown Abbey with more yelling and backstabbing and at least talk of sex, although characters in this book talk about San Francisco a lot more often than they actually go there. It’s a different picture of Iran than anything we’ve had in the media since the Islamic Revolution brought the Ayatollahs to power; the news gives us Iranian leaders screaming death to the U.S. and to Israel, cooking up anti-Semitic conspiracies, and funding terror groups around the region, while Iranian film has given us pictures of a society in a sort of arrested development, a country that could be an economic and cultural powerhouse if it were a liberal democracy. These characters feel universal, even with names that are less familiar to western minds – I didn’t realize that the Khan in Dustali Khan was an honorific, not a surname – and some historical allusions that sent me to Wikipedia.

Like A Confederacy of Dunces, My Uncle Napoleon is also very funny. There’s a slapstick element of physical comedy throughout the book, with characters waving knives and guns around, falling over each other, and, once, kicking another right in the noble member, hard enough that any plans to go to San Francisco must be put off for some time. There’s some very clever wordplay throughout the dialogue, especially when Asadollah is involved. (The narrator is the obvious stand-in for Pezeshkzad, but I did wonder if Asadollah was his own adult self arriving in the novel to comment on the goings-on.) On top of the lower-brow humor is a thick coating of farce, mocking the Iranian habit of blaming the English for various problems in the wake of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941, while also taking aim at all dictators through the orotund title character, whose sound and fury generally signifies nothing, yet whose lack of rank or history of valor don’t stop him from proclaiming himself a great hero and trying to keep all of the relatives staying in his compound under his thumb. He’s constantly trying to exile various people around him, or have them arrested, or to have this one pose confess to a murder that didn’t happen just to save the family’s honor and avoid a public embarrassment. Near the beginning of the novel, there’s a family gathering when someone passes wind loudly enough to interrupt Dear Uncle, which leads to an enormous family row that the narrator’s father enjoys far too much. It’s absurd, and funny, and also a symbol of the kind of family quarrels we’ve all had or seen start from nothing and blow up into more than they ever should have become.

Whether the story goes anywhere is probably beside the point, since the journey itself is entertaining, but if you’re looking for a neatly tied bow around the book’s conclusion, you won’t really get it. The story ends abruptly, and there’s a brief epilogue, but we don’t get a traditional big finish. It didn’t matter to me at all – I don’t really remember what Ignatius J. Reilly did at the end of his book either, and that never stopped me from recommending it, as I would this one.

Next up: I’m a few books behind now but just finished Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room and Karin Boye’s Kallocain.