Harrowing, haunting, and, at points, hallucinogenic.
South
is Babak Lakghomi's gripping novel about a journalist traveling south
on assignment from an unnamed city to investigate what's happening on
the oil rigs in the Persian Gulf. Although the city is probably Tehran
and the country Iran (the author, who currently lives in Toronto, was
born and raised in Tehran), both go unnamed, thus bestowing a strong
element of universality, touching on the allegoric and even mythic.
En
route, the narrator, B, spends a night with a family in a remote
village where he encounters a ritual. Just outside the house, there's
the sound of drums, a fire, women in veils looking like “crows with
metal beaks,” and men in white clothes waving bamboo sticks dipped in
the blood of a decapitated chicken. The men are circling a man on his
knees, his head covered in a white sheet. The kneeling man convulses and
screams. B witnesses an exorcism performed by the father of the family
where he's staying. The father then walks around the circle, looking
into everybody's eyes, and sprinkles water on their faces. The father
moves to B and rubs the cold palm of his hand over B's head, then
speaks: “Beware of the south winds.”
The next morning, B opens his suitcase and, with more than a tincture of irony, brings out a copy of The Book of the Winds
he found in a used bookstore that reads like “an encyclopedia of mental
illness written in a tone shifting from that of an old medical text to a
holy book, its pages yellow and disintegrating.” Throughout his tale,
the narrator inserts not only quotes from this occult volume but also
snippets from his own notebook and notes as well as from his father's
notebook. This intertextuality adds depth and intensifies the
overarching mystery that B is attempting to penetrate.
And
what's life like in the south? B provides us with examples of extreme
brutality, cruelty, and privation. This is a world where drought is so
severe that parents must beg for water to prevent their children from
dying of thirst, a world where industrial strikes are an everyday
occurrence, prompting tear gas, batons, and the disappearance of union
leaders, and once B is on an oil rig, a world reminiscent of Kafka (one
of Babak Lakghomi's prime influences) where exhaustion, claustrophobia,
fear, and suspicion permeate the all-pervasive, sinister atmosphere,
driving one poor worker to douse himself with gasoline and set himself
on fire. Anyone offering the slightest resistance is removed, never to
be seen or spoken of again. B also relates a stroke of black humor: in
the cafeteria, the sullen, overworked workers eat their tasteless food
in grim silence while the TV is set to the comedy channel. And, as might
be expected in our drug saturated society, the nurse dispenses pills so
that employees can work harder and, during off hours, numb themselves,
allowing them to at least survive the savagery. To top it off, there's
talk of dwindling demand for oil and decreased company profits, hence
layoffs, which in turn means workers and their families facing
starvation.
B wonders why he, a freelancer, was the one chosen
by the Editor for this assignment. Why didn't the Editor choose a
journalist on staff? Did it have to do with his previous writing about
environmental devastation and the extinction of the painted stork? Or
does it relate to his father's activities as a former union leader and political activist, a
father who mysteriously disappeared when he was a boy? Or perhaps it's
about the book he's currently writing about his father? No answers are
forthcoming, but one thing becomes painfully clear: he's been lured into
a trap, a game where he's kept in a haze about the nature of the
players and the very game itself.
Aboard the rig, B has a
glimmer of what will unfold as he's plunged into an ever-deepening
nightmare. "I sat there alone at a table with my food, watching the
other men eat without talking to each other. Here, there was no sign of
the strikes and protests I had heard about from the Editor before my
departure. Everything seemed in order, as you'd expect from the Company,
a shiny surface hiding the rot underneath." Eerie, eerie. Turning the
pages, we can detect echoes of K. and the Castle in B and the Company.
Moreover, in our current day, to what extent is this Company related to a
totalitarian government and the network of multinational corporations? B
seeks to uncover the truth, but what are his chances of success when
he's up against overwhelming forces of power, control, and greed?
Added
to the drama, there's B's shaky, sliding relationship with his wife,
Tara. In addition to their strained marriage, B relates what Tara had to
say about her office job in the days prior to his excursion south. “You
think I like doing it?” she said. “Only ten percent of what I do every
day pleases me. By the way, I don't think I am any different from
others. That is life for most people, if they're lucky.” Quite the
statement about our modern society: the vast number of employees have no
real, meaningful connection with their work; rather, they simply show
up for a paycheck. Unlike his own dogged pursuit of the facts relating
to his father, the Company, and the state, B knows Tara has little
reason to remain in the country.
South is a page-turner.
Along with the noir elements, an important feature must be highlighted:
Babak Lakghomi's sparse prose and precision of language. The author
acknowledges the influence of language-oriented writers such as Garielle
Lutz, Diane Williams, and Ben Marcus. Here's one of many short, striking descriptions:
“The sun setting. Quiet sea. The rig looked like a chandelier made of wire. The cranes slanted like seabirds waiting for prey.”
Babak Lakghomi's novel speaks directly and powerfully to a modern reader, a novel not to be missed. 
Author Babak Lakghomi from Tehran, Iran currently lives in Toronto
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