"I
couldn't say who I am, I haven't the remotest notion of myself; I am someone
without antecedents, without a history, without a country, and on that I
insist!"
Peter Handke
I'm Vahid Norouzalibeik, an
Iranian M.A. graduate of English Language & Literature,
living in
Ralph Waldo Emerson believes, "Most
of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine," so I've always
tried to be a serious and devoted student during all my courses to let the sun
rise and all my devoted work in the field of English and American Literature
has been appreciated by many of my professors, and those who are interested in
Literature, deep reflection and especially in answerless questions.
I've written Short Stories (both in Farsi and English),
Essays and Criticism on Meaning, The Text, the Nature of
Art which always challenges our self-understanding,
. . . I’m currently writing my Master’s thesis on
Beckett, my favorite writer.
Whenever I feel the metaphysical anguish at the absurdity
of the human condition, I ask myself 'To whom shall I
tell my grief?' And I'm answered : 'To your
pen and paper.' I do my best to think and write as much as I can ... We
are trapped in the prison house of language forever ...
Walter Benjamin believes : "Nothing
is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in
such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled
abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help."
Maybe I have nothing else in this world to do but to find
my purpose of being-in-the-world after I’ve been
thrown into it. My way of living should remind others of their own and show
them that we do not see things as they are ... but we do see them as we are ...
As I'm very much fond of Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906-89), and his mysterious purgatory world of disintegration, silence and disappearance, and all his creativity to attack language as the best way to defend it. He has depicted masterfully how being an artist is to fail and how form accommodates the mess, and how difficult it seems to talk about nothingness. I have written my master's thesis on Beckett's often overlooked Texts for Nothing in which I've looked for some poststructuralist concepts and themes.
I've also translated Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot", and some of his short pieces, into Farsi. They have been published, although “each word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness”. I've been trying my best to feel how, as Derrida believes, Beckett's works make the limits of our language tremble. Beckett's writings, according to Derrida, make the latter feel very much close to the former.
The (im)possibility of literature and silence, as both desired and impossible to achieve, is what I've always been after.
Having chosen a road less travelled by, I have been facing
many obstacles while going on. The way has magically been paved
...
Gabriel G.
Marquez, in his final farewell says:
"I have learned that a man only has the right to
look down on another man when it is to help him stand up."
I do not consider myself a great man, but I have always had Fyodor Dostoevsky's quote in
my mind that : "Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a
large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have
great sadness on Earth."
I spend most of my time on reading and writing, thinking
about different concepts such as Literature and where it is going, the
philosophy of Art & Literature, trying to imply what I’ve grasped in
my writings, too, because it's better to light a candle than to curse
the darkness.
I enjoy
concentrating on my goals, which I hope to be high and noble ones, because, as
I do hope to continue my way successfully, by
always attempting the great and the impossible, in the chaotic worlds made by words,
and continue to make. Even, I believe, we give meaning to words, or want them
to give meaning to us. Once these mysterious elements get together, ruins become
the true refuge.
Since our mind is like a parachute and it only saves us when it's open, I've always been after the ideas of scholars, and men of thought,
quite seriously . . . Among them are:
Blanchot, Saussure, Barthes, Eco, Iser,
Bakhtin, Jakobson, Russian
Formalists, Althusser, Peirce, E.
Anderson, Derrida, de Man, Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, Levi-Strauss, Culler, J. H. Miller, J. D. Caputo, Cixous,
Jakobson, Frye, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, P. Lawley, M. H. Abrams, L. Lipking,
M. Nakell & Rebecca, Blau,
Heniford, A. Petty, N. Kutty, M.
Perloff, G. Bruns, S. Brienza, C. Glenn, Livio Dobrez,
S. Meysami, and my exceptional master
R.
Palmer
who is great and great and changed my being into a meaningful one.
My marvellous wife, the true friend and the best
companion, an exquisite and patient spouse,
Sh. Sarikhani ... Among my professors, Dr. J. Sokhanvar, the unique man of insight, is, and
continues to be, of a certain importance and inspiration to me ...
Dr. P. Maftoon, the unique scholar who taught me
how to know I can rather than think I do ... the very
hard work, in all sleepless nights, which has been put into this website, and which
connotes each word on it, is dedicated to them and to Dr. Nojumian & Dr. Ahmadzadeh, who are my
exquisite scholar friends and I’ve been honored by being an assistant to
the former for some time now ... Dr. Deedari, Dr. Soheil, Dr. Maysami, to whom I feel always indebted and they are of those rare
people who walk in the
rain rather than just get wet.
My professors at the B.A. level, A. Sarmadi, Y. Khoshraftar, D. Behrouz and R. Guitoo who planted the seed and showed me how to do things
with words in words by words. I learnt a lot
from them.
Let's read this motivating quote by e.e. cummings and enjoy :
"to be
nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make
you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can
fight and never stop fighting."
Let's go beyond the superficial concepts ... let's start a new
life just from now ... a life in which appearance is really deceiving ... let's
be born again right now ... let's start the journey into ourselves and go as
deeply as possible since there is nothing to be done except this ... Nothing is
ever going to happen unless we make it now. Let's go ...
vahid@vahidnab.com
