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Article: Iran's other book.(Shahnameh)(Book review)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- November 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Abolqasem Ferdowsi Shahnameh, translated by Dick Davis. Viking, 886 pages, $45
Beware of the man with just one book. Having seen what Osama bin Laden's misinterpretation of a single text has inspired, many fear single-minded Islamists going nuclear in Iran. Fortunately for the world, Iranians have another well-thumbed book on their shelves. Persia's classic Book of Kings, Shahnameh, is a national epic par excellence, an Iliad, Anabasis, Aeneid, and Paradise Lost all rolled into one. It, too, has done a lot of mischief in the wrong hands, but the nation whose real and legendary history it relates is not the one whose borders we see today. So perhaps what we need ...