The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Enigma by Rezvani
Susann Cokal

Rezvani. Enigma. Trans. Cristine Donougher. Dedalus, 1998. 210 pp. Paper: $13.99.

Enigma is one of those books you read with only one hand, though not in the usual sense of the phrase. It is the latest novel of ideas by Persian-Russian author Rezvani, and you may have to sit on your hand to keep from taking notes. While investigating the deaths of the Knigh family of writers, who apparently jumped off their patriarchal yacht en masse, three specialists—known to us only as the Maritime Investigator, the Poet Criminologist, and the Literary Expert—have occasion to discuss the meanings of literature, character, and yes, life itself. All the Knighs were writers, and all were in competition; all, nonetheless, completed each other’s works and sentences, and any of them could have lured the others overboard before jumping in him- or herself. Out of a labyrinth of relationships and motivations, the three specialists construct a dizzying array of possible scenarios, quoting at length from Nietzsche, Mary Shelley, Joyce, Tolstoy, and classical mythology, as well as the prolific Knigh family. Their investigation makes for a heady contemplation, as in the best salons of the eighteenth century.
The Literary Expert laments that in once writing a book about the Knigh family he “reduced them to nothing.” Happily, such is not the case with the characters in this novel; despite their allegorical names, they live and breathe. The Poet Criminologist has a severely disabled son; the Maritime Investigator has an unconventional but passionate marriage. And somehow these external situations are as intimately involved in the mystery as the Literary Expert’s reams of notes on the Knighs. The discussions last for days. Does anyone really want to resolve this enigma? In their world even “the word objective is absolutely detestable.” But even if in the end we are left with a ship of fools, the trip has been fine. [Susann Cokal]