What is that, a roman trouvé? The analogue to the art historical concept of object trouvé, i.e. a found object ennobled by the artist’s will to art. The generic name that the German author, who calls himself Asjadi, gives his book “Tric-Trac” is revealing in several ways. In addition to the aesthetic method, she also reveals a preference for French (which is then also reflected in the plot) and great joy in literary deception. Asjadi, who according to the publisher was born in Tehran in 1980 to a German-Jewish cultural attaché and a Persian journalist, writes just as cross-border as this biography promises. And that with the use of a rich world of images from a wide variety of sources that is incorporated into the plot: dozens of illustrations make “Tric-Trac” a visual spectacle. That also fits: Asjadi is said to be working as a filmmaker and exhibition curator in several European countries. However, traces of it can be found at least under his nom de plume not; But Asjadi was the name of an eleventh-century Persian poet. And poetry plays a big part in this novel.
Especially that of the poet Forugh Farrochzad, who died in an accident at a young age in 1967. Verses from her poems, along with a deliberately weakly printed portrait photo of the poetess, introduce each of the larger sections of the novel. They tell of three Persian friends: Farshid, Aadish and Shaahin, who, like Asjadi, live in Western Europe because their families were driven out of the country by the mullah regime established in 1979. It’s an extremely different trio: Shaahin, descendant of a wealthy family who is enthusiastic about everything beautiful, Farshid, who despises art but whose boorishness makes him a success as an artist, and Aadish, the sensitive soul who mediates between these two friends. What is told about her is guided by a collection of objects that Shaahin’s uncle Said, a melancholic dandy living in Paris, kept in a backgammon case for his nephew. Tric-Trac is the French name for this game, and just as backgammon requires both luck and skill, so does the fate of the three.
The rescue remains a dream
The journey of these friends is a sentimental journey to a spiritual home: memories of Shaahin’s grandparents in Iran precede a four-year stay with Uncle Said in Paris before the trio settle in Germany, where Farshid experiences his ascent. But this narrative is only one facet of the novel, albeit its most extensive. The large sections, up to almost a hundred pages long, are embedded in shorter episodes that tell about the relationship of a writer who writes the story of Shaahin, Farshid and Aadish: Christian Yorickson. His name identifies him as a descendant of Lawrence Sterne’s alter ego Yorick, and indeed Asjadi’s montage style draws far more influence from Sterne than from any of the other writers who haunt his book, even more than from Proust, who, albeit with regularity, is influenced by Farshid is reviled, but in tone, detail and mood represents the second important literary-historical point of reference.
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