Reviews

This book is absolutely not for everyone. It is a dark, weird, non-linear, nonsensical story. If you have ever suffered from panic attacks, depression, paranoia, and/or psychosis, especially if you deal with these feelings through art, I would check it out. It is from the perspective (or perspectives depending on how you read it) of someone who is extremely mentally ill and high off his ass and it does a truly impressive job of confusing it's audience about reality. Everything seems to kind of make sense until you think about and then it makes no sense at all. Hedayat manages to convey so many complicated feelings so clearly decades (1930s) before those diagnoses were common knowledge. There are so many good quotes in here.

(TW: for implied sexual assault and pedophilia, I shouldn't have to say this but the main character is fucking awful)

seaweed's review against another edition

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the narrator goes so hard to sell the beautiful and nasty spiraling prose. in a way, you'd need to listen in a cycle to understand it, and I would gladly try.

redowns1022's review against another edition

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2.0

This book was required reading in a class I took in undergrad. I remember finding it very depressing and I that our professor did not devote much time to unpacking its meaning. I might like to try to read it again in a few years, and obviously I do not know much of anything about Iranian literature(!), but it's intense. It's a book I felt I needed more time to explore with either a literature class or a book club, but it is depressing!

fjcrow's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

mayosonnet's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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