(This review is for the revised Bashiri translation (2013), with introduction and essays by the translator.)

This book was in my Vacation Reading folder from last year, but it kept being pushed down the list because it is definitely not light reading, it almost has to be studied and parsed as you read. When I got home I'd forgotten it was there so it was only this year I rediscovered it. The experience of reading this novella in the absence of supplementary materials is very different from looking at it in context. On its own it's a brutal and eerie piece of work that follows a dream logic, weaving in and out of what may or may not be some kind of existence. With context, there are layers upon layers of influence and symbolism and political statement that are virtually invisible to me, as a modern reader of a different era and different culture. I'm glad I had the experience of reading it cold, and discovering for myself and making meaning of its ideas and imagery and stylistic markers, but also of coming a little bit to understand where it all comes from and what it all might mean.