Interesting. A bloody, opium fever dream of a book about a man that murders his wife whom he only calls “the bitch.” Pretty unpleasant stuff. Not my cup of tea.

This is a fever-dream of a dark, compelling novel, and a reading experience that sucks one in until each moment is its own small psychological impact. A novel that was banned in Hedayat's home country of Iran, the work mounts gorgeous prose, a poetic sensibility, and a sometimes-style of repetition that makes one feel as if they're being sucked into a whirlpool of a story. It's a novel to be sucked into and experience...and perhaps to be read more than once if the darkness isn't too much.

Recommended. ( )

I feel bad for rating this book only 3 stars. I feel it's because I'm too stupid for it or maybe just that I'm in the wrong sort of mood to enjoy it. The first half-ish of the book was good but when it changes perspective and you have to read the guy calling his wife "the bitch" over and over it gets really grating. Like I found the constant stuff about him being literally dead and everyone else being terrible rabble very repetitive, overwrought and not even vaguely interesting. At the same time I really liked the repetitive symbols like the geometric houses and stub end of cucumber taste because they enhanced the dream-like sense which the best parts of the novel contain, the sense of endless repetition and falling, an eternal hell. It's hard to fit the two parts of the novel together and see the connections while the repetitive symbols are pretty intriguing and create interesting ideas and impressions in my head. The best part is the part around the halfwayish point where he goes and buries the cut up body in the strange place. I just felt it went on too long without really saying much more. I liked the open endedness and suggestions of something more but without ever explaining it. I feel it'd be super interesting to interpret if I put the effort in to like take notes, cross reference etc which would also cut out the stuff I don't like so much heh. I don't know I realise I probably missed a lot and wasn't reading it well enough or whatever ( )

You won't find a darker novel than this, and scarcely one better written. It's strange and fascinating to realize that this work boasts best modern classic status in Iranian literature, despite having initially been suppressed there as a potential suicide threat to teenagers. It's encouraging to me that a modern culture exists in which such a gruesomely powerful brief for Death could finally be not only legitimized, but uniquely celebrated, for its literary merit. ( )

Een boek als een Perzische miniatuur. Iets met een jong meisje, een oude man, een lotusbloem en een rivier. Alleen: de lotus verwelkt, het meisje sterft, de rivier droogt uit, de oude man verschrompelt. De wereld bekeken door de ogen van een depressieveling. Alle handelen is ijdel, niets heeft zin, we draaien in een eindeloze, betekenisloze rondedans. Niet verwonderlijk dat er hier en daar gewaarschuwd wordt dat lectuur van dit boek tot zelfmoord kan leiden. Misschien is dat zo voor wie zich al op het neergaande pad bevindt, of voor wie op de rand staat en maar een klein duwtje nodig heeft. Voor wie ie geen gevaar loopt, of voor wie het duister achter zich gelaten heeft, is er weinig gevaar. Het verhaal is al te zeer een - weliswaar donker - sprookje uit 1001 nacht. Voor zover de hoofdpersoon al tot leven komt, heb je de neiging om hem een schop onder zijn kont te geven en te roepen 'doe iets, man!' Maar dat is nu net depressie. ( )