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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-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
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
This is a book that I need to read several times again. I don't think I completely got it after one read, but it makes me want to read it again.
A fever dream or opium-induced hallucination of a book. The Blind Owl was a moody, dark, sinister, and slightly surrealist reading experience resembling literature of the Decadent movement; however, this is not like Huysman's Against Nature. Our narrator does not wallow and whine in a setting of luxury, culture, and opulence. The "othering" and mocking of others, referred to as the "rabble" in the novella, is not borne from any superior artistic tastes or literary intelligence on behalf of the narrator. No, his decadence is in his indulgent self-pity and navel gazing, exemplified by his decision to live rather in his inner world, his melancholy daydreams and reflections, than the reality inhabited by the busy and practical masses. He revels in his malaise. In fact, it almost reads narcissistic. The narrator has resigned himself to a view that there is an inevitability and predestined outcome for his life, which gives him the luxury of being weak in will power and without true stress, guilt, or conscientiousness.
The world built in the novella feels blurry at the edges, which creates a reading experience that feels like trying to run in water or finding your way in a dense and disorienting fog. There are many moments of deja vu and a pervasive feeling of isolation despite the proximity of the hustling and bustling "rabble" outside his door. There may be a whole world at the narrator's peripheral but it doesn’t exist for him. The only thing he chooses to recognize the existence of are his mental decline and his desire for a woman who does not submit herself to his lust. He allows this obsession to make him mentally and physically ill, and even seems to enjoy the destructive effects of it, similar to people who enjoy watching themselves cry in the mirror.
The obsession the narrator has for the unnamed woman, who he almost affectionately refers to as "the whore", is almost a perversion of the Madonna-whore complex. Her promiscuousness (with everyone but him) lends her a saintliness. It is precisely because she is a whore that he desires and idolizes her. Hate and desire are one and the same for him as these are the only two things that can manage to induce any feeling in him. She has many lovers and seems to be fairly indiscriminate in selecting them while continuing to spurn him, essentially rendering the narrator symbolically impotent. Sadomasochism presents itself strongly in this dynamic.
Spoler alert! He is driven to an act of killing her in order to metaphorically consume and conquer that which has had such a cripping and arresting power over him. To destroy her was the closest act of shared climax he could ever achieve with "the whore". The Blind Owl was a dark, disorientating and psychologically twisted nightmare of a book.
The world built in the novella feels blurry at the edges, which creates a reading experience that feels like trying to run in water or finding your way in a dense and disorienting fog. There are many moments of deja vu and a pervasive feeling of isolation despite the proximity of the hustling and bustling "rabble" outside his door. There may be a whole world at the narrator's peripheral but it doesn’t exist for him. The only thing he chooses to recognize the existence of are his mental decline and his desire for a woman who does not submit herself to his lust. He allows this obsession to make him mentally and physically ill, and even seems to enjoy the destructive effects of it, similar to people who enjoy watching themselves cry in the mirror.
The obsession the narrator has for the unnamed woman, who he almost affectionately refers to as "the whore", is almost a perversion of the Madonna-whore complex. Her promiscuousness (with everyone but him) lends her a saintliness. It is precisely because she is a whore that he desires and idolizes her. Hate and desire are one and the same for him as these are the only two things that can manage to induce any feeling in him. She has many lovers and seems to be fairly indiscriminate in selecting them while continuing to spurn him, essentially rendering the narrator symbolically impotent. Sadomasochism presents itself strongly in this dynamic.
Spoler alert! He is driven to an act of killing her in order to metaphorically consume and conquer that which has had such a cripping and arresting power over him. To destroy her was the closest act of shared climax he could ever achieve with "the whore". The Blind Owl was a dark, disorientating and psychologically twisted nightmare of a book.
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Make it Plato's allegory of the cave, but with opium, necrophilia, [not quite because this is Iranian, but reminiscent of] Kali Ma/a thousand names-like figure, and butchery and dismemberment as a metaphor for sex or maybe some wild hang-ups about it, anyway. Or, maybe, simply abjectness as wholeness
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated