tonythep's review
5.0
The poet Galway Kinnell spent six months in 1959 as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Tehran, and then arranged to spend six months more travelling around the country. His year in Iran inspired this, his only novel, a stark, lyrical tale of a carpet mender named Jamshid, who murders an Islamic mullah in a fit of passion and then flees into the dessert. He is befriended by an old man who turns out to be a fugitive from the law himself and finally ends up taking refuge in a brothel located in a gated red light district in Tehran. When we meet Jamshid, he seems to be a pious, judgmental man. His act of violence is in response to the mullah implying that Jamshid’s daughter is promiscuous. But the transformation of his life following the murder is in large part a sexual awakening. In a note included in a 1980 reprint of the novel, Kinnell wrote that he didn’t intend Black Light to be a naturalistic novel, but rather something closer to a fable. He claimed that as a foreigner who only spent 12 months in the country, he couldn’t possibly know the inner workings of this ancient and complex society. But he captured in this novel a slice of Jamshid’s world that is universal, dark, and brilliant
coreylectron's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
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