At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat and a philosophic grimoire, CYCLONOPEDIA is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. CYCLONOPEDIA is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth's tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun. 'The Middle East is a sentient entity - it is alive!' concludes renegade Iranian archeologist Dr. Hamid Parsani, before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The disordered notes he leaves behind testify to an increasingly deranged preoccupation with oil as the 'lubricant' of historical and political narratives. A young American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room, she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure, and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert, seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil ...
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anonymous, anomalous,
By mole sandwich (usa) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (Anomaly) (Paperback)
Is oil an intelligent entity? Is the platform of technology upon which our civilization functions "scientific," or is it actually a kind of voodoo, controlled and constructed behind the scenes by ancient sorcerers? Is there a bizarre and esoteric shared goal that secretly unites Western global technocapitalism and Islamic militants?Is "pink" an important philosophical concept? And where do rats fit into all of this? After a few chapters into Cyclonopedia, even the most skeptic reader may begin to ponder these seemingly ridiculous questions. Negarestani takes fiction and theory, genius and madness, discovery and creation and builds an entire alternate universe that is so convincing and compelling, you'll never look at the Middle East in the same way again. And the horror fan will find thrill alongside theory. Ancient Babylonian demons lurk inside video games, and an unfathomable cosmic force known simply as "the Outside" hungrily waits to devour and butcher us open. Who's next? There are too many fresh ideas to absorb in one reading. Cyclonopedia's madness is quite rigorous, reshaping concepts from Deleuze, poromechanics and military intelligence to occult numerology. It explores little-known Indo-Iranian linguistic archeology alongside fantastic folk tales of burning rain and sentient dust devils. Throughout the book, we are gradually acclimated to see the world in the terms of a philosophical premise that Negarestani calls the "non-metaphorical" identity of concrete materials with supposedly abstract or mental phenomena. For example, the Middle East is a sentient being; thought is dust; and war itself is a Fog, an object more tangible than any Deleuzian warmachine. Somehow, this superficially inane/insane premise takes on a plausibility within these pages that rivals everyday, common-sense perceptions of reality as well as established philosophical dogmas.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
if only,
By Literary Omnivore (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (Anomaly) (Paperback)
Reza Negarestani has written a book so dense with concepts--oil as an evil entity, soldiers gone rogue ala "Apocalypse Now," disappearing authors who may or may not be terrorists, hapless tourists, French modern philosophy, ancient cults, gods who may be devils, decomposition, and sex, among hundreds of others--that it resembles nothing so much as a literary version of one of those massive desert sandstorms seen in the Middle East. It engulfs the reader, and that is both the novelty and the tragedy of the book. As another reviewer has pointed out, this is not a novel. It might be described as an experimental novel, with all the negative connotations of that phrase: when a book is presented as "an experimental novel," it often means that the writer was either too arrogant, too lazy and/or too manic to write a genuine novel. It also usually means that someone--either the editor, or perhaps the more dignified parts of the author's own personality--should have grown a backbone sufficient for telling the writer to sit back down and finish writing. Mr. Negarestani is obviously a brilliant man, but this is really only a set of notes for a novel. What a novel it could and should have been! It could so easily have been a novel--or novels--that would have been bigger than Harry Potter and Twilight combined, and intelligent, literary and challenging besides. Perhaps Mr. Negarestani chose not to write that. I can respect that, but this book unfortunately is complex to the point of being a Very Hard Slog. Is it worth reading? Yes, but it isn't fun, folks, and horror ought to be fun even when it's packed with brilliant and challenging concepts. One caveat: this is not a book for religious fundamentalists of any of the Abrahamic religions (Jews, Christian, Muslims) because the author not only makes these organized religions part of his evil mythos but also skewers their worst traits mercilessly. Update Feb. 2012: I found myself thinking about this book again recently--it's that type of book, that it will stick in your mind--and it occurred to me that what this book reminded me of was reading an encyclopedia. Entry after entry, full of information about a subject. It also occurred to me what that subject is: a mythos. That's what the author has written, a vast and brilliant mythos that, like the Cthulhu mythos, will (or should be) popular for years into the future. I can only hope that the author, or other writers, will now flesh out this mythos with numberless stories.
16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complicity with Anonymous Philosophers,
This review is from: Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (Anomaly) (Paperback)
Readers who are looking for new thoughts and concepts will find some unprecedented ideas in Cyclonopedia. For example, in one place Negarestani challenges Deleuze and Guattari's concept of war machines in relation to war. In another place he builds a different philosophy of becoming. He analyzes the politics of the Middle East through the eyes of a mad archeologist who has discovered connections between monotheism, petroleum and geology. These are just a few things that stand out for me after my first read through. I plan to go back chapter by chapter for a slower read to take in the many more themes he has presented.I think there are a couple reasons why this book might be difficult for some readers though- 1. For readers who are expecting a novel, Cyclonopedia works like a theory book and for those who anticipate a philosophy book, it may read like a novel. My thought is that it would be best to read it as a philosophy or theory book which uses different or alternative ways for thinking. Negarestani doesn't strictly abide by philosophy or politics in order to discuss politics and philosophize about the world, but instead opts to also use a wide variety of speculative tools to make points (i.e. occult, archeology, Islamic theology and even current culture such as video game and literary studies). 2. At first, readers might feel alienated from Cyclonopedia. One of the reasons for this estrangement may be due to a lack of a parallel works to compare it with. Cyclonopedia like every other book has references and influences, but it is hard to give a coherent list of similar books. The closest and most helpful example which comes to mind is A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari. The influence of Deleuze is obvious throughout the book and the narrative resembles the chapter 'The Geology of Morals'. Deleuze and Guattari have incorporated experimental writing into a work of philosophy (for example, every chapter a is 'plateau' covering every topic imaginable) in much the same way Negarestani uses experimental narration and 'plotholes' throughout the book to create a work of experimental writing opposed to an academic philosophical work. While this sounds like a Deleuzian book it should be noted that Negarestani's ideas are independent of Deleuze and sometimes transcend them. Another reason for Cyclonopedia's eccentricity is that it is inherently Middle Eastern, it uses alternative resources and concepts related to different forms of thought, politics, cultures and people. In my opinion, it is what makes Negarestani's work so compelling.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
