“Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it. Cyrus understood that now, and stepped.” 😭😭😭

“The performance of certainty seemed to be at the root of so much grief. Everyone in America seemed to be afraid and hurting and angry, starving for a fight they could win. And more than that, they seemed certain their natural state was to be happy, contented, and rich. The genesis of everyone’s pain had to be external, such was their certainty. And so legislators legislated, building border walls barring citizens of /there/ from entering /here/. ‘The pain we feel comes from them, not ourselves,’ said the banners, and people cheered, certain of all the certainty. But the next day they’d wake up and find that what had hurt in them still hurt.”

“It was invented, of course, language. The first baby didn’t come out speaking Farsi or Arabic or English or anything. We invented it, this language where one man is called Iraqi and one man is called Iranian and so they kill each other. Where one man is called an officer so he sends other man, with heads and hearts the size of his own, to split their stomachs open over barbed wire. Because of language, this sound stands for one thing, that sound stands for that thing, all those invented sounds strutting around, certain as roosters. It is no wonder we got it so wrong.”

🥺 wowowowow

“His hands are too pretty to belong to a nationalist.”

these stories are so simple, yet captivating. I feel so attached to each main character, and I love that so far they all take place in the late 1800s to early 1900s

recently finished, and I was left feeling dissatisfied. it honestly seems like the type of stylistic and thematic work best enjoyed accompanied by a thorough discussion. this took forever for me to get through, despite thoroughly enjoying the reflective, almost wistful writing at times. i think it was because i didn't feel particularly connected to any of the characters. what was everyone's experience with this one?

you can definitely tell kaveh akbar is a poet with the way he beautifully crafts individual sentences, but I’m also so impressed by the balance. Such an engaging read so far. I keep thinking about the opening scene with Cyrus and the doctor-in-training and how much that said about him so efficiently the way akbar uses conversation has been blowing my mind - with his sponsor, with his friends, with Orkideh….wowowowow