Sasha Harrex

A cryptic and phenomenal novel that has been continually misinterpreted. It's about a character, largely based upon the author and his own thoughts, who believes himself to be half wolf and half man. While it has been wildly imagined as a serious critique of elite and bourgeois society, the book as a whole becomes a self portrait as well as a imploration for consistent and scrupulous self examination and a critique of intellectual sanctimony. Since its publication it has been convicted of its intolerable embrace towards free love and casual use of drugs, but years on it manifests the many movements which make up todays world and practically anticipates the political and social climate decades on. It also gives us a reflection from the character of the revolving circle of loneliness a new century of technology has provided for us. The protagonist fears to return home for he knows he has nothing to excite him to live another day that he will indeed kill himself. With so much endless entertainment available at our fingertips, what do we have to excite us? Why go out with friends when you can message and call from home. Why go to the grocery store when you can order anything online. Why go on dates and meet new people when casual sex and romance can be found on a rectangular screen in your room. The 252 pages that build up this mirror can be turned many ways, making this one of the best novels of the 20th century.

Mood Indigo. A midnight sky, early dawn, or an impression of the sea. Reading this novel for the first time is very much a manifestation of the feeling these things evoke and from which it took its name. It is an icon in French literature; embodying the feverish love and jazz fuelled tragedy of the 1950s culture. A world in which things like furniture, rooms, physics and the weather, aren't determined by external forces. but by the feelings of the characters. The entire book is poetry and its words bounce playfully off the tongue. "The kitchen mice liked to dance to the sounds made by the rays of the suns as they bounced off the taps, and then run after the little bubbles that the rays burst into when they hit the ground like sprays of golden mercury". You fear to take a breath. There is, however, no character arc for any of the characters, which is perhaps what makes it so enchanting. The circle of the hero's journey is straightened out and becomes a descending slide. To understand Boris Vian's choice and intention, you must know his group of friends consisted of; Camus, de Beauvoir, Duke Ellington, and Sartre. Perhaps a man among genius, or maybe a carrot among young children below the age of 4. Who's to say. To me though, however eccentric my taste may be, it is the most beautiful love story of all time.