Black Light: A Novel

by Galway Kinnell

Black Light is a voyage of discovery and transformation. Set in Iran, it tells the story of Jamshid, a quiet simple carpet mender, who one day suddenly commits a murder and is forced to flee. With this violent act his old life ends and a strange new existence begins.

Galway Kinnell combines his gift for precise imagery with a storyteller's skill in this journey across the Iranian desert—away from the fragile self–righteous virtues of adopted moral tradition, into the disorder and sexual confusion of agonizing self–knowledge. First published in 1966 by Houghton Mifflin, this extensively revised paperback edition of Black Light brings a distinguished novel back into print.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Kinnell studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1948. He later obtained a Master's degree from the University of Rochester.

As a young man, Kinnell served in the US Navy and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. His first volume of poetry, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960.

Kinnell became very involved in the U.S. civil rights movement upon his return, joining CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) as a field worker and participating in a number of marches and other civil actions.

Kinnell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Selected Poems (1980), a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007.

Reviews

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful little novel, a brief dreamlike odyssey through 1960s-era Iran. Jamshid, initially a rather dislikable carpet-mender, suddenly murders a neighborhood mullah in an unplanned crime of passion. Having been a rigid, judgmental, holier-than-thou father, Jamshid flees his city and his world begins to expand. As he travels and meets people who help him, he realizes that there is friendliness in the world, and perhaps even love. The desert travels, followed by the New City section of Tehran where he ends up, have a subtly surreal atmosphere, and Kinnell's prose is evocative (as one might expect from an author better-known as a poet). I really enjoyed this brief book, with just a nagging feeling of being slightly letdown by the ending, or rather the lack thereof. The story ends as Jamshid takes a step through a gate into the next phase of his adventure, but while it's a turning point, it's not a conclusion. Jamshid has learned a lot since the start of his journey, but as the story finishes there are a lot of unanswered questions remaining, so one can't help but feel a bit abandoned by the author. Despite this, though, I can certainly recommend reading this (and at 120 pages plus afterword, it won't take you long).

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and disturbing. The afterward is invaluable if you finish the book puzzled as I did.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is more interesting now, I believe, because of it taking place in Iran.

I have a couple of problems in trying to enjoy this book. First, I have no sympathy or empathy or care for the main character. He is who he is, and I wonder why I am following his story.

While the idea of a parent and child making love is certainly not new in literature, the description and subsequent realization as described here was revolting. And what was it's purpose? I'm not sure.

I'd have trouble recommending this book primarily because it's the sort of book that relies heavily on theme, and here I am not certain as to what the theme is.

[Orest Mercator · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exodus 1-2 meets Oedipus Rex meets The Stranger—that’s what I make of it at least. An interesting idea with lacking execution. There’s a reason he stuck to poetry, unfortunately. The unbridled lust and abject misery are a bit much, and they’re relentless. He doesn’t strike me as a deft novelist: it’s predictable, he tells you too much, and he doesn’t build tension well. Sorry, Galway—you know how much I love your poems and translations!

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

We named our daughter after the poet - and after reading his novel, grateful he became one

Siddhartha meets The Sheltering Sky - a forgettably formative work

[Arash Kamiar · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books. It is an elegant shadow.