First Line: You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,-- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,--I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
Usually I'd post up a picture of the physical book on my bed, so you can judge the heck out of my bed sheets while judging the book cover (don't even deny it, I have the best bed sheets and you are in the throes of jealousy) unfortunately, I do not have a physical copy of this beauty and came across it one night in my e-book library.
This book is like Aesop tales, but for adults. Not that Aesop isn't for adults, but still--
The parables and the poems touch on the mundane to the highly probable feelings that people have and don't delve into unless they're high as a kite or if they've been drinking all night, staring out into the night, thunderstorm in the distance, etc.
And they're all in line with how callously we laypeople observe ourselves. The topics chosen for the parables and poems of the madman persona are on religion, philosophy, the futility of existence, the strangeness of man and his paradoxical nature, our many selves, loneliness and the cyclical manner of life, satire, etc. In short, all the fun stuff.
All these parables and poems are the types that take some digging and introspection. They're chockful of metaphors and personification of animals and nature, as conducted in the tradition of parables. A bit of 'mental masturbation', as a certain someone I know would put it.
A personal favourite of mine would be the parable of the Seven Selves. (Seven is a significant number in christianity, and Gibran uses this number quite a bit within this book.) It talks about the facets of the personality of the persona The Madman and how they all wish to rebel against him. The detachment of these Selves from the persona and how they're each given a sentience that allows them to express themselves is intriguing. Each self represents a recurring part of the persona, for instance, the Pained self, the Joyous self, the Love-ridden self, the Loathing self, and so on. Perhaps these routine selves/actions wish to break free of a cycle formed by the madman, alluding to the habitual nature of man.
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| Snow is clearly mad, because uh.. SEVEN MEN? Uh. HELLO? |
There's another parable called The Two Cages, where in one cage is a lion and in the other is a 'songless sparrow'. Both great and small are on equal terms because both are in cages, which explains why the sparrow says to the lion, "Good morrow to thee, brother prisoner".
All in all, the 35 parables and poems won't take long to read but each one will leave its imprint.
tl;dr
Are there animals in the novel?: Lots.
Are there sexy times in it?: Nah.
Are there dead people in it?: What is philosophy without the dead?
Is it lengthy?: Not at all. In fact it would probably take less than 20 minutes to read. Longer to digest though.
Reread?: Abso-fucking-lutely.
Judge the book by its cover: I wish I actually had a physical copy to be judgy about.Rating: 4.8/5 meows.
Pun: Aren't we all Khalil mad?
