A review by y_rui
Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist by Antonin Artaud

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Sometimes the prose is too dense, this coming from a person who loves ornamental, overwrought writing. Also I'm laughing at him calling a spoilt 14 year-old 'a born anarchist'. I don't know, he might have been a born anarchist but he might also be a teenager with a seemingly infinite supply of wealth and bodies and nobody to tell him 'no'. Some interesting assertions were put forward by the author but he was also committed into an asylum a couple of years later so it may be the ramblings of a madman, which I would enjoy, with my various mental illnesses and developmental disorders, but the structure is just so bad. He spends more than half the book waxing over the history and setting and various side-characters; once in a while we meet our protagonist, but it's followed by paragraphs upon paragraphs about his mother or grandmother or aunts, and then about anarchy or phallic symbolism, then oops we must go back to our protagonist who was forgotten about. Absolute terrible pacing.