Song of Kali
by Dan Simmons
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dan SimmonsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-01-15
ISBN: 031286583X
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Tor Books
Book Reviews of Song of Kali
Book Review: Traveler Beware
Summary: 5 Stars
As an avid reader of horror, fantasy and science fiction, I like to think that I'm immune to any lasting effects from the frightening images that emerge from those dark places within the minds of our best contemporary authors. Most of the time my reaction is, "Been there ... done that ... NEXT!". But last night I finished reading SONG OF KALI by Dan Simmons. And I fear that the images he conjures will be with me for a very long time to come.
This horrible/delightful/remarkable book works on your psyche on two levels: it attacks your senses by describing, in graphic detail, the mundane, "real world" horrors that exist just beyond the field of awareness for most Westerners living in affluent, post-industrialized "societies"; but worse yet, it open up that dark place so deeply imbedded within our basal ganglia that it can only be assumed to be the most primal and ancient of human nerve centers. It triggers an autonomic recoil from the pure darkness, cold malevolence, and absolute EVIL that surrounds us. We begin, innocently enough on the first level, following our protagonist's journey to solve a mystery ... and then slowly ... methodically ... step by step and with our guard down ... we are led blindly into reeking depths of the primordial abyss. I've never been to Calcutta. But, like many other Americans, I have traveled to a number of other "Third World" settings, both in groups and as a individual. I never cease to be appalled at the the arrogance and materialistic ego-centricity of too many American travelers who fail to respect or even try to fathom other cultures, unfamiliar traditions, and those painful economic realities suffered by much of the REST of the world. Simmons captures the naive, and distinctly American, arrogance of his protagonist (Robert Luczak) remarkably well. But then he takes it one step further. He rolls Luczak's arrogance in broken glass and shoves it right down his throat.
I like to think of myself as a savvy reader. Most of the time, I can sense where a story is heading before it actually takes me there. All the way through the first three quarters of SONG OF KALI, I was pretty certain I knew where the author was leading me. I expected the expected. I was anticipating the cliché. But the sheer horror of that final twist of the literary knife-in-the-gut left me utterly speechless, with my heart a-pounding and my mouth hanging open like a drooling simpleton. I simply could not believe that I didn't see this coming! I was caught so completely off guard that I actually had to back up and re-read that section several times, just to be certain that I was really reading what I thought I was reading. What an ending! My congratulations to Dan Simmons for writing such a dark masterpiece. I wonder, what deep, dark recess in your mind did you have to tap to dredge up something so completely unfathomable? What nightmares you must suffer.
Summary of Song of Kali
Think you know true fear? You don't.
Think you've read the most chilling book? Not even close.
Think you can't be shocked? Good luck!
Maybe you're ready for the most truly frightening reading experience of your life, the World Fantasy Award-winning novel that's been terrifying readers for over a decade.
Song of Kali.
Think you've read the most chilling book? Not even close.
Think you can't be shocked? Good luck!
Maybe you're ready for the most truly frightening reading experience of your life, the World Fantasy Award-winning novel that's been terrifying readers for over a decade.
Song of Kali.
"O terrible wife of Siva / Your tongue is drinking the blood, / O dark Mother! O unclad Mother." It is remarkable that prior to writing this first novel, Dan Simmons had spent only two and a half days in Calcutta, a city "too wicked to be suffered," his narrator says. Fortunately back in print after several years during which it was hard to obtain, this rich, bizarre novel practically reeks with atmosphere. The story concerns an American poet who travels with his Indian wife and their baby to Calcutta to pick up an epic poem cycle about the goddess Kali. The Bengali poet who wrote the poem cycle has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Horror critic Edward Bryant calls Song of Kali "an exactingly constructed, brutal, and uncompromising study of the degree to which an evil place may permeate and steep all that makes us human" and writes that it embodies "the stance of a psychologically violent novel about a violent society as a defensible and indisputably moral work of art." Song of Kali won a World Fantasy Award. --Fiona Webster
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