Has anyone read this book? I just finished the audiobook today and was really enjoying it right up until the end, which just left me confused. What was happening with Cyrus and Zee in the park? I assume it was a metaphor, that the world was not actually coming apart around them, but I'm not sure what it was a metaphor for. I was relieved Cyrus and Zee made up and understand the enormity of that moment in Cyrus's life, but couldn't the moment have just stood for itself?
Also, I enjoyed the shifting perspective throughout the novel and appreciated that it gave us insight into each character (especially Roya) which we would have missed out on if we'd just been limited to Cyrus's POV, but thought ending with the perspective of the art gallerist/Roya's ex wife (apologies for forgetting her name. I already returned the audiobook on Libby and can't find it online) since she was not really a key character. It didn't make sense to me for her to have the final thoughts.
I finished it and immediately felt like I needed to talk about it, so here I am. Would love to hear others' thoughts on the ending or the book as a whole.
by lifeisdeebubbles
11 Comments
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I just finished it also. The ending with Cyrus and Zee was weird. Sometimes when things fall apart, it leaves room for new growth of a person or relationship maybe? I wish Roya would have been the one to tell Cyrus that she was his mother, but the end with him talking to her ex-wife was kind of interesting. However, since Roya had no other family, would he be allowed to inherit anything from her?
tbh i sort of took the apocalyptic scene literally but i think you are right that it makes more sense as a metaphor. maybe it’s meant to emphasize how cyrus and zee’s reconciliation completely destroys cyrus’s previous negative worldview? like a rebirth maybe. in general i loved the book, lately i have been reading a lot of books that feature characters who are self-destructive and not doing well mentally, so it was nice to see other characters support cyrus and for him to become less self-destructive. the dreams were very fun; i wish there were more of them.
I kind of had the impression he was dying, and everything that happened after he passed out was a hallucination.
I havent read it but i put it on my to read list because i adore the cover
I just finished it, and the ending gave me pause, too! I thought it was a kind of poetic coming full circle, where he’s begging for a miracle at the very beginning but only gets a flickering light, and then once he stops begging for miracles and opens himself up to ~love~ or whatever the whole world becomes divine. There’s the part during their fight where Zee talks about every flower blooming for them as a poetic expression of love, so maybe it’s Cyrus seeing that for the first time? But i also thought it felt like it was trying too hard for what could have been a much simpler and more poignant moment: Cyrus and Zee on a park bench together, tentatively hopeful, a little unsure, newly open to love, trying to figure out how to move forward after everything that’s happened. Moving away from that felt… muddled.
I just finished it too so I’ll add my thoughts:
Overall worthwhile read, I took a lot away from the novel. Generally pretty strong writing, especially in the dream scenes, and you can definitely feel his poetry background come through. The intermittent poems and news excerpts tied the book together well throughout the shifting POVs. The martyrdom theme was obviously the throughline, I could argue it was a bit overdone but I’d rather that than having the main theme be ambiguous. Despite the criticisms outlined below I would definitely recommend the book.
Some of the narrative nuts & bolts didn’t totally add up to me. In his AA blowup at the beginning of the book Cyrus goes off on the platitudes and emptiness of words, “This program too. Just words.”, “How can I get rid of the big ball inside me? What words can touch that?” and saying he doesn’t understand what his Higher Power is… And then shortly thereafter he’s like “I’m gonna write this book about Martyrdom”. I could see him being exasperated/frustrated in the moment and saying things he doesn’t necessarily mean but at the very least I would think the AA sponsor would mention this at the coffee shop afterwards.
Another big narrative disconnect for me was Cyrus learning about Orkideh from his friend’s Twitter feed and then having the “bounty” to fund the trip. The Twitter feed thing felt very convenient. And not that the financial compensation itself was unrealistic but they way it was introduced as “by the way I have all this money that I never use” was clunky & potentially dishonest to a character who was struggling with addiction. I feel like 95% of addicts who were sitting on that extra cash would have used it for booze or drugs and the explanation that he felt uneasy using the money didn’t pass the smell test to me.
My last major critique is about Zee, who felt too much like a flawless chameleon. He did drugs when Cyrus did (but didn’t have his own abuse issues?), he quit when Cyrus quit, he unquestioningly followed Cyrus to NY, all while Cyrus obviously considered suicide and Zee played along with all this until the one blowup. I wish Zee pushed him more throughout the book, showed his own flaws, had his own backstory or POV similar to Cyrus’s parents and uncle. To me he just acted as a mirror to Cyrus rather than standing alone as his own character.
And the ending… I don’t know. I think it might have been stronger if it ended with Cyrus/Zee sitting on the park bench in a tender moment of refreshed love but maybe that would be too neat of a bow for a book that dealt so much with the meaning of death. I don’t know if I have a better ending but the surreal sequence didn’t feel totally honest to the rest of the book.
I’m obsessed with this book but glad I’m not the only one confused at the end.
Why did Orkideh take the pills?
Can we assume Zee and Cyrus get together and he writes his book?
Was the foot injury a metaphor for the addiction? Like how bad it can get?
More questions: why did royas brother piss on her?
Are we meant to understand that she wouldn’t have truly gone to visit him?
I was thinking Orkideh was Leila. Roya didn’t have a mother bone in her body… but Leila might have been a more interesting choice. Like if my long lost son sat down before me… I would not be so composed.
Ending was confusing after the virtuosity of the rest of the book. Although Cyrus and others do say they’re confused at regular intervals. The gorgeous and precise language just didn’t fit with such an overwritten ending. I’m going to let it be, then read again to see if it clarifies at all.
I don’t believe Cyrus dies in the end. He has a paranormal experience made up of his recognition that his love for Zee is the love that Roya/Orkideh/s last lover/agent Sang describes as necessary to life. The experience Cyrus and Zee have on the bench has been foreshadowed in the book. When they are young men sleeping in the same bed, Cyrus needed to suck a thumb and it didn’t matter if it was his or Zee’s. That foreshadows the part of the last event when he feels another hand in the pool and not knowing whose it is. Cyrus realizes when Orkideh swallows pills to take her own life that she is not willing to mother him now, and never was. When she traded passports with Lelia, Roya/Orkideh never expected to go back to her husband or baby. It didn’t change her mind to reconcile with Cyrus when she met him at the museum. She took her own life because she knew he was about to ask her if she was his mother, and she would either have to lie or admit it, and then if she admitted it, she would have to deal with his grief and profound disappointment when she said she wasn’t interested in having a relationship with him other than a few more talks at the museum. She is her art. She has no interest in people, particularly. As she says, “Art is what remains after everything else is gone.”