Bizarrely, this book kept reminding me of Milan Kundera, who I was reading at the time by pure coincidence, and myself. Now, when I say it reminded me of myself, what I really mean is that as I was reading this book, it seemed to me that I knew what was going to happen next, even if I had no idea, because it seemed like something I could have been feverishly dreaming. The preoccupations with family, with the soul, with alchemy, with the unending cycles of human nature and of blood…

It’s like a hot, sticky room you think you can get out of, but everytime you open the door, you find yourself walking into the same place you just left. See if you can find out what the prophecy is for yourself. And see if the naming, the Aurelianos, the Arcadios, begins to make sense to you. It is a mad, wondrous strange, beautiful novel.