Favourite Quotes

“we are all criminals to some extent, and the darkness inside us is the blackest variety known to man… we have all been helping to create the evil creature that is now killing us off” - p. 227

Short Summary

  • this story is set in Iraq in the early 2000s post USA invasion
  • a junk dealer named Hadi collects the various body parts of people killed in the bombings. He stiches them together to create an assembled person, i.e. Frankenstein
  • one day he comes home and the corpse is gone… it has come to life!
  • the corpse is referred to as “whatsitsname” among other names
  • it goes around killing ‘guilty’ people, i.e. the people who have wronged those whose body parts are being used by whatsitsname
  • he gains a following, similar to a cult. They think he’s a savior
  • his followers help him replace decaying body parts. Eventually he is composed of guilty people and his sense of morality is twisted and he kills anyone he wants
  • Hadi is in a bomb explosion and his face gets disfigured. Later on, the authorities say that they caught the mysterious killer, and it’s Hadi!
  • the real whatsitsname goes free and no one catches him

Analysis

Notes and Quotes

Collective Guilt

  • “we are all criminals to some extent, and the darkness inside us is the blackest variety known to man… we have all been helping to create the evil creature that is now killing us off” - p. 227
    • we are all evil to some degree
    • it reminds me of the message behind The Gulag Archipelago, where everyone has some evil or at least the capacity for evil

Main Idea of the Book

  • I think the overall message behind the book is that evil things happen not because of an individual, but the collective. “we have all been helping to create the evil creature that is now killing us off” - p. 227
    • the whatsitsname went after the guilty people, killing them. But eventually would kill anyone on its path including innocents
    • whatsitsname was composed of the innocent people that were victim of terrorist attacks. So the whatsitsname would go after the people that wronged/killed the innocents… but then why did it start going after ‘innocent’ people? Because even those innocent people were guilty to a certain degree. It was an endless loop
    • the novel contemplates on the idea that maybe ‘innocent’ people aren’t actually fully innocent.
    • there’s simply so much destruction and killing in Iraq that everyone is guilty of something. The whatsitsname is simply a representation of this guilt, or a product of this violence and evil caused by the people.
  • the idea that the collective, and not the individuals are to blame is an idea present in Dostoevsky’s works
    • Was listening to a JP podcast on Jan 15 2024 with an ex-Scientologist and JP mentions this very point

Reflections

The question I have, why was Hadi blamed for the murders? He didn’t really deserve that. Sure, he wasn’t the best person around (he was a liar) but hardly a murderer. I guess it goes back to the idea of ‘collective guilt’.