Book Review: "Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar

“For our species, the idea of art as ornament is a relatively new one. Our ape brains got too big, too big for our heads, too big for our mothers to birth them. So we started keeping all our extra knowing in language, in art, in stories and books and songs. Art was a way of storing our brains in each other’s. It wasn’t until fairly recently in human history, when rich landowners wanted something pretty to look at in winter, that the idea of art-as-mere-ornament came around. A painting of a blooming rose to hang on the mantel when the flowers outside the window had gone to ice. And still in the twenty-first century, it’s hard for folks to move past that. This idea that beauty is the horizon toward which all great art must march. I’ve never been interested in that. “As heaven spins, I fall into bedlam.”

- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

I have read Kaveh Akbar's poetry before and I have to say I was pretty impressed. He has a skill for poetic prose and narrative that makes him rise above many in the modern and post-modern poetry world. I actually caught sight of this novel because I mistook it for Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain from afar whilst cleaning my glasses and, realising I had heard Kaveh Akbar before when I caught sight of what the book really was, I thought I would give it a go having had a good experience with his writin in the past.

Cyrus thinks he is somewhat of a loser. He was born in Iran and moved to America with his father. His mother was killed in a plane crash only months after he was born when she wanted some respite so went on holiday to Dubai. The plane was shot down by the USA and Cyrus was left with his dad. He grapples with the loss of his mother and the inability to forgive everything around him for causing her death now that he lives in the country responsible for it. His father's life was all about farming chickens and now he is dead too, Cyrus wants his life to mean something more than a statistic or a chicken farmer, believing that these are both unimportant and needless deaths.

He is someone who struggles with addiction - his mentor Gabe tries to help him but doesn't seem to be listening to what Cyrus is really saying. After abandoning hope of sobriety with Gabe as his mentor, Cyrus seeks out meaning to his life in the martyrs of the past who gave their lives for bigger causes that their own. It will lead him all over the place and yet, it will lead him most importantly to a gallery where he will have to confront the fact that he didn't really know his mother at all.

Kaveh Akbar, as I have said, has an incredible talent for a poetic kind of prose which definitely reflects Cyrus's want to become a poet or "write an epic" (in his own words). Cyrus, though the book is written in third person, is reflected throughout the novel as being on the cusp of something dire or something great. The reader is constantly sympathising with him like a friend, trying to lift him out of the darkness he is in and yet, knowing they ultimately have no control over the choices he makes.

I think the most satisfying part of the book for me was when he left Gabe and convinced himself to not use this guy as a mentor again. This was because I believe the reader definitely feels the same way about Gabe's ignorance towards what Cyrus is saying or experiencing that Cyrus does. There is little more to it than an annoyance with the exact same thing. The reader is left in disbelief when this reserved Cyrus has this outburst in the middle of AA and is shot down for it. And when he makes his own decision to leave it behind, that and that alone is when he actually starts the real healing process. It is a beautiful testament of the failures of group therapy and I think it is awesome.

All in all, this book proves to be a fantastic look into the prose-poetry of the modern novel whilst reflecting the main character's own artistic propensity within its tone and movements. Cyrus is a strong character and Kaveh Akbar gives him a strong stage on which to become stronger, express himself more and crack his shell and comfort zone wide open.