Copied from Goodreads and not formatted like a true review but eh

i don't want to say too much after a first read. this is certainly in the tradition of Nick Land and accelerationism which of course has its pros and cons. though, ultimately as an aesthetic artifact i really loved it. i think ideas within the text will continue to be fleshed out many years from now.

Edit after 2024 re-read I’ve read it a second time and now I do want to say too much!

What is Insideness? What is Outsideness? Is the ability to have an “inside” and an “outside” radically altered by an explosive leveling? What about by a neurotic self perforation? Suicidal self immolation? Who pursues this all-encompassing destruction? Does the Middle East become sentient? The US? Oil itself? If the division between inside and outside is destroyed then to what sort of new horrific and radical Outside does one become exposed? Can this exposure take any form other than possession, our oldest portal from the outside in?

This book has stuck with me greatly since I read it the first time and I can say I found a second read vastly more rewarding. I was surprised this time through how clear the driving theme of inside v. outside seemed.

There is of course the inside/outside created by the self or at least the illusion thereof. Perhaps this is the only true inside/outside that really exists. Certainly other Idealism and Naturphilosophie proponents have posited this subject/object duality, or its lack, as the most critical for understanding our personal relationship to the world. But at least within the pages of Cyclonopedia there are a plethora of other dualities. There is inside/outside the Middle East, inside/outside the Earth, inside/outside the narrative of Cyclonopedia, inside/outside the codex itself that contains Cyclonopedia, and probably infinite others to which I can only pray I am never privy. I fear that to know them may be to begin to break them down.

Because more than anything Cyclonopedia teaches that when you break down the dichotomy between the inside and the outside of something you leave it vulnerable to being cracked open and exposed to true Outsideness. You expose it to demons and the possessing powers that have historically made up the Middle East’s rich tradition of the occult study of the Outside. Pazuzu lives on petrochemically in film and in the deep hot mental biosphere of this our manmade theory universe.

I want to talk about the boiling black beauty of this book to a disgusting extent. Perhaps that desire is part of the religious cult tradition that has allowed Naft to live on into our modern sterile world. But I fear again that to extrapolate may be to facilitate an opening that I’m not ready for. Consider yourself lucky if you can maintain your existence outside of this review. Can you feel the slithering oozy presence haunting the edge of your circuit-insulated life?

Cyclonopedia

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