“Allow me the pleasure of your destruction.” — Agapios Stojanov, Bonds

The world inhabited by Nasrul was one in which the rationales of quantification and categorisation were dominant throughout all forms of human action and interaction. His life was experienced by its readers both within and outside this novel, but less via his character than his status as transmitter of the novel’s primary superstitions, yet his absence as a coherent character and his mysterious presence as an anomalous cipher meant that the novel had no conceptual form. Rather than possessing a core integral message as a communicating vessel, whatever was communicated was unknown / anomalous.

One accurate impression that was conveyed was of N as the last man standing. The one who best portrayed N was YOU, but YOU could not realistically expect to fulfil all the requirements of the main character by recourse to facts.

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