Indigo
★ 3.35 from 784 ratings on Goodreads
A quiet investigation into the spaces between connection and isolation. A quiet, unsettling read with a plain voice, slow curiosity, and a philosophical chill that keeps you off balance.
Feels like unease and curiosity. About solitude and identity.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy formally daring fiction that withholds easy answers and lets unease and solitude do the work. Be warned that its digressions can feel confusing and exhausting, and some passages turn brutal without offering much closure.
Why read it
Read it for its meticulous language and unsettling atmosphere, and for a story that treats connection and isolation as open questions rather than problems to solve.
A page from the book
What does the performance of politeness conceal about a person's inner weather?
«Παρακαλῶ, περάστε. Εἶμαι σὲ μιά, κατὰ κάποιον τρόπο, πῶς νὰ τὸ πῶ... μεταβατικὴ κατάσταση, συγχωρέστε μου τὴν ἀκαταστασία...» ᾽Εντυπωσιασμένος καὶ τρομαγμένος ἀπὸ τὸ γεγονὸς ὅτι τὸ διαμέρισμά της ἐκτεινόταν προϕανῶς σὲ ὅλη τὴν ἐπιϕάνεια τοῦ ὀρόϕου, ἔμεινα νὰ στέκομαι πίσω ἀπὸ τὴν πόρτα τῆς εἰσόδου καὶ μόνο βλέποντας μιὰ κρεμάστρα ποὺ κρατοῦσε μπροστά μου ἡ κυρία Χόισλερ-Τσίνμπρετ θυμήθηκα νὰ βγάλω τὸ παλτὸ καὶ τὰ παπούτσια μου. ῾η σωματικὴ ἐμϕάνιση τῆς κυρίας Χόισλερ-Τσίνμπρετ ἦταν ἐντυπωσιακή. ῏ηταν πενήντα ἕξι χρονῶν ἀλλὰ εἶχε πρόσωπο νεανικό, ἦταν λεπτὴ καὶ ψηλή, τὰ μαλλιά της ἦταν πλεγμένα σὲ μιὰ μακριὰ κοτσίδα ποὺ τῆς ἔϕτανε ὣς τὴ μέση. ῍αν ἐξαιροῦσε κανεὶς τὶς μαῦρες μπότες, ἦταν ἁπλὰ ντυμένη ἐκείνη τὴ μέρα, στοὺς ὤμους εἶχε ριγμένο ἕνα μάλλινο σάλι. Καθὼς μιλοῦσε, κοίταγε συνήθως πάνω ἀπ ᾽τὰ γυαλιά της καὶ μόνο ὅταν διάβαζε τὰ σήκωνε λιγάκι. What readers say
Readers find the novel formally daring and often mesmerizing, but also confusing and exhausting; many praise its language and unsettling atmosphere while others are bored or repelled by its digressions and brutality. Reactions split between fascination and frustration, with little sense of closure.
Clemens J. Setz.The author, a contemporary writer, often blends meticulous observation with existential reflection in his prose.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Indigo for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy formally daring fiction that withholds easy answers and lets unease and solitude do the work. Be warned that its digressions can feel confusing and exhausting, and some passages turn brutal without offering much closure.
- What is Indigo like?
- A quiet, unsettling read with a plain voice, slow curiosity, and a philosophical chill that keeps you off balance. Feels like unease and curiosity. About solitude and identity.
- What should I read after Indigo?
- If you liked Indigo, try Turtles All the Way Down (John Green), In a Dark, Dark Wood (Ruth Ware) and The Stranger (Albert Camus).
A taste of the feed
When the light feels like a trap, the darkness is watching.
The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold inhospitable glass.
In a Dark, Dark Wood · Ruth Ware
The moment a man decides he has nothing left to confess.
I don’t know why, but something inside me snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me. I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pouring out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of anger and cries of joy.
The Stranger · Albert Camus
When the lights go out, what is the first thing you see in the dark?
Cracks of thunder follow; the skies grow dark and the rains come. A deluge, pounding the angry waters taken by surprise, distorting vision, crashing down on the giant spray, Geneva’s trademark on the lake, the jet d’eau, that geyser designed by man to dazzle man. When sudden revelations come, the gigantic fountain dies. All the fountains die and without the sunlight the flowers wither. The bright reflections are gone and the mind is frozen.
The Aquitaine Progression · Robert Ludlum
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