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“Tide of Extinction:
Review of Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia:
Complicity with Anonymous Materials”
Tim Kaposy
September 6, 2012

To Cite this Article:

Kaposy, Tim. “Tide of Extinction: Review of Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia: Com-
plicity with Anonymous Materials” Imaginations 3:2 (2012): Web (date accessed) 206-
207. DOI: 10.17742/IMAGE.sightoil.3-2.13

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REVIEW

Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia: Complicity from Parsani’s research surface in Cyclonopedia as if

with Anonymous Materials. Melbourne: unannounced from the soil and with an unpredictability
that might prove too hectic for minds more familiar with,
Re.Press, 2008. 244pp. say, oil industry journalism. Whereas journalists critique
oil orthodoxy in remote dependency or with the help
REVIEW BY TIM KAPOSY
of the odd dispatch from wars taking place elsewhere,
Negarestani’s narrative explains the historical mythos
The category of narrative is widely understood as within vast petroleum fields and his sentences emit the
affirming the world’s appearances, in part, by giving stench of its exhaust. The desertified ground of Parsani’s
them coherence with a logical order and a communicable fieldwork is comprised of holes, dust, bitumen and
form. Though radical experimentation is standard in all critters that sink, shift and linger with an incalculable
narrative forms, standard narratives remain a linguistic long-term effect on the archeologist’s senses. Geologic
and cultural category tied to acts of memory, intimate formations thus seem to Parsani as sentient and
self-knowledge and the pretext for judicious History. responsive as any scenario above the soil. He recounts
Narrative theorists from Aristotle to Clarice Lispector in his journal that “[b]urrowing sounds may be heard
have argued that without narrative one ceases to be from within the earth. Once they have finished infesting
human. the earth’s solid part, the larvae will cut breathing holes
and press their headless tails against the surface for
Archeologist Hamid Parsani, the central character of air” (67)Very little “happens” in Cyclonopedia in the
Reza Negarestani’s genre-defying text Cyclonopedia, traditional sense of imparting a plot. The text consists
narrates his findings with an alternative purpose in of a series of exegeses of Parsani’s thoughts, primarily
mind.In Parsani’s studies of the Cross of Akht, Persian from his lifework Defacing the Ancient Persia. The
dynastic coins, the myth of Gog-Magog, Wahhabism, effect of reading Parsani within a Negarestani’s text
and Middle Eastern languages, he queries how being is disquieting and it causes one to question how fact,
coherently human is made possible by the geopolitics of fiction, fantasy and theory coexist in contemporary
oil. “Whatever Parsani encounters,” writes Negarestani, accounts of oil culture.
“is immediately traced back to only one thing, Petroleum”
(42). Parsani’s idée fixe fissures its way through all he Without a firm sensory footing, why assume that
encounters in the Middle East. His obsession builds to a the value of narrative has its basis in stock-still and
notion that narrative allows for a better understanding clear-eyed composition? What’s more, the surfaces of
of humanity, but only insofar as it helps one anticipate Negarestani’s oil rich terrains are charred, slurry-ridden
the demise of the species (i.e., relics yield unheeded and militarized for a more predictable rate of extraction
lessons). Without narrative one is prone to affirm and steady refinement. Unheeded lessons? Who has
appearances, and most appearances today present one time to interpret relics? Who has the peace of mind or
with the idea that sustainability, communication and protection to interpret oil further than its use?
redemption are always collectively attainable. Parsani
makes a valuable counter claim that “oil is…a vehicle Aside from Parsani and an animated cast of mythic
of epic narratives,” (69) and it is crucial to know the petroleum figures, Negarestani’s dramatis personae
vehicles of narrative, rather than to speculate on how consists of the largely anonymous “global war machine.”
they might be transcended. Petroleum, too, is a relic with Far away in networked office buildings, operatives are
much to say about humanity’s epic trajectory. poised to hail rockets down upon those exceedingly
attuned to oil. That is: beware to those who are defiant
As animist as this may sound, oil is deposited too deep enough to stand their ground, slow things down, and
and spread too wide to have talking points of its own. who try to provide readers with coherent details of
Therefore, oil requires vigilant interpretation. Narratives

IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 3-2, 2012 • 206

 KAPOSY

petroleum’s past. A surprising number of people die

from petroleum wars every day. Parsani’s paranoia
is, apparently, merited; or, is not paranoia one of oil’s
narrative vehicles?

The overall aesthetic of Cyclonopedia verges on

breakdown. Like many of the characters written into
existence by Georges Bataille and H.P. Lovecraft nearly
a century earlier, Negarestani’s Parsani is elusive because
he is summoned from ‘below’ and not from ‘on high.’
Lost deities, hidden numbers and script, the sun’s detritus,
corpses, generational layers of decay—Negarestani pulls
the reader across the contours of Parsani’s enervated
narrative to exhume the sounds from this infested source
of energy.

Kaposy, Tim: Tim Kaposy is Assistant Professor of

English and Communications at Niagara College. He
is co-editor, with Imre Szeman, of Cultural Theory: An
Anthology  (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) and the author of
Documentary in the Age of Global Capital (currently, as
of 2012, under review with University of Toronto Press).

Kaposy, Tim  : Tim Kaposy est professeur adjoint

d’anglais et de communications au Collège Niagara. Il
est coéditeur de Cultural Theory: An Anthology  (Wiley-
Blackwell, 2010), pour lequel il a collaboré avec Imre
Szeman, et auteur de Documentary in the Age of Global
Capital (2012, en évaluation chez University of Toronto
Press).

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