Anubis, A Desert Novel

Yesterday my books that I am reading outside of class finally arrived, much to my relief.  I know I probably could have found them in the campus library but I have a sort of OCD need to own the books I read, so I made the decision to get my own copies.  I delved into the shorter one first, a book titled Anubis, A Desert Novel.  I've gotta admit it... at first I did not understand what was happening.  The first couple of chapters are written very poetically, to the point that you have to abandon what the text is telling you and come up with your own interpretation.  As I kept reading I finally came to understand though.  The book begins at the narrators birth... no, it really does.  The narrator describes it as the sun rising, and for a moment the sky, or the unknown, and the desert, or the known are connected.  For a moment, you know everything, and  then you know nothing and must be taught the names of all you see.  See, just describing it is very poetic, isn't it?  And OK, I admit, I really figured this out because the book is split into three sections, the first of which is titled "Cradle Talk."

Throughout the rest of this first section of the book, we follow the narrator through his days of youth.  We watch as he grows and develops a  sense of curiosity.  The main plot becomes his search for his father, who he remembers only as a shadow of memory from when he was still a baby.  His mother tells him that fathers are not supposed to be known as anything but a memory, and his close friend advises him that fathers know all, that they are prophecy, and prophecy is not to be discovered.  Still, the narrator sets out on a journey to look for his true father, all the while being plagued by strange visions from the spirit world.  At the end of the first section, the narrator returns home having not found his father, and discovers that his mother gave her life for the sake of pulling her son from the spirit world he had been lost in while stranded in the desert.  Time goes by and the truth comes out, it is the local priest who sacrificed the narrators mother for the narrators sake.  Upon meeting the priest again, the narrator stabs him in the neck.  It  is later revealed to him that the priest was his father, the one who knew the prophecies, as the narrator had been told all along.  

 What??

Yeah, this is where I am right now, and I'm not too sure if I should be taking any of the revelations in this book seriously or not.  It really is so poetic, and it's difficult to understand if what they say is true or if it is a metaphor for something else.  So at this point I think I need to keep reading to find out what is really  going on.  I will say this, it took me only one night to get one-third of the way through the book, so even with as confusing as the plot is it draws my attention very easily.  I'm quite exited to keep reading.