Annotation - Chapter 16, Page 175
From Riddley Walker Annotations
Hoban's interest in Middle Eastern mysticism—and the many mentions of shadows in this scene—make this possibly a reference to The Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat (1938). This famous work of modern Iranian fiction is a hallucinatory and violent allegory of spiritual conflict. At a pivotal moment just before a murder, Hedayat's narrator says this: "I was talking to myself with immobile lips and with an inaudible voice .... In front of the smoking tallow burner, my shadow ... was mutely cast on the wall. My shadow was more profound and exact than my real being .... At this moment I resembled an owl. .... Perhaps the owl, too, is sick and because of the sickness it thinks as I do."