Arpad Okay's Reviews > Beautiful Darkness

A fairy tale world aesthetically akin to that of Tove Jansson's Moomin or Wil Huygen's Gnome stories is merely a mask for an exploration of the childish, brutal and greedy dark side of human nature. It delves deep into where innocence and cruelty overlap, self-serving indifference without remorse, and how the empathetic suffer while trying to hold it all together. A truly stunning amount of death, even for something with "Darkness" in its title. I closed this book feeling the stamp of great literature: both gutted and elevated.