Midway through Dictionary of the Khazars

The Washington post review compares dictionary of the khazars writer to Jorge Luis Borges. I really like his short stories. Anyway, what I want to say is, basically, pat Cadigan was serious. This is a truly strange book, probably as strange as 'The Blind Owl' . I've been trying to find the meaning in it, and its eluded me so far. It seems like I've read a fair number of the entries, but not in alphabetical order. There's a lot of parts which are evidently a symbol, but I cant decipher to my satisfaction their meaning. This could be partly because the book is translated ( there seem to be many phrases which could possibly have an origin as a common saying from a foreign culture... but because their is so much of the kind of allegorical fable found in religious texts, its hard to separate this kind of talk from that ... ). Or it could be that the book is purely nonsensical , but I doubt this. Probably, to understand it, I will have to read it multiple times. Its some freaky mojo.

" The difference between two yeses can be greater than the difference between a yes and a no. "

"Each of us promenades his thought, like a monkey on a leash. When you read, you always have two such monkeys: your own and one belonging to someone else. Or even worse, a monkey and a hyena. Now, consider what you will feed them. For a hyena does not eat the same thing as a monkey...."

"Imagine two men holding a puma on a rope. If they want to approach each other, the puma will attack , because thenrooe will slacken only if they both pull simultaneously on the rope is the puma equidistant from the two of them. That is why it is so hard for him who reads and him who writes to reach eachother: between them lies a mutual thought captured on ropes that they pull in opposite directions. If we were now to ask that puma - in other words, that thought - how it perceived these two men, it might answer that at the ends of the rope those to be eaten are holding someone they cannot eat ...."


At this stage of my reading, it seems to me that the genius of this book and the reason for its excessive allegorical or symbolic discourse is because of the effect it has ... Its as if the book was designed to simulate the experience one has attempting to apprehend the meaning of a religious text ... The way people spend so much effort interpreting the bible or the Quran , this book seems to me "intended to be interpreted" ... a specific kind of reading experience.
But I havent finished yet, so I could have it wrong.