A hellish agony is woven throughout the work and will draw comparisons to Dante but rest assured this is original writing unique to Dimitris Lyacos. Repetitive images and metaphor of stations and trains, of walls, of blood, of caves and pits, of clawing in search of light to the barrenness of plains, of yellow darkness, of darkness, of dark. The rhythmic use of language pulsates through each line of the book, a musicality in the despair.