Sound or Red

In line with the principles of contemporary prose—and employing stream of consciousness and interior monologue techniques, presented in the characters’ own narration—“Sound or Red” delves into the depths and subtleties of feeling, marking a first in Azerbaijan. A paralyzed father, weary of the voices in his head, seeks to escape his metaphysical existence; from his bed he speaks of his former “living” life and the world of “Red,” interrogates his capricious memory with sharp irony, and questions morality, truth, happiness, and memory. The events revolve chiefly within a father–son–mother triangle. Throughout the family’s affecting story, we hear the inner voices of a dreamer son searching for himself, and those of a mother who protects her family by every means, strives to bring her son back to reality, and fears seeing a repetition of the father in him. Will the mother’s rationality prevail, or the son’s book-leaning sensitivity? The reader seeking answers looks upon the characters’ world through their eyes and listens to the intersecting monologues of various animals and of Conscience.