The writing is stymied by two major flaws that detract from an otherwise enjoyable saga ambience-wise--(1) with the exception of the anti-hero/protagonist (the avatar of nomadism) the rest of the characters all too conveniently disappear into their symbolic roles (in contrast, the desert and the oasis in which the entire story takes place truly feels animated and 'alive') and if that wasn't off-putting enough (2) the characters are made to speak in riddles every time they open their damn mouth, which makes for a reading experience one can only describe as confounding. Yet, at the end of the day, The Seven Veils of Seth is a philosophically rich exploration of the perennial antagonism between the forces of accumulation and the forces of expenditure that dictate the trajectory of civilizations, and whose process consecrates some men as scions of liberation in the one and the same movement that it condemns others to servitude. If I have to pick a favorite character, I guess I'd have to go with chief merchant Amghar, for the most part because you can't exactly place him in either camp ('commerce' is neither migratory nor sedentary).
"Nevertheless, he had always admired this creature, simply because man had the courage to thrust his head toward the stars while hiding out among the grains of dirt. His humblest utensils in this world provide his elegy, but despite that fact, he feels arrogant, never losing his certainty that the trip will eventually lead him to occupy the throne of heaven. What is most amazing, however, is not man’s preoccupation with the celestial but his tenacious adherence to the worldly, the way he clings to the lowlands and surrenders to the earth, from which he should flee, instead of relying on it, since he understands that one day he will become a morsel in the earth’s belly. Man betrayed the prophetic advice of his ancestors, who adopted the law of migration, believing that sedentary people are the only dead ones, since they alone possess bodies that arouse the earth’s greed. Nomadic people, who never stay anywhere or settle down on the earth, own nothing to provoke the earth or arouse its greed. They possess nothing: no gear, no walls, no bodies, not even dreams. All they possess is their voyage, nothing more. They possess a single riddle, over which the earth holds no sway and for which the lowlands can offer no explanation. This is deliverance."