Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Duplex


I just finished reading Duplex: A Novel by Kathryn Davis, and I'm still a little off-kilter because of it. Struck dumb, unbalanced, bewildered. I don't even know whether I can explain it here, much less "review" it. It's lyrical and erotic and fantastical and ominous with a dollop of bizarre. I'd call it nearly science fiction, except that it's not. Here's a passage:

The girls rose on the next wave and felt themselves flung forward as the wave broke behind them. The farther they got from shore the bigger the waves were becoming, rocking under them with more and more energy. It was like they were being pushed on a swing, higher and higher, getting swept up the side of a hill to stay for a split second at the top before being swept down into the valley below and then up again, the top even higher this time, the slope even steeper and the valley lower, until they found themselves at the top of a mountain of water the size of an alp. The moon was right there above them, drawing the ocean up to it. The girls practically banged their heads against its surface. Because of the moonlight everything looked like it was coated in silver, but you could see how dark the water was underneath the coating, so dark green it was almost black, and the moon itself was whiter than anything, whiter and smoother than an egg. 

I should tell you that the girls described above were dressed in identical black bathing suits with skirts and identical white rubber bathing caps that strapped under the chin. They looked like old ladies. They didn't enter the water like old ladies, though, splashing water up over the tender parts of themselves to lessen the shock. The girls plunged right in and kept on going. They ignored the jellyfish and the seaweed. They didn't look back.

So, there's that. There's a sex scene with robots, or I think it was a sex scene, and it was terrifying. There's this:

She went on to say that whatever brought two people together had nothing to do with sex. It had to do with the abyss, the face of the deep, with whatever came before people or animals or life of any kind and what would be left after they were gone.

Sigh. There's nothing like a book that truly transports you, knocks you off your perch or launches you onto a different plane.

Reader, tell me what you're reading.

14 comments:

  1. Wow

    Just picked up 12 Years a Slave from the hold shelf - the book is always better than the movie is what they say - although i'd like to do both

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  2. THE AQUANAUTS! I loved that part. I just started this book about Scientology Going Clear so far it's a barn burning amazement. XO

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  3. Reading Quantum Physics for Poets, thinking that Duplex: a Novel might be a wee bit more entertaining.

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  4. I talked about what I was/am reading with my ears on my post last night. I am reading, with my eyes, Matt Haig's "The Dead Father's Club" which is also otherworldly and a retelling of Hamlet. It is keeping me a little bit on the edge of my seat but is not very long so I am taking it in slow bites.

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  5. just finished a memoir called The Memory Palace by mira bartok. beautifully written. then found a henning mankell that migrated to my pile on my side from james' pile on his side of the bed, so started that last night and i'm already hooked.

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  6. Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown. A female pirate kidnaps a chef to cook her Sunday meals.....it's so much more.
    Read it weeks ago and though I've picked up other books, I've not finished one because none of them are measuring up to the world Eli Brown created. I'll give Duplex a shot.

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  7. (Re)reading Memories of the Underdevelopment, one of the classics of Cuban literature. I'm always chuffed to bits when a book causes the effect this book has caused on you. It makes feel that all is OK with the world! :-)

    Greetings from London.

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  8. Love & Math by E Frankel
    Boy, do I like that moon.

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  9. Having just finished my final presentation in class last night, I'm reading crap right now...no, wait a minute...I'm reading Nancy Mitford's biography by Harold Acton (in bed, before I go to sleep). It's great.

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  10. Reading Dr. Sleep by Stephen King. You all are making me feel low-brow :)

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  11. This, as soon as possible! I just read some Pam Houston essays, one on SAD and the changing light. Today I picked up Vampires In The Lemon Grove, though I'd rather have her first--St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised by Wolves. The library doesn't have it though, so Vampires it is.

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  12. That sounds fascinating! I'm reading "Lola Bensky" by Lily Brett, which Ms. Moon mentioned on her blog several weeks ago, but to be honest I'm not sure I like it. I'll let you know!

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  13. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon--which I have to stop reading on the subway because it's so intertwined and detailed that I am losing track. I need a quieter space where there is no fear of missing my stop or falling over when the train stops!

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  14. The passage you quote sounds to me as if it were written by you. I'm not surprised it resonated with you.

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