In his first tale, set in the 18th century, the Demeter is a sloop searching for an unmarked fissure in the cliffs along the north Norwegian coast, based on alleged intelligence from the Europa. Silas, the Demeter’s doctor, narrates the story in a series of first-person episodes. To say more would be to give spoilers, but I will tell you the reveals are well-timed and powerful, the novel’s conclusion both satisfying and thought-provoking. Ingeniously, Reynolds also evokes “eversion” in the novel’s structure, a nested set of fictions that led me far from my initial understanding of what was happening to the protagonists.
The titular “eversion” refers to both the topological paradox of a sphere being turned inside out without tears or creases and the physical situation of the knowledge-sucking mind-spider lurking at the heart of the edifice. In Eversion, his twentieth novel, Alastair Reynolds interleaves reflections on selfhood, agency, and the possibilities of narrative within a cracking yarn of nautical adventure and a mysterious edifice.
0 kommentar(er)
