SILK ROAD

A spellbinding novel about transience and mortality, by one of the most original voices in American literature

The Silk Road begins on a mat in yoga class, deep within a labyrinth on a settlement somewhere in the icy north, under the canny guidance of Jee Moon. When someone fails to arise from corpse pose, the Astronomer, the Archivist, the Botanist, the Keeper, the Topologist, the Geographer, the Iceman, and the Cook remember the paths that brought them there—paths on which they still seem to be traveling.

The Silk Road also begins in rivalrous skirmishing for favor, in the protected Eden of childhood, and it ends in the harrowing democracy of mortality, in sickness and loss and death. Kathryn Davis’s sleight of hand brings the past, present, and future forward into brilliant coexistence; in an endlessly shifting landscape, her characters make their way through ruptures, grief, and apocalypse, from existence to nonexistence, from embodiment to pure spirit.

Since the beginning of her extraordinary career, Davis has been fascinated by journeys. Her books have been shaped around road trips, walking tours, hegiras, exiles: and now, in this triumphant novel, a pilgrimage. The Silk Road is her most explicitly allegorical novel and also her most profound vehicle; supple and mesmerizing, the journey here is not undertaken by a single protagonist but by a community of separate souls—a family, a yoga class, a generation. Its revelations are ravishing and desolating.

Un roman fascinant despre trecator si mortalitate, de una dintre cele mai originale voci din literatura americana Drumul Matasii incepe pe un covor in clasa de yoga, adanc intr-un labirint pe o asezare undeva in nordul inghetat, sub indrumarea sfredelita a lui Jee Moon. Cand cineva nu reuseste sa apara din poza cadavrului, Astronomul, Arhivistul, Botanistul, Pazitorul, Topologul, Geograful, Omul de gheata si Bucatarul isi amintesc caile care i-au adus acolo - cai pe care par sa calatoreasca inca Drumul Matasii incepe, de asemenea, intr-o lupta rivala pentru favoare, in Edenul protejat al copilariei si se termina in democratia dureroasa a mortalitatii, in boala, pierdere si moarte.