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drjerry 's review for:
Doppelgänger
by Daša Drndić
The book was given to me as a gift and I had no preconceptions about the author or the text when I started reading it. A few pages in I started to form the opinion that Drndić might be a "Slavic Bukowski." The book's characters are mostly pitiful figures leading lives in wretched circumstances, their flaws and failures cast in the garish light of succinct, matter-of-fact narration. Once I had was roughly half way though the book, however, my opinion had completely changed, and I'm now rather embarrassed to have compared the Drndić to Bukowski simply on the grounds that the author has serious talent. This is especially evident in the second, longer part of the novel, titled "Pupi," which refers to the pet name of its main character, Printz Dvorsky.
As the plot of Pupi evolves, a second narrator begins to emerge from the text. Namely, in addition to the ever-present narrative voice recounting the history of the Dvorsky family in detached third person, Printz's narrative voice begins to assert itself. It is often as though the two narrators were competing with one another -- interrupting one another, repeating one another, or qualifying what the other has just said. The execution is masterful. It permits the reader the perspective of peering out at the world through the eyes of one whose life if unravelling over the course of the story's arc while observing the whole with out-of-body lucidity.
As the plot of Pupi evolves, a second narrator begins to emerge from the text. Namely, in addition to the ever-present narrative voice recounting the history of the Dvorsky family in detached third person, Printz's narrative voice begins to assert itself. It is often as though the two narrators were competing with one another -- interrupting one another, repeating one another, or qualifying what the other has just said. The execution is masterful. It permits the reader the perspective of peering out at the world through the eyes of one whose life if unravelling over the course of the story's arc while observing the whole with out-of-body lucidity.