Master

The Foreign Publishing House represents Roman Kolma Toybin "Master" (translation by Elena Kalyavina).

For the first time in Russian - Roman Kolma Toybin, the author of “Wizard” and “Brooklyn”, the book is the finalist of the Buker Prize, the winner of the IMPAC International Dublin Prize, “Exquisite lighting of the inner world of Henry James” (New York Times). The modern classic pays tribute to one of the pillars of American and world literature, the forerunner of modernism. An outstanding artist, a master of a subtle psychological portrait, is shown in all his vulnerability and loneliness-from the failure of his play “Guy Domvil” at the London Theater Druri Lane, while the Publishas Help “How important it is to be serious” Oscar Wilde, before the visit to the provincial English town, where Jameshid it on the slope on the slope on the slope on the slope on the slope years, his brother, philosopher William James, and with numerous reminiscences to the key episodes of the biography of the famous voluntary exile, who preferred London, Florence and Paris to his native Boston ... "A quiet masterpiece, the work of extraordinary seriousness and involvement that reveals the genius in all his human fullness. And this deep romance was written - we are not afraid of the word - masterfully ”(New York Observer).

We offer to read a fragment of the novel.

After long hesitation and discussions with the state and Alexander, he decided that he would go to Haymarket to see the new play Oscar Wilde. He felt that this was the only way to relatively calmly pass the time between eight thirty and ten forty -five. Then he could go to the St. James Theater. The state and Alexander agreed with him that this is the best plan, the only plan. At least for some time he will be distracted, and in the Saint-James Theater it will be already at the time of the triumph-when the play comes to an end, or even a curtain will fall.

So, he thought, being in an evening suit, people feel in the real world - the world that he avoided, which he only vaguely guessed. So money is earned, so a reputation is created. This is done with excitement and risk, with a feeling of emptiness in the stomach, a rapid heartbeat and a head full of imaginary prospects. How many days in his life will be similar to this? If his first play brings him, as he expects, fame and wealth, future premieres will pass calmer and he will transfer them much easier. And yet, even waiting for Kab, he remembered with particular sharpness that he set about a new story, that empty pages are exhausted from the expectation that he was in vain spending the evening time, instead of sitting down and writing. Walking towards Heimarket, he was ready to desert. Now he would have given everything in the world, so that for three and a half hours he would move to the future and already know the result - they are waiting for his applause and praise or a terrifying jump into contemptuous oblivion.

When Kab drove him to the theater, he suddenly felt a strange, new, desperate loneliness. This is too much, he thought, he wants too much. He forced himself to think about the scenery, golden lighting, costumes and the drama itself, about those who received invitations, and experienced only hope and anticipation. He himself chose this, and now he got it, he should not complain. He showed the state a list of those who fill the stalls and underwear, and the state said that the Saint James's auditorium will collect such a galaxy of aristocratic, literary and scientific celebrities that no London theater had ever seen before.

But in the tiers and on the gallery they will sit - Henry hesitated and smiled, knowing that if he wrote now, he would stop, trying to find the right tone - real spectators, people who paid money for tickets, whose support and applause will mean much more than the support and applause of his friends. It will be people - he almost said it out loud - people who do not read my books and do not want to know them. The world - he grinned when the next phrase occurred to him - the world is full of them. They always find related souls and get down into flocks. He relied that this evening these people would be on his side.

Having barely stepped on the sidewalk near the Haymarket Theater, he instantly envied Oscar Wilde. The complacency spectators who entered the lobby looked like people who were intended to have fun. He never looked like them in life, did not feel like them, and how, he thought, he would be able to spend these couple of hours among people who seem so relaxed, so frivolous, so cheerful. None of those who surrounded him - not a single person, not a single couple, not a single group - looked like a spectator who could like “Guy Domvil”. Give these theaters happy interchanges. He remembered long disputes with Alexander with trembling because of the far from a happy final “Guy Domvil”.

He regretted that he did not demand a chair from the edge, at the passage. And at the place allotted to him, he was locked among the public, and when the curtain rose and the neighbors began to laugh at the lines, which he considered rude and clumsy, he felt in a trap. He himself never laughed; He did not just not find anything funny in the play - much more important, he thought that there was nothing true here. Each remarks, each scene were played out as if stupidity was the highest manifestation of truth. No opportunity was missed to give out stupidity for wit; The most primitive, superficial lively phrases caused the most sincere and cheerful laughter in the hall.

Obviously, he was the only spectator who believed that the “ideal husband” was an extremely weak and vulgar play. In the first intermission, he almost escaped. But, in truth, he just had nowhere to go. The only consolation is not a premiere performance, there is no one from the secular public, whom he would know and who could recognize him. The most comforting, in the hall there was not Wilde himself - excessively loud, large and Irish - not his retinue. Henry involuntarily wondered what he could do with a similar story. All this text, from the first to the last line, was the purest mockery of literature, a craft with a cheap claim for wit, with pennies and a coop with intrigue.

The denunciation of the corrupt ruling class was very superficial, the plot is concerned somehow, the play was staged mediocre. When this comedy leaves the stage, he thought, no one would remember her anymore, and only he alone will forget her because of the flour that he is now worried, the ultimate aggravation of all feelings, because his own play is now in some few steps. His drama was about renunciation, he thought, and go explain to such people what it is - but they will not refuse to voluntarily in life.

When he walked towards St. James Square to find out his fate, the thunder of applause after the “perfect husband” sounded in his ears with a funeral ringing along “Guya Domvil”, and, paralyzed by a terrible foreboding, he stopped in the middle of the square, afraid to go to the theater and find out more.

Later, years later, from hints and scraps of conversations, he will be able to understand what exactly happened that evening. He never recognized the whole truth, but he understood one thing clearly: the clash between the invited “clean” public and the audience from the upper tiers was as insurmountable as the gap between him and his neighbors in the visual room when he watched Oscar Wilde's play. As he understood, the audience who paid for tickets began to cough, whispering and buzzing until the end of the first act. In the second act, Mrs.'s exit Edward Saker, dressed in a bizarre old suit, caused their ridicule. Once starting to laugh, they came to taste, and there was no end to further bullying.