Reading OUTS

Joyce Carol Outs (r. 1938) is a modern American writer, widely known in the world and very popular in the States. Our OUTS is not too famous, although several of her novels-for some reason not the best-are translated into Russian.

I read OUTS, choosing from the Internet the texts of its not most popular works, so that, starting in the midst of unprecedented frosts, I read a dozen of her novels (in fact-more than 50) and several collections of stories to spring rains.

What to say? Strong prose, which does not claim to be formal and even less - to ideological innovation. A kind of "encyclopedia of American life" and lively, not littered with different types of slang language. Sometimes somewhere on the 450th page it becomes clear that nothing significant will happen in the novel-but suddenly such a piercing and unexpected ending arises, as in the "daughter of the graveter."

But once the most important event for me and my peers were the novels of American authors, for example, Appaday, Bellou-it was a high literature!. However, as Apdike himself once advised to beginner critics, “Try to Understand What the Author Wished to Do Do, and Do Not Blame Him for Not Acheeving What He Did NOT ATTEMPT” (“Try to understand that the author’s intentions were, and do not blame him for him The lack of which he did not even strive for at all. ”

And suddenly I stumbled upon the composition of the OUTS under the title “ A Widow's Story: And Memoir ”, i.e. "Notes of the widow." It turned out to be the autobiographical notes of the OUTS - mainly - about what happened to her in 2008, when her husband did not become.

OUTS was married to the writer and publisher Raymond Smith (Raymond Smith), whom she met when she was 22 and he was 31. They got married three months after the first meeting and the next 47 years old almost did not part: the harmonious marriage of people who also connected the main life interests: literature, teaching, and Smith founded a magazine atario. Review and the Ontario Review Press - Outsus actively participated in this;

At the age of 78, Reimond Smith was not at all a “old man”: he not only actively engaged in publishing affairs, but continued to run daily, maintained order in their house in Princeton, bred flowers and vegetables, hosted guests, fed two favorite cats -in general lived and worked like the previous 20-30 years.

This strong man burned down from pneumonia in a week, being in a well -equipped hospital - but he managed to recover. His wife called at night that he felt ill., And she did not even have time to get.

“Notes of the Widow” is a story about how Joyce Carol Outs managed to survive in a situation that she describes as a break in the structure of her life. And here it turns out to be a very handy of OUTS to the thoroughness of the presentation, which in other cases - in particular, in novels - often seems unnecessary and even boring.

So you see a fragile and very middle -aged woman, chained, like in a shell, in her grief. A large light house (in my imagination, like a house from Tom Ford 'A Lonely Man), where on the walls there are cloths of a friend of their family, the famous artist Wolf Kan.

Guests always asked who the author of these canvases. And now it is unbearably painful to look at them - OUTS recalls how she bought Ray's paintings, already settling in Princeton, how the artist gave them his study when they were in his studio in Chelsea. Wouldn't you remove them? ..

Insomnia. Aversion to food. Chills and heat. Fears ... dizziness ... The doctor prescribes OUTS medicines: sleeping pills, relaxants, antidepressants. The temptation to swallow everything at once and end this horror. But would her deceased husband want this? And friends, students, colleagues, neighbors ...

And you feel the most acute sympathy for the author when she talks about her relationships with orphaned cats. One of them is older, and the second ray brought home quite a crumb. And these cats refuse to recognize the widow of the main thing - they are waiting for the return of the owner. Do not eat, do not jump to Joyce on the bed. Waiting.

But Joyce herself-she, undoubtedly, is alive! And she has obligations to other people who do not care: they call, write, send books, flowers, bring food, accompany everywhere, if necessary.

Attempts are not possible. Medicines do not help, but cause all sorts of side effects. Meanwhile, spring comes, and tulips planted by the deceased husband appear in the garden. Earth requires care than Joyce Outs has never done before. Now it is.

The banal phrase “life takes its own” requires, according to the author, another wording: if you are alive, take up your duties. For example, do not cancel the lectures and trips to other universities planned in advance. Answer letters. Open your house to the closest friends - they worry about you.

In August of the same year, five friends, mainly professors from Princeton University, had dinner in the OUT house. One of them was introduced to her - so OUT met Charles Gross, a neuropsychologist, her current husband.