We read Richard Yates

I discovered this author by accident: I drew attention to the link - and immediately on the network there was his book of 1961 of the publication (I had never heard about it before).

So, the American writer Richard Yates (Richard Yates, 1926–1992), the author of the seven novels, of which the first - “Revolution Street” (“Revolutionary Road”, brought him fame, and the next were printed, but, alas, sunk into summer. As the critics who wrote about Yates after his death noted, they cannot be found even on the “distant” regiments of bookstores ...

I note that the “Street of the Revolution” does not look like an opus of the debutant and does not need “condescension”. The drama of the writer's fate is revealed before us when we learn that this novel - the first unconditional success of Jates - turned out to be his only achievement, although in the future he led the life of a professional author - wrote and printed ...

At the same time, it cannot be said that Yates was not noticed or not understood - his four novels fell on the list of “Best Book of the month”, but all the publications of his books “In a solid cover” diverged in moderate number of copies - no more than 12 thousand each.

The heroes of the novel “The Street of the Revolution” - Frank and April, a married couple with two children. These are young people who are not deprived of life: Frank works, April is busy with the house and children; Neighbors come to visit, etc.

The eloquent metaphor, as if predicting the failure of the “sample” of family happiness described in the novel, is an amateur performance, from the story of which the book begins. The real life of heroes is the same wretched imitation of a true life as this performance, where April unsuccessfully tries to portray the heroine.

Frank and April are prosperous - it is difficult to name them happy: both of them always “check” their life with the samples proposed by Mass Media, and each time it turns out that they “lack” before these samples. Actually, this is a categorical and inevitable discrepancy and makes up the source of the constantly present conflict, which excludes the possibility of harmony between Frank and April, and at the same time between them and neighbors and even between them as parents and their young children.

The wrong existence, conscious or unconscious presentation of oneself to the world - and each other! - Only in a socially approved mask, which still needs to be selected correctly - these processes are described by Jets with amazing subtlety. The author does not condemn his characters and, moreover, does not emphasize the absurdity of their claims, the doubtfulness of many elections, and finally, the primitiveness of ideals and expectations.

And the tragic ending of the novel is the worst that it is accidental at the level of everyday life, but is logical at an existential level.

Rebekah Frumkin