Sebastian Faulks is a writer, perhaps not a great one, but one of those charming authors, the absence of which in Russian literature is felt especially sharply. Each of his novels is always a guarantee of quality, it is a smart, beautifully and intricately organized text, written with a healthy dose of respect and sympathy for the reader. A diamond masterpiece that does not penetrate to the bone for all time, but a very worthy, noble reading that has the ability to entertain, excite and awaken the thought at the same time.
Sebastian Faulks was born in 1953, and grew up in Newbury, the son of a judge and a repertory actress. He attended Wellington College and studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, although he didn’t enjoy attending either institution. Cambridge in the 70s was still quite male-dominated, and he says that you had to cycle about 5 miles to meet a girl. He was the first literary editor of “The Independent”, and then went on to become deputy editor of “The Sunday Independent”. Sebastian Faulks was awarded the CBE in 2002. He and his family live in London.
Faulks' newest novel written to date, Where My Heart Beat, definitely falls into the same category. The year is 1980, and Robert Hendricks, a veteran of World War II, an elderly, lonely and bilious psychiatrist, returns from a business trip to New York. At home, in addition to the faithful terrier, a letter is waiting for him - a message from a colleague, a very ancient professor named Alexander Pereira. Now Pereira lives on a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, not far from the French coast, but in his youth, in the distant years of the First World War, he happened to know Father Robert, who died at the front. Pereira invites Robert to visit and talk about his father, and, on a strange impulse, Hendrix decides to accept his invitation.
Needless to say, this trip will turn into a continuous cascade of discoveries and miracles, radically changing both our initial idea of the hero, and - no less important - his own opinion about himself. The past will begin to give away its secrets, the story of a father who died in the war will be reflected in the story of his son, wounded but survived, and the smallest details and hints scattered throughout the text will eventually gather into a complex, but perfectly logical picture.
In general, memory and its outlandish curves are one of Faulks' favorite topics. This is especially evident in his novel “Ingleby”, which has not yet been translated into Russian, written from the perspective of a maniac-murderer: in it the hero talks about his life with disarming sincerity - about everything, even about the most unpleasant and shameful things, but is silent about the main thing - in fact, about the crime he committed, which in some incomprehensible way is forced out of his memory. So this time, Faulks, in Shakespeare's manner, turns the hero's eyes "pupils into the soul", forcing him to look where he refused to look throughout his life, and put together the puzzle of his own fate piece by piece. As a result, the biography of Robert Hendricks, M.D., Fellow of the Royal Society of Psychiatrists, so boring, decent and unremarkable at first glance, in hindsight turns into a real Ali Baba cave, hiding madness, despair, dizzying and doomed love, deceit, betrayal and heroism. .
Having finished reading Where My Heart Beats and noting with relief that despite the ineptly missed opportunities in the past, Robert Hendricks can still count on some pleasant surprises in the future, the reader may experience a slight disappointment. The pleasing roundness with which Faulks concludes his novel hints more at the craftsmanship than at true excellence. However, just a good novel (of which this one no doubt is) is already very, very good.
This article was sponsored by Larisa Kady
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