Pragmatism deprives us of a living connection with loved ones. Yes, and people in general. William Paul Young undertook to prove this thesis by artistic means. The result was a novel with healing power.
By the age of forty, Tony had everything that another could only dream of: his own successful business, a beautiful house … But when he suddenly decided to make a list of those whom he could trust, there was no one living on it now. There is little surprise in this: he himself considered people solely from the point of view of their potential usefulness. And the only place where Tony felt comfortable was in a well-secret bunker where no one could find him.
Tony’s case isn’t all that rare, when you think about it. There are many among us who consider pragmatism reasonable and modern. But Yang looks at his character as if through a magnifying glass, bringing to the limit the shortcomings familiar to everyone. It finds problems where any of us would ask, «So what?» And it turns out that the so-called healthy pragmatism is a disease leading to the loss of a living, sensual connection with people. And the hero deserves not condemnation at all, but sympathy. Moreover, we will also find out the reason that made him build his own (both literally and figuratively) bunker. Having experienced the death of his parents in childhood, and in adulthood the loss of his little son, he no longer wanted to get close to people. Aphoristic and at the same time touching, mystical and full of realistic details, the novel is endowed with healing power: starting to empathize with Tony in his attempts to learn to love and feel, you involuntarily think about the circumstances of your own life.
Alphabet, Alphabet-Atticus, 288 p.