Edward Aubyn - The Patrick Melrose Novels - Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Edward Aubyn - The Patrick Melrose Novels - Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Год выпуска: 2012, Издательство: Picador, Жанр: Современная проза, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An
 Best Book of the Year

Best Book of the Year
“The Melrose Novels are a masterwork for the twenty-first century, written by one of the great prose stylists in England.” —Alice Sebold, author of
For more than twenty years, acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has chronicled the life of Patrick Melrose, painting an extraordinary portrait of the beleaguered and self-loathing world of privilege. This single volume collects the first four novels—
,
,
, and
, a Man Booker finalist—to coincide with the publication of
, the final installment of this unique novel cycle.
By turns harrowing and hilarious, these beautifully written novels dissect the English upper class as we follow Patrick Melrose’s story from child abuse to heroin addiction and recovery.
, the first novel, unfolds over a day and an evening at the family’s chateaux in the south of France, where the sadistic and terrifying figure of David Melrose dominates the lives of his five-year-old son, Patrick, and his rich and unhappy American mother, Eleanor. From abuse to addiction, the second novel,
opens as the twenty-two-year-old Patrick sets off to collect his father’s ashes from New York, where he will spend a drug-crazed twenty-four hours. And back in England, the third novel,
, offers a sober and clean Patrick the possibility of recovery. The fourth novel, the Booker-shortlisted
, returns to the family chateau, where Patrick, now married and a father himself, struggles with child rearing, adultery, his mother’s desire for assisted suicide, and the loss of the family home to a New Age foundation.
Edward St. Aubyn offers a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty—welcome to the declining British aristocracy.

The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

‘You’re gonna fry in that coat,’ said the policeman with a smile.

‘It’s not a crime, is it?’ asked Patrick, more aggressively than he’d intended.

‘Normally,’ said the policeman with mock seriousness, ‘we’d have to arrest ya, but we got our hands full,’ he added with a resigned shrug.

‘What happened here?’ asked Patrick in his MP-with-the-constituent manner.

‘Guy died of a heart attack.’

‘The party’s over,’ said Patrick with a private sense of pleasure.

‘There was a party here last night?’ The policeman was suddenly curious.

‘No, no, I just meant…’ Patrick felt he was coming from too many directions at once.

‘You heard no noises, cries, nothing unusual?’

‘No, I heard nothing.’

The policeman relaxed, and ran his hand over his largely bald scalp. ‘You’re from England, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I could tell from the accent.’

‘They’ll make you a detective soon,’ said Patrick boisterously. He waved as he set off down the long carpet of gushing pink and green flower-laden urns, with the policeman’s imagined eyebeams burning into his back.

10

PATRICK SPRANG UP THE steps of the Key Club with unaccustomed eagerness, his nerves squirming like a bed of maggots whose protective stone has been flicked aside, exposing them to the assault of the open sky. Wearing an eyepatch, he hurried gratefully into the gloomy hall of the club, his shirt clinging to his sweating back.

The hall porter took his overcoat in silent surprise and led him down a narrow corridor, its walls covered with memorials to remarkable dogs, horses, and servants, and one or two cartoons bearing witness to the feeble and long-forgotten eccentricities of certain dead members. It really was a temple of English virtues as George had promised.

Ushered into a large panelled room full of green and brown leather armchairs of Victorian design, and huge glossy paintings of dogs holding birds in their obedient mouths, Patrick saw George in the corner, already in conversation with another man.

‘Patrick, my dear, how are you?’

‘Hello, George.’

‘Is there something wrong with your eye?’

‘Just a little inflammation.’

‘Oh, dear, well, I hope it clears up,’ said George sincerely. ‘Do you know Ballantine Morgan?’ he asked, turning to a small man with weak blue eyes, neat white hair, and a well-trimmed moustache.

‘Hello, Patrick,’ said Ballantine, giving him a firm handshake. Patrick noticed that he was wearing a black silk tie and wondered if he was in mourning for some reason.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your father,’ said Ballantine. ‘I didn’t know him personally, but from everything George tells me it sounds like he was a great English gentleman.’

Jesus Christ, thought Patrick.

‘What have you been telling him?’ he asked George reproachfully.

‘Only what an exceptional man your father was.’

‘Yes, I’m pleased to say that he was exceptional,’ said Patrick. ‘I’ve never met anybody quite like him.’

‘He refused to compromise,’ drawled George. ‘What was it he used to say? “Nothing but the best, or go without.”’

‘Always felt the same way myself,’ said Ballantine fatuously.

‘Would you like a drink?’ asked George.

‘I’ll have one of those Bullshots you spoke about so passionately this morning.’

‘Passionately,’ guffawed Ballantine.

‘Well, there are some things one feels passionately about,’ smiled George, looking at the barman and briefly raising his index finger. ‘I shall feel quite bereft without your father,’ he continued. ‘Oddly enough, it was here that we were supposed to be having lunch on the day that he died. The last time I met him we went to a perfectly extraordinary place that has an arrangement of some sort – I can’t believe that it’s reciprocal – with the Travellers in Paris. The portraits were at least four times life size – we laughed about that a good deal – he was on very good form, although, of course, there was always an undercurrent of disappointment with your father. I think he really enjoyed himself on this last visit. You must never forget, Patrick, that he was very proud of you. I’m sure you know that. Really proud.’

Patrick felt sick.

Ballantine looked bored, as people do when someone they don’t know is being discussed. He had a very natural desire to talk about himself, but felt that a little pause was in order.

‘Yes,’ said George to the waiter. ‘We’d like two Bullshots and…’ He leaned enquiringly towards Ballantine.

‘I’ll have another martini,’ said Ballantine. There was a short silence.

‘What a lot of faithful gundogs,’ said Patrick wearily, glancing around the room.

‘I suppose a lot of the members are keen shots,’ said George. ‘Ballantine is one of the best shots in the world.’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ protested Ballantine, ‘ used to be the best shot in the world.’ He held out his hand to arrest the flow of self-congratulation, but was no more effective than King Canute in the face of another great force of nature. ‘What I haven’t lost,’ he couldn’t help pointing out, ‘is a gun collection which is probably the greatest in the world.’

The waiter returned with the drinks.

‘Would you bring me the book called The Morgan Gun Collection ?’ Ballantine asked him.

‘Yes, Mr Morgan,’ said the waiter in a voice that suggested he had dealt with this request before.

Patrick tasted the Bullshot and found himself smiling irresistibly. He drank half of it in one gulp, put it down for a moment, picked it up again, and said to George, ‘You were right about these Bullshots,’ drinking the rest.

‘Would you like another one?’ asked George.

‘I think I will, they’re so delicious.’

The waiter weaved his way back to the table with an enormous white volume. On the front cover, visible from some way off, was a photograph of two silver-inlaid pistols.

‘Here you are, Mr Morgan,’ said the waiter.

‘Ahh-aa,’ said Ballantine, taking the book.

‘And another Bullshot, would you?’ said George.

‘Yes, sir.’

Ballantine tried to suppress a grin of pride. ‘These guns right here,’ he said, tapping the front cover of the book, ‘are a pair of Spanish seventeenth-century duelling pistols which are the most valuable firearms in the world. If I tell you that the triggers cost over a million dollars to replace, you’ll have some idea of what I mean.’

‘It’s enough to make you wonder if it’s worth fighting a duel,’ said Patrick.

‘The original cleaning brushes alone are worth over a quarter of a million dollars,’ chuckled Ballantine, ‘so you wouldn’t want to fire the pistols too often.’

George looked pained and distant, but Ballantine in his role as the Triumph of Life, performing the valuable task of distracting Patrick from his terrible grief, was unstoppable. He put on a pair of tortoiseshell half-moon spectacles, pushed his head back, and looked condescendingly at his book, while he allowed the pages to flicker past.

‘This here,’ he said, stopping the flow of pages and holding the book open towards Patrick, ‘this is the first Winchester repeating rifle ever manufactured.’

‘Amazing,’ sighed Patrick.

‘When I was shooting in Africa, I brought down a lion with this gun,’ admitted Ballantine. ‘It took a number of shots – it doesn’t have the calibre of a modern weapon.’

‘You must have been all the more grateful for the repeating mechanism,’ Patrick suggested.

‘Oh, I was covered by a couple of reliable hunters,’ said Ballantine complacently. ‘I describe the incident in the book I wrote about my African hunting trips.’

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x