The truth is that this little novel of barely one hundred and twenty pages has moved me to unsuspected limits and has moved and shaken me a lot. Just reading the synopsis I knew I was going to like it. Let’s say it was something like a crush.
When I read the book it was in its second edition. I don’t know if anything has changed since then, but it would seem normal to me that it was already for a third time. He deserves it. In addition, Our Souls At Night , published by Random House Literature, has been a Whiting Award recipient and a National Book Award nominee. It is not just any novel.
Kent Haruf, an American writer author of five more novels, is the creator of this book. I did not know this writer, but I think that after reading this book I will try to read his other novels. The story surrounding the writing of this novel is a bit nostalgic (sort of like the book itself). It turns out that in 2014 doctors diagnosed Haruf with a few months to live.
Even though he was ill, he wrote this novel and just after he had delivered the last corrections to his publisher, he passed away. He never got to see it published, he never knew it had sold thousands of copies. Sad truth? Actually, what moves me the most about all this is that, knowing that he was going to die, he had the strength and desire to write one last book. I am moved by the story it tells, because everything takes on another aspect when we know the conditions in which he wrote it. I am greatly moved by the message he leaves in it. I am tremendously sensitive and this book is tremendously emotional. You can already get an idea of ​​what it has meant to me, right?
I don’t like to gut the plots of books and with this one I run the risk of doing it because I’m going to be able to feel like it and because, although short, it’s intense. Don’t worry, I’m going to contain myself, I won’t be so mean.
Louis and Addie are the leads in Our Souls At Night . The two have been neighbors for many years in Holt, Colorado. Both of them, now in the old age of their lives, have been widowed for many years. And this is one of the first points that strikes a chord with me especially: older people who live alone, who have become hopelessly accustomed to loneliness. Addie, however, takes courage and one day she goes to the house of her neighbor Louis of hers with a proposition: to sleep together. Simply that. When night falls are the most difficult hours for both of them, the moment when loneliness settles in their houses and in their bodies. So Addie wants her neighbor to come over to her house to sleep with her. This way they will be able to chat, they will be able to entertain themselves and forget, during that night, that they are alone.
Louis accepts and as you will suppose at first it is a rather strange situation. As night falls, Louis grabs his pajamas and toothbrush and goes to his neighbor’s house. But that uncomfortable feeling does not take long to disappear. Soon they will begin to feel very comfortable in company. They chat, go over their lives, their marriages, and their dreams. And what is more important, they care very little what the other inhabitants of the town may think of this atypical nocturnal relationship.
However, although they, to put it colloquially, are back from everything, not everyone thinks or feels the same as them. And here, friends, there is a very big lesson for everyone. If two adults are not afraid of the opinion of the rest of the people, who do people think they have an opinion about them? Who do we think we are? Yes, this topic enervates me and at the same time excites me. How nice if we didn’t have prejudices, right? How great it would be if people could do whatever they want without having to explain themselves. They will know, especially our elders, what they want, right? Beautiful novel. Beautiful lesson, readers.
