25 Famous Letters. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Курт Воннегут школьникам

Воннегут – один из самых известных писателей 20 века (прочтите его «Бойню номер 5». Отличная книга). В 2006 году, когда Воннегуту было уже очень-очень много лет, Мисс Локвуд, учительница английского языка в старших классах, попросила своих учеников написать Воннегуту письма, где они могли бы расспросить его о работе и получить совет на будущее. Несмотря на возраст (84 года), Воннегут ответил молодежи. Ниже его письмо.

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer |старикашку, чудака| (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much |не напоминаю ничего другого, кроме| as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit |а именно|: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming |чтобы испытать создание|, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment |задание| for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk |завалит| you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed |зарифмованную|. No fair |справедливого, хорошего| tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite |цитировать| it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny |Разорвите ее на крошечные| pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals |выбросьте в далекие друг от друга мусорные контейнеры|. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut