OUT OF MIND

by J. Bernlef ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 1989

Maarten Klein is a Dutch fisheries consultant, working with an international organization and based now in Gloucester, Massachusetts. With wife Vera, daily life consists of low-tension work, reading, meals, walks, shopping, the occasional tenderness of lovemaking. But Maarten recently has become aware of a certain sharpness in Vera, an impatience on her part with him. He admittedly forgets things that he was doing, forgets book titles, forgets even actions he's repeated routinely. Then, once, when he needs Vera, he calls her at her job at the local library and doesn't find her there--hearing from her later that she hasn't worked at the library for some time. Told through Maarten's voice and feelings, his world very gradually is fraying through inattention; a sober, serious man, he is losing his wits to Alzheimer's disease, and his wife's reactions are only the first clues. In time he literally sees reality shatter: "" 'Sometimes the thoughts move so fast that I hardly have time to think them, they wash through me and then I have to cry. And then suddenly everything stands still again, rigid as a magiclantern picture and it is as if nothing will ever be able to move again and you have to start walking in order to get things going.' "" Affecting and credible: an imagining of the shut-down of cognition, the theft of even the most elemental human power.

Pub Date: June 25, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Godine

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION