At Charleston the rough winds shook the darling buds of May but we were here to celebrate the hardy perennials. Novelist Paul Bailey and educationalist and writer Jane Miller spoke engagingly, over a gale, of the joys of growing old disgracefully. They were meant to have been joined by Diana Athill, through whose pioneering work the coming-of-age memoir has been superseded by the age-continuing-rather-longer-than-we-expected memoir. Sadly, pioneers of 95 have their off days and she sent her apologies.
Jane Miller, reading from her book Crazy Age, talked of needing an “adjusting inner eye” to prevent constant falling out of step with the young. Grandchildren are not impressed with perfect spelling and have little interest in tales from the Blackout. Neither are the young so fascinated with their own ailments that they happily sing out the list of them as if it were the catalogue aria from Don Giovanni whenever they get the chance.
Paul Bailey, whose first novel At The Jerusalem was about old people, has come full circle nearly half a century later in his latest work Chapman’s Odyssey. Describing it as “a token of gratitude for years of friendship and for life”, he conceded that though life is not always happy, it is there to be lived to the full and celebrated for as long as it lasts.
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