Here we have another gruesome protagonist propelled through the pages by a search for revenge. Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler (1997) Not everyone will appreciate the whiff of incense at the end – Mauriac certainly had his share of detractors, including those on the Catholic right – but the journey is absolutely mesmerising.Ģ. Yet, as his plotting unfolds, this appalling paterfamilias slowly uncoils the knot of vipers in his heart and reveals his life to be one of haunting tragedy, deep pathos, and even a redeeming love. Mauriac’s novel takes the form of a written confession by a wonderfully malevolent and calculating narrator, a miserly barrister whose final ambition, following a lifetime of avarice and hatred, is to disinherit his equally greedy children. The Knot of Vipers ( Le Nœ ud de vip è res ) by François Mauriac (1932) So what other older men appear in literature on their own terms, holding our attention with all their wisdom, folly and singularity? Here, in random order, are some of my favourites.ġ. He offers proof that an eightysomething can propel a narrative without an author having to resort to wistful recollections of a vanished prime. Monet in those years, his 70s and 80s, was very much an old man in a hurry, emerging from self-imposed retirement on the eve of the first world war to create some of the most daringly experimental pigmentary effects he had ever attempted. But what about older people, those in their 60s, 70s and 80s, who don’t want merely to be plot devices in rocking-chairs, encumbered with memories and regrets, reminiscing about what happened many decades earlier when their lives were actually interesting?Īs I researched and wrote Mad Enchantment, my biography of the last dozen years in the long life of Claude Monet, I was struck by the painter’s vigour, fortitude, ambition and (if I can declare some personal interest) sheer narrative traction. The middle-aged, especially middle-aged men in full crisis mode, likewise get their share of attention: thank you Richard Ford, Martin Amis, Nick Hornby, Jonathan Franzen, John Updike and several thousand others. It’s easy to find books about school days, comings of age, first kisses, great expectations, artists as young men, the faults in our stars. A re history and literature no country for old men? The demographics of literary heroes can be a bit depressing for anyone over a certain age.
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