From the Guardian this week, a great review of two new books on ageing:
Anything's possible except eternal youth. I have since bought one of the books reviewed, Lynne Segal's Out of Time: The Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing and can highly recommend it. She quotes Simone de Beauvoir saying that she felt she would "Never again, be able, never again be allowed to experience new desires, or to display her yearnings publicly....'It is not I who am saying goodbye to all those things I once enjoyed, it is they who are leaving me.'" I can relate to this somewhat, but, as Segal then goes on to remind us, ten years later in Beauvoir's book All Said and Done "we find that things were neither all said nor even less so, all done. Beauvoir was busy taking control and making changes after all'
There's hope for us all!
The other review that Tessa Hadley discusses in the Guardian is Penelope Lively's Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time. I've not read this but shall check it out.
Speaking of which, another great book on ageing and 'agelessness' is Catherine Mayer's Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly'. I referred to this in much detail in my dissertation and would certainly recommend that one too.
edit:
(Thanks Alison for your comment! I'm so glad you like the book. It's fab isnt it?)
Anything's possible except eternal youth. I have since bought one of the books reviewed, Lynne Segal's Out of Time: The Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing and can highly recommend it. She quotes Simone de Beauvoir saying that she felt she would "Never again, be able, never again be allowed to experience new desires, or to display her yearnings publicly....'It is not I who am saying goodbye to all those things I once enjoyed, it is they who are leaving me.'" I can relate to this somewhat, but, as Segal then goes on to remind us, ten years later in Beauvoir's book All Said and Done "we find that things were neither all said nor even less so, all done. Beauvoir was busy taking control and making changes after all'
There's hope for us all!
The other review that Tessa Hadley discusses in the Guardian is Penelope Lively's Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time. I've not read this but shall check it out.
Speaking of which, another great book on ageing and 'agelessness' is Catherine Mayer's Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly'. I referred to this in much detail in my dissertation and would certainly recommend that one too.
edit:
(Thanks Alison for your comment! I'm so glad you like the book. It's fab isnt it?)
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