the symmetry of age

Given the fact that I just came back to work one week ago, I should consider it a success that during the same last week I had the chance to read two short novels that two friends of mine had individually suggested. I decided to read them back to back as a small project on age and how it is developed from two opposite points of view. The outcome of this so-called "reading" project was a bit unexpected and that is the reason of writing a post about it.

I started with "Everyman" by Philip Roth (suggested by Faidra), which tells the story of an old man struggling against a failing health and the bitterness of reminiscing the splendour of a lost youth. Over the last years, I have been reluctant to read anything by Roth and I guess this had to do mostly for not wanting to submit to the Roth-mania, stirred by all literary media. At the same time I have always been reserved against prolific writers with an ability to publish a best-seller every two years. 

Nonetheless, I found "Everyman" quite rewarding. More of an autobiographical sketch of old age, it transmits a certain optimistic feeling without taking it too far. While it is supposed to be a book about death it ends up being one about life without resorting to easy and simplistic euphoric messages. In the end it is an honest book by an honest writer and even though it starts off with a funeral and ends with a death, it leaves you with a sense that what lies inbetween is -like life- trully worth going through.  

In a sort of counterpoint, I went on to read "Youth" (suggested by Filipe), the second part of JM Coetzee's autobiography, describing his life as a young wannabe writer in the London of the 60s that ends up working as a computer programmer. Although this was supposed to be the "optimistic", "young" side of the project it proved to be quite the opposite. Coetzee uses the dullest of colours to paint the pictures of his youth, the proze evokes a feeling as gloomy as the style, everything is grey like London. The book also ends in an abrupt way with no resolution or even a catastrophe that would signify -at least- a partial closure. Throughout its 170 or so pages we see a young man struggling against his own incompetences without being able to feel any sort of pitty for him. This man grew up to win the Nobel Prize for a number of great books, of which I admit to have read none. "Youth" is certainly not one of them. To me it appeared more like its creator's self-punishing apologee. 

I am not a book critic, neither do I like writing or talking a lot about books. It was just the fact that these two books, both suggested by friends, both written by well-respected writers. What I found interesting is that the one talking about old age is the optimistic one while the one referring to youth is the darkest. The one that talks about dying makes you want to live and the one which talks about living makes you doubt if it is really worth it. 

In the end, the pretty banal point I am trying to make is (apart from the obvious that appearances can be misleading even when it comes into simple book-reading) that there appears to be a sort of compensating symmetry between age and the way we reflect on it. While young we tend to think everything is worthless. Then we reach a certain age to appreciate everything that has passed us by. As in most of human activites we tend to disregard the grace of some simple things, cherishing them only upon their inevitable loss.

But then again, this is nothing new.