Subject: over 50s need not apply
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Thu May 25 2000 - 02:47:07 GMT
Not so long ago I was pointing out that each
of us is so individual that 'rules' only apply to groups.
And Salinger may well be a startling exception to one
of these - as I no doubt deludely believe myself to be
another.
However.
There IS a fairly inflexible law about the writers of fiction:
that they produce much their best stuff before 50 & not a great
deal worth reading after that age. Up to the last century,
life expectancy tended to be shorter anyway (though not
as poor as it seems, once you remove the factor of infant mortality)
but even taking into account those who did survive there are
remarkably few stunners produced by aging men. The exceptions
that come casually to mind - Henry James with the Golden Bowl
at 61, Doestoievski with the Brother Karamazov at 59,
Hardy with Jude the Obscure at 55 - are pretty sparse.
Dickens produced Our Mutual Friend at 52 & was dead
& gone a few years later. War & Peace was the work of a 41 year
old & Anna Karenina came in under 50. Austen had barely reached
the shelf, the Brontes were little more than adolescents. Proust was
dead
by 51. We won't even mention the Americans: Melville had given up
by 38, Fitzgerald was dead by 44 & Hemingway had more or less
drowned his gifts by his late forties.
Salinger was 46 when he last waved to the rest of us sitting
here on the beach. Statistically at least, the prospects are
not all that hot.
Maybe those of us of an artistic bent would be better advised
getting out our canvases & brushes. Those bastards seem to go
on forever. It must be that endless running back & forth
to the easel & all that arm waving.
Scottie B.
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