older writers

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

The Habit of Writing

     “Do you ever brood on life?”

     “Occasionally, sir, when at leisure.”

     “What do you make of it? Pretty odd in spots, don’t you think?”

     “It might be so described, sir.”

     “This business of such-and-such seeming to be so-and-so, when it really isn’t so-and-so at all. You follow me?”

     “Not entirely, sir.”

From Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, by P.G. Wodehouse

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, the last of P.G. Wodehouse’s famous Jeeves and Wooster novels, was published in 1974 — when Wodehouse was 92 years old. The above lines are from the penultimate page of the book, and you have to wonder if this conversation, which comes somewhat out of the blue just at the end of the saga, reflects Wodehouse’s thinking on having lived such a long life as well as being Bertie Wooster’s philosophical summation of his own existential dilemma. “Pretty odd in spots, don’t you think, old P.G.?” It might be so described, Bertie, it might be so described …

I am always immeasurably impressed by authors who go on writing well past eighty. Or even seventy. But to make it past ninety and still be putting pen to paper! That is an accomplishment, and I do admit I find myself reading those later works with three things in mind.

     Is whoever it is still writing just because they long ago got into the habit of writing and can’t stop?

     Or do they have something particularly insightful to reveal after attaining such a heightened state of experience?

     Or have they just lost it, and are only still on the market because their name alone guarantees a few more sales?

Much as I appreciated Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen and was provoked to laugh out loud by it  more than once, I can’t say that there’s truly any profound philosophical insights to be found in the book. But P.G. hadn’t lost it. His flair for language was as penchant as ever. We should all write so lightly even only at 60.

So my conclusion regarding Wodehouse still publishing into his tenth decade would be yes, the man definitely was in the habit of writing. Thank goodness.

But what about some others, who went on — and in some cases still are — writing well past ages other people would consider more than adequate for retirement? How about Herman Wouk, Toni Morrison, Elmore Leonard, Philip Roth, Arthur C. Clarke, Dick Francis, or Thomas McGuane, to name a few?

Or how about John Le Carré? In his eighties, and his last book came out two years ago. As full of intrigue and solid with research and politics as anything he’s written.

Of course, on the other end of the scale you might mention Barbara Cartland — but then Barbara Cartland was always on the other end of any scale you might mention. When Barbara died in 2000 at the age of 98, she left behind no fewer than 160 unpublished manuscripts. Wikipedia says she wrote 723 novels total, once turning out a world’s record of 23 in one year — 1983, when she was already in her 80s.

There are habits, there are obsessions, there are addictions — and then there’s Barbara Cartland.

One of my favourite ladies, Lilian Jackson Braun, published her last The Cat Who … novel after she passed 90. But, unfortunately, it sort of showed …

The plot was nonexistent to rambling to weird, with strange random events occurring like her protagonist Jim Qwilleran’s longtime girlfriend Polly disappearing with another man and letting Jim know by a cryptic letter, but then a sexy young lawyer immediately shows up to take her place in Qwilleran’s rather oblique lovelife.

One does get the feeling in this case that Lilian was just rounding off a lifelong, very satisfying in its time, habit of writing, and that a publisher knew some more money could be made off her name.

But …

That was only her last book, written when she was about 95 or so. Lilian wrote at least 12 books in the series after she was 80, and they are all up to snuff, no question of it. And when she died at 97, she was still working on one more …

So let’s face it. If writing helps you live that long, it’s a damn good habit to get into.

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism

on Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Chapter Fifteen of The Electric Detective unfolds on Monday, July 6th, while the first instalment of the penultimate Episode Sixteen, Mary Shelley-Ish debuts Friday, July 10th! Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Our two alien siblings go head to head in a one-of-them-has-to-go battle in the confines of the Barometer’s Rising brothel …

And, if Victor Coffin ended up with Dr. Henry Jekyll’s old notes, who ended up with Victor Frankenstein’s?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

Episode Sixteen: Shelley-Ish — Prometheus, the Hard Way

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

After this week, only 6 instalments to go!