The great thing about getting old is that you get to see how the future turns out.
If, like me, you hang around this mortal coil long enough you get to stand on one side and watch that handsome young man metamorphose into a lugubrious old git. I've even got a picture to prove it. That's the one portrayed in the photo alongside this post, peering out myopically into the blogosphere. More importantly, if you live long enough you get to find out whether or not all those callow hopes and aspirations you once cherished were actually fulfilled. You can see from my expression how I thought it turned out for me.
Armed with this knowledge of the future I've been looking back into my past and turning it into a new novel, called Mummy's Boy. The odd thing is, though, that despite my proven powers of clairvoyancy, I don't yet know how the novel is going to end.
Not with a death-bed scene I hope.
Oh Goddess, don't leave out the best bits!
ReplyDeleteYou need to read Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses - wonderful novel about growing old, the things not left behind, memory and time.
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