Sunday, May 4, 2014

Ending Up

Who are the novelists today who write about old people? With my limited knowledge of current fiction, I can't think of anyone. Kingsley Amis's 1974 novel, Ending Up, features a menagerie of five elderly characters living in one house, each with physical or moral shortfalls but all trying to muddle through (to the end) together. The tale is leavened with wry humor and Waugh-like wit: "Bernard said little; he was trying to reconcile his dislike of Trevor for having a lot of hair on his face with his dislike of Keith for having none, and found the task difficult until it dawned on him that of course Trevor was flaunting the fact that he was young while Keith was trying to pretend he was no different from anyone else."

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