Customer Reviews

Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I want to make it clear that this memoir is not only for those euphemistically known as "seniors" (an appellation I despise). Although it was written by a woman now 91, and it is about aging, it is not just about that; it also journeys through reading, writing, religion (or the lack thereof), children (or the absence thereof), death, sex, luck and friendship.

For Diana Athill's contemporaries, the book must be immediately relevant. For me, almost 30 years younger (and thus, according to her, "still within hailing distance of middle age"), it is a reassuring dispatch from my all-too-near future. I can't speak for younger generations, but I think that they too will find more meaning and sustenance in this slim (183-page) volume than in a hundred self-help books.

Athill was for 50 years a brilliant London book editor; among her writers were Jean Rhys, V.S. Naipaul and Margaret Atwood. She wrote about all this in STET, an amazing memoir of her publishing days that she produced at 80. Although she had written other memoirs and a novel before that, her discovery of herself as a full-fledged writer came relatively late. Athill is emphatic that the ability to "make things" --- art, music, books --- is a crucial factor in having a lively and resilient old age, yet for most of her long career (she retired at 75), she seems to have been content to let others do the making, while she remained a behind-the-scenes figure.

Athill, in fact, was brought up with a very British horror of attention-seeking or boastfulness: "YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PEBBLE ON THE BEACH might have been inscribed above the nursery door," she writes, "and I know several people...who still feel its truth so acutely that only with difficulty (if at all) can they forgive a book written in the first person about that person's life." This may be one reason that SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END is so un-narcissistic and so devoid of self-pity. Athill does express modest delight in her own accomplishments, and she does complain a bit about her deafness (mentioned so fleetingly I almost missed it) and her bad legs (making her grateful for the perfect vision that still allows her to drive). But she never strikes a smug or dismal note. You don't think Who cares? Or Poor soul! What you think is: Me, too! And: Could we have lunch together if I took a plane to London? She is that smart, honest, unpretentious and funny.

Reading her book, I realize how much first-person writing (including my own) is flashy, self-conscious, more about showing off than saying something useful. With Athill you always register a quiet intelligence at work. You can sense her mind figuring out the most eloquent and accurate way to get at the truth. And, good lord, does she ever take on tough subjects!

She starts off briskly and frankly with sex, the topic most often mentioned by reviewers (the book has already appeared in England, where it won the 2008 Costa Biography Award). In her 70s, she says, "she ceased to be a sexual being." It's a fact, not a tragedy; indeed, with the ebbing of biological forces, Athill reports, a certain clarity arrived about other things, such as the non-existence of God. A lifelong atheist, she finds her beliefs (that the universe is mysterious and unfathomable) vastly preferable to religion, which she compares to "fairy stories." This despite the imminence of death, which she comes to see, in her sensible way, as quite ordinary. That doesn't mean she is unaffected by her mother's passing; the poem she wrote on that occasion captures exactly a child's ambivalence about a parent's death. An excerpt:

"What did I feel? Like Siamese twins, one wanting her never to die,
the other dismayed at the thought of renewed life,
of having to go on dreading pain for her, go on foreseeing
her increasing helplessness and my guilt
at not giving up my life to be with her all the time."

SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END isn't all Big Issues. It also touches on topics like intergenerational friendship ("One should never, never expect [the young] to want one's company, or make the kind of claims on them that one makes on a friend of one's own age"); adult-education classes in sewing and drawing; gardening ("Getting one's hands into the earth, spreading roots, making a plant comfortable [is] a totally absorbing occupation"); and how her reading habits have changed (less fiction, more nonfiction, especially the kind of book that lets you "take a holiday from oneself"). By the way, she has never watched TV. Perhaps that, too, accounts for her graceful aging (in which case I am doomed).

Refreshingly, Athill does not have many regrets: primarily the narrowness of her life (she claims to have lacked the courage and energy to take risks) and what she calls "a stubborn nub of selfishness" (however, judging from her unstinting care of a former lover and longtime friend who has been bedridden for years, this diagnosis may not be entirely accurate). What she has achieved, she attributes partly to temperament, largely to luck. Granted, certain crucial things went right for her (a fortunate childhood, a place to live, good health), but I suspect she doesn't always give herself enough credit for how well she manages.

An inspiring book that is blessedly free of homilies is a rare thing. SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END is about a life being lived right now, vibrantly and enthusiastically, not about a slow descent into night. Paradoxically, by writing about old age, Athill seems almost to transcend it. At any rate, she eludes easy categories ("For oldies only"). Her observations are for anybody, of any age, who wants to peer into the further corners of life.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman

I bought this book specifically with the hope that I, nearing 60, might glean what it really is like to be much, much older and how I might cope with myself and with life. Granted I'm the sex opposite the author's own, but I still had hopes that I might understand better about aging and debility (since sporty John Jerome's "On Turning Sixty-Five" wasn't interesting to me and Gore Vidal, who is only 82, isn't likely to write such a helpful book at all), and I'm glad to report that my hopes were fulfilled. What I gleaned cannot be summarized with details, but what was conveyed in the reading was and is an existential self-confidence in being able to deal with life's limitations.

As the earliest reviewer reported, Diana Athill hits all the tough subjects: sex, death, losing one's parents, broken hearts, disabilities, losing interest in books and activities, unions and disunions. Yet all these tough subjects are considered intelligently while also being personable and non-despairing.

The one exception, for me, was the chapter discussing gardening. While gardening is one of the author's joys, here, I felt I was a nephew being forced to listen to an aging aunt nattering on heedlessly about plants, as any aging aunt might. But this was a brief experience, the only "boring old trout" (her words) part; the memoir is only 182 pages long besides.

One might assume that being a famous editor for decades, Diane Athill's first topics easily might be around books or authors or writing. Not so. She doesn't come around to discuss literary matters till Chapter 13 of this 16-chapter memoir. Quite astonishingly, she informs her readers that in her late years she no longer reads fiction; it doesn't interest her just as her body, at 70, was no longer interested in sex. She does, however, admire the life of novelist Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell as it's revealed by her biographer. (The woman has never developed an interest in watching television!) And she lets you know she began to write late in life and she thoroughly enjoys writing for its healing and liberating effects.

With no trace of sentimentality or self-absorption in this memoir, it ends on an upbeat note. Diane Athill at 92, "selfish" and independent though she's always been, likes life, and doesn't want to see it end.

I found it refreshing to find a woman of her years being able, so intelligently, to be frank about sex, black men as lovers, and atheism (my kind of friend) while writing in a style that is full of grace, economy and intimacy. Oh, and what a perfect and touching title for this book!

This is a book I will read again. And again. I found in it such a quiet reflection on life, beautifully put. This woman is a gifted writer, and I appreciate her experience with old age with death on the horizon, the end of life. I am in that place of view now, and this is a book to help me with my final part of life. There are several other authors who have spoken for me me in the way that Athill has - Joan Didion and May Sarton. It is a wonderful and strengthening experience to see my innermost feelings put into words and concepts. It makes me stronger, and it makes me more clear about life and about myself.

Perhaps it is unwarranted, but when an elderly, intellectual person reviews a life of over ninety-plus years, the expectations are for some profound insights on how to live, on how to come to grips with the nearing end. In this rather whimsical and rambling effort, the author touches briefly on what seems to be almost random aspects of her life. While the book is not superficial, she does not linger long on her subjects. Adding to the vagueness is the lack of concern in locating her story in terms of places, dates, ages, names, or chronology.

For the author, crossing the age of seventy was the most significant milestone in her life, because that is the point at which she "ceased to be a sexual being." Interestingly, she had almost a predisposition for long-running affairs with black men, highly cultured and not necessarily single. She readily admits they were affairs that satisfied needs and status, more than being deep commitments. As sex regrettably ebbed in her life, "other things became more interesting." She points to a better understanding of her atheism, as an example, and how it fits in a Christian society. Unsurprisingly, as a long time editor at a publishing house, she retains a deep interest in books, although novels, with their focus on relationships and escapism, have become less appealing.

The author was born in a well-to-do English family and comments on the advantages of money, good health, and a good education in dealing with old age. She does not pretend to have much to say for those not so advantaged. She has a level of comfort, psychological and otherwise, in her life that she is hopeful will be sustaining for her remaining time. With her background, she has/had the capacity to withstand life's adversities with her only regrets being tendencies towards emotional coldness and a certain amount of laziness in taking initiative.

As the author says, only the one living a life can truly examine it, but it needs to be done honestly. Furthermore, most lives are interesting at some level. But how does one determine whether a life should be or can be captured in a book? There is some question as to how much her life story on a fairly unique track, at least as revealed, will be relevant or informative to most readers.

I bought this book because I am in my 71st year and find that people are reluctant to talk about death or impending death. The author tackled the subject head on with clarity, humilty, humour and wisdom gained over years of facing her everyday life with honesty. Talking about how to deal with the changes that old age can bring and how they can be managed on a day to day basis without too much resistance and a deal of acceptance was very helpful. It is well worth reading and left me with a feeling of peace and the occasional chuckle.

An excellent book for anyone grappling with the issues of aging. It's inspiring to know someone approaching her ninth decade can still be so vibrant and articulate. It gives me hope for my own future and ambitions for projects yet to be accomplished as the days wind down.

When was the last time you encountered someone new and the word 'wisdom' popped into your head? Not very often lately? Me neither. Until last week. I read right through this book, "Somewhere Towards the End," as soon as I finished reading right through Diana Athill's earlier book, "Stet."

I bought "Stet" because it was the memoir of a superb book editor, a job I had done once myself, though not superbly. She had been one of the founders of a small, elite British house and worked with Mailer, Vidal, and Updike to name but three of their stable.

I bought "Somewhere Towards The End" because I was wondering what it is like to be old. I knew about arthritis, wrinkles and a sense of irrelevance. Who doesn't? I had been wondering if there was anything more appealing to be said for it. Diana Athill was close to 90 when she wrote this book, and the answer she personifies is 'Yes, there is.'

You see from the first page that she herself is a wonderful writer, a very unusual writer, and she must have been hell on wheels as an editor. (Not in the way you may be thinking though; Gordon Liss she is not. Her insights are penetrating, but her touch is very light., just short of self- effacing.) She embodies more than a few paradoxes. She she did not bring the kind of clear, rational insights to her own personal and financial life that she invested in her authors' books. She is quite frank about it, but never self-pitying. Fortunately for the reader, she made interesting mistakes with interesting people. One of the things that charmed and fascinated me is how lucidly and candidly she writes about her misadventures.

One minute she seems quite eccentric and the next you may realize that you've done the same thing for the same reason but never quite admitted the latter to yourself. She is extremely discrete about the affairs of others but not at all politically correct about her own sexual history. Nor does she romanticize the emotional history that went along with it. And outlives it.

I hope I have done this book and this writer justice. She has had a real impact on the way I look at some things, and I hope many others will get the same opportunity.

Somewhere towards the end I realized that I liked Diana Atwell and that she felt like a new friend. She is honest and forthright and tells it like it is. I shared this book with my 98 year old friend who also was enthusiastic about her and said that she wish she could have known her. I have just finished reading "Stet" and have another Diana Atwell book on order. It's not a great banquet, but rather a cup of good coffee (or tea) with a new friend that you enjoy getting to know.

Diana Athill's beautifully-written new book, Somewhere Towards the End (Norton, 2009) has the unique quality of being a memoir of being very old and happy about it without the maudlin set pieces or generic nostalgia one might expect in a fin de siecle.

The 90-year-old Athill was during her 20th century career a notable British editor who worked with Andre Deutsch in setting up one of Europe's most-respected publishing houses. She worked with such authors as Jean Rhys, V.S. Naipaul, Philip Roth and John Updike to name a few. She has also been, occasionally, an author herself of several highly-respected volumes, mostly memoirs but also a book of short stories and one novel (the one, she says, she "squeezed" out).

Somewhere Towards the End is composed to sixteen relatively short chapters, all of which center on Athill's experience of being, as she terms it, "very old." She has had a rich and varied life, not necessarily glamorous but well-lived. Although she has never had (nor wanted) children, it is clear she is a motherly figure in the way she has taken care of people in her life, including her mother and a past lover.

Athill, who frankly discusses topics such as being post-sexual, not being around to see the full growth of a tree she has planted, and so on, relies very little on metaphor to make her points, instead filling the pages with concrete little treasures of experience, such as this passage when she discusses her pleasure in being around young people:

"So if when you are old a beloved child happens to look at you as if he or she thinks (even if mistakenly!) that you are wise and kind: what a blessing!... [it] does make you feel like a better person while it's going on and for an hour or two afterwards... It does seem to me that the young nowadays are often more sophisticated than I used to be, and that many of them... relate to their elders more easily than we did; but I am convinced that one should never, never expect them to want one's company, or make the kind of claims on them that one makes on a friend of one's own age. Enjoy whatever they are generous enough to offer, and leave it at that."

Her spirited championing of youth belies the stereotype of the rebellious youth we think many "old people" maintain, and so in her writing Athill breaks another stereotype that many of us have about old people, namely that they are narrow thinkers, static and unwilling to change and so very much "post life." Among many other points to ponder, the book made me think that it is somewhat ironic, of course, that old people should be so marginalized in Western societies given the universal inevitability of growing old (and dying). In one of the more moving passages of the book, Athill writes:

"What dies is not a life's value, but the worn-out (or damaged) container of the self, together with the self's awareness of itself... That is what is so disconcerting to an onlooker, because unless someone slips away while unconscious, a person who is just about to die is still fully alive and fully her or himself... The difference between being and non-being is both so abrupt and so vast that it remains shocking even though it happens to every living thing that is, was, or ever will be."

Far from being a depressing swan song, Somewhere Towards the End is a wonderfully uplifting and amazing exploration of what it is to be alive and human.

...without the `support' of religion and having to face the prospect ahead in its bald reality."

I really enjoyed this memoir by an elderly lady with a great attitude. We all should age and look at the twilight years in such a positive way! Although I disagree with her philosophically on some issues (e.g., marital infidelity - see Ch 2 and p 81), I still enjoyed reading her words of wisdom: (p 20) "a broken heart mends much faster from a concussive blow than it does from slow strangulation;" (p 75) "...once past eighty one has no right to complain about dying...;" (p 127) a wonderful plant metaphor about what keeps persons "going through the motions of care;" and the best of the best (p 148) "Do Not Think Yourself Important."

It's interesting to learn what she has to say about the bible and death considering she is an atheist. She never had children or married, but she did have lovers, related details of which she shares quite unabashedly. She also shares experiences she's had with others in her life. Ms. Athill's memoir provides a thought provoking, intriguing view of life, especially the twilight years, by a well-versed, well-read woman Somewhere Towards the End. Also good: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, god is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.