Tag: reading

The Borrowers, Old Age, and Memory

When I was a reading-obsessed child, there was a series of books called The Borrowers by Mary Norton – the first one was published in 1952 and won the Carnegie Medal.  The “Borrowers” are a family of tiny people who live by “borrowing” things from the people in the house – sometimes they return them, sometimes they don’t.  When things go missing in the house, they are blamed.  Norton uses maximum creativity in imagining what “borrowed” items might be used for by 6” people.  A thimble might become their stewpot, for example.

I do not know how we would characterize the Borrower books today; they are chapter books and Amazon describes them for children from 6-10; however, most children within that age range would have to have the books read to them (the writing includes words like philosophical and rheumatic).  The language level is surely at a par with what we term “young adult” novels now, but the subject matter is far tamer and probably far wiser.

The Borrower stories are told to the child Kate by the elderly Mrs. May, who was “some kind of relation” who lived with her younger family members in London.  There is this wonderful description of her in the first chapter:

Mrs. May was old, her joints were stiff, and she was – not strict exactly, but she had that inner certainty which does instead. Kate was never “wild” with Mrs. May, nor untidy, nor self-willed; and Mrs. May taught her many things besides crochet: how to wind wool into an egg-shaped ball; how to run-and-fell and plan a darn; how to tidy a drawer and to lay, like a blessing, above the contents, a sheet of rustling tissue against the dust.

How great is that passage?  Old Mrs. May had “inner certainty,” and she taught the little girl things, useful things.   Just being with Mrs. May made Kate into a better child – never “untidy” or “self-willed.”  If you read the Borrower books as a child, get one and read a couple of chapters.  Do this even if you didn’t read these books in your early years.  You will be charmed.  You will want to be like Mrs. May.

But back to “borrowing.”  We must have a family of Borrowers in our house, because I keep missing things – as well as names and words.  Is this the Borrowers too?  Things I have lost (“the art of losing isn’t hard to master”) do tend to show up sooner or later – usually just two days after they have been replaced.  They show up under a cushion on the couch, in the glove compartment, or set on a shelf in the linen closet.  The names of people and things that I have forgotten return too.  Where they have gone to is less obvious.  They are not gone forever, but seem to have sunken to the bottom of my consciousness, only to return when I no longer need them.  Oh, I will say to myself just as I am about to fall asleep, the name of that nice women in the grocery store was Jill.  Too late.  But where had Jill’s name hidden all afternoon?  Are there also borrowers of the mind?

Of course, there is inter-personal borrowing also.  I get aggravated at people in my life who borrow things and don’t return them.  And it is very uncomfortable to ask.  I loan out contemporary novels gladly, hoping they will never resurface in our house, which is always in need of more shelf space.  But important books are another thing.  I don’t begrudge the books themselves – most can be replaced for a pittance – but my marginal notes are precious (if only to me).  I must admit, though, that when I was going through books in anticipation of moving, I found more than one with the name of an old friend on the flyleaf.  Mea culpa.

My husband has his own answer to this dilemma.  He rarely, if ever, loans books, and never takes anything (even a plastic food container) to someone else’s house that he wants returned.  He has a skeptical view of human nature – or at least of human memory.

Of course, we also borrow memories from each other, which are also often appropriated and never returned.  We sometimes correct each other’s memories and often nudge each other into remembering past times that we had almost forgotten.  Sharing reminiscences can impress upon us how unreliable memory can be.  No family gathering is complete without an argument about exactly how something in the past happened.

In old age, we often say that we are living on “borrowed time.” But we have no intention of returning it.  And we may “borrow” from the past as well as the future.  I loved looking back at Mrs. May and her Borrower stories. Mrs. May knows what it means to lose something and what role the human imagination has in coping with it, making a story of it.  I wish I had Mrs. May’s “inner certainty.”

For an example of the borrowing and sharing of memories, you might look at my story “Boxing Day – A Vignette.”  Or, better yet, get a copy of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers out of the library.

Book Recommendations – Old Age and the End of Life

 

I have read four interesting books lately (and put down a few uninteresting ones) about old age. In addition to senescence, all of these books deal with the issues of life continuance/assisted suicide in some way.  Three of them are novels, one is non-fiction, and all were well worth my time.

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine is the story of an older woman (72) living in an apartment in Beirut – the same apartment she has been in throughout her adult life, and in which she watched her beloved city being torn to pieces.  In a way, she is lamenting both the dissolution of her life and that of the place she calls home.  This character, Aaliya, has spent the last few decades annually translating a great work of fiction into Arabic.  Because she only reads English and French in addition to Arabic, she sometimes translates from translations – for Anna Karenina, for example.  She picks works she loves and labors over them, starting a new work every January.  This task gives meaning and form to her life, and reminded me of Simone de Beauvoir’s imperative on the necessity of “projects” in old age.   Aaliya piles up the manuscripts (never trying to publish anything) in a spare room, and the action of the novel comes when a plumbing accident floods that room and its thousands and thousands of unshared pages.  I will not be a spoiler, but I will say it forces her to think about the meaning of her life.  Aaliya is a character who speaks to me. I also have a multitude of unshared pages.  I also use writing to give some form to my life.

Aviary by Dierdre McNamer is a lighter novel (written by a younger person) about a group of old people living in a condominium complex.  It contains a mystery, delightful characters, and a parable about the ways in which our capitalist culture preys on the elderly.  There is a quirky arson detective and an altruistic ninety-year-old.  Really an enjoyable read, if a little light on the everyday plight of old age.  End-of-life issues and the question of suicide come up as one of the characters prepares to move herself out of the way, but this is not the emphasis of the novel, as in the last two books I will mention.

Assisted suicide (as opposed to euthanasia) is the driver of Belinda Bauer’s novel Exit.   The main character, after having watched his wife die an uncomfortable death, volunteers with the “Exiteers,” a group of people who clandestinely assist elders who want to end their suffering.  Exiteers help provide the means and are present for support, but the “exiters” must end their lives themselves.  Because the legal ramifications are so severe, the Exiteers receive anonymous communications and – other than the partner they work with – do not even know each other.   One such “assist” goes wrong and leads to a police investigation of the participants and of the entire organization.  Again, I will not spoil the plot, but rest assured that it explores the good and the evil in relation to this issue.

Katie Englehart’s The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die is a noble effort to give us the history and status of assisted suicide in the United States and other parts of the world.  In a format that reminded me of Nomadland, she follows six people, their loved ones, and health care personnel as they explore the final option.  Engelhart treads a slippery slope with the people she interviews, always aware that her attention might prompt them to follow through.  It is an excellent survey of the checkered array of laws in the United States, the more expansive laws in places like Switzerland, and the reasons health care systems (as in the U.S.) often make people feel they have no other choice.  Perhaps the wisest interview in the book came with a  hospice doctor who was initially against the new assisted suicide laws in her state (California).  She thought that dying was a necessary part of the “circle of life” and that some patients often found peace in those last days.  After the law was passed, she referred hospice patients to a doctor who would help them if they requested assisted suicide, and she “eventually came around” saying “Having this (assisted suicide) as an option lets people relax…Not even getting the drugs, but knowing, ‘I can get the drugs.’”  Yes. 

Incidentally, Engelhart recently wrote an excellent piece for The New Yorker about using AI pets to be companions and comforters to the elderly.  Apparently, it is effective in many instances, but it would seem to be a fairly hollow response to a lonesome segment of our society.