Tag: Richard Osman

Some (New) Mysteries of Old Age

I recently read two new murder mysteries involving old people sleuthing – the plots were amazingly similar, but the attitude was quite different.  It is worth considering the portrayal of old age in one of my favorite genres.

The two murder mysteries both concern the death of elderly people – intended and unintended.  In The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann, a self-made community of elders provides euthanasia services for one of their members, by (as she requested) shooting her when she wasn’t expecting it.  The plan goes astray when someone else gets the gun and muddies the waters by shooting unintended victims.  Since the gun belongs to one of their own, the senior community has to solve the crime before they are suspected – and they have to do it without admitting to their own involvement in the first death.  A little complicated, but it is made more so by the fact that almost all the older characters are… muddled.  Now a lot of us are muddled on occasion, but such confusion seems to define these characters – who are, to be sure, muddled in a variety of ways. In one scene the oldsters are about to go into the funeral of one of the victims, when one of them refuses to go in because they are wearing hats, and she does not have one.  “Nobody wanted to give up their hat, so they continued to stand around the taxi at a loss.”  The poor soul ends up wearing a tea cozy for a hat.  Cute, somewhat funny, but not much of a compliment to the characters.

In Leonie Swann’s previous mystery, which I liked very much, the detectives were a herd of very bright and interesting sheep – for the most part.  Some were – well – stupid and silly, but I took no offense when Swann portrayed foolish sheep.  She should have stuck to animals. Please note that The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp got marvelous reviews, so I am in the minority on this.  And it is a good story, a good read, and while I do not have any trouble acknowledging the quirks of elders, I do object when realism tips into caricature.

Richard Osman’s The Last Devil to Die is the fourth and latest installment in the “Thursday Murder Club” series.  Again, we have a carefully planned act of euthanasia, but it is a side plot and there is a careful line drawn between the undesired deaths and the desired one. Osman’s seniors are so skillful, that they have the local police working for them, and while they have their quirks, they are not strictly old folk quirks.  And yet, as one of the characters puts it, they work with the “urgency of old age.” The most touching thing is the camaraderie among them; they help each other out in mechanical and emotional ways and show the very best of what an elderly community can be – discounting the murders, of course.

One point here about the old in both of these novels – they must depend on one another.  When their children appear on site, things deteriorate badly.  Grandchildren are fine if they are young and not in the company of their parents.  But there is a consistent despair in relying on the next generation, and greater comfort in people that understand the joy and anguish of getting old.  Both authors sympathetically explore the issue of euthanasia, although Osman gives us the more realistic and rounded view of the complexity of end-of-life decisions.

But back to my review of these mysteries.  My opinion here is not that either of these mysteries is bad; but there is a difference between having protagonists who happen to be old and spinning your plot around the quirks of bumbling elders.  I do not mind oldsters in books who have senior moments or balance problems; I object to portraying these realities as silly.

Neither of these authors is aged; Swann is in her forties and Osman is in his early fifties.  Many mystery writers, like Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, wrote well into their eighties, and for a model of senior detectives, no one can beat Miss Marple.

I have written very few mystery stories, and none involving the elderly, but if you have my predilection for the unsolved problem, you might enjoy “Essentials” or “No Change Orders.”

Old Characters, New Problems – Book Reviews

I  recently read a number of new and old books which feature older characters, and so would like to pass on some observations and recommendations.

I was excited about Anthony Doerr’s new book, as I had loved (and learned much from) his last novel, All the Light We Cannot See.  Cloud Cuckoo Land is a very different kind of book, and the main character is Zeno, an old man who thinks that life has passed him by until he connects with five young people whom the kind librarian sends his way.  Doerr writes about the endurance of story, as we follow an old Greek text through the centuries, until – encouraged by his young friends – Zeno turns it into a play, the performance of which is interrupted by an ecoterrorist attack.  In flashbacks, we follow the life of the manuscript, of Zeno, and the immature and misguided terrorist.  In flash forwards, we see Doerr contemplate what may be the fate of books, people, and the planet. It is all wonderful, but Zeno is the best of all, working on his Greek with the help of the library computers and exciting his young friends with the things he is still enthusiastic about.

In Richard Osman’s mystery, it is the old people who put the world to rights with their wisdom and experience and lack of self-importance (most particularly the latter).  The fact that they are continually underestimated and unnoticed works to their advantage.  The Man Who Died Twice is the second in Richard Osman’s series about this group of elderly sleuths; it is devastatingly funny and real.  His senior-living residents have all the challenges of old age: recovering after falls, bladder control, going into nursing homes, facing death.  One of the group has a husband at home in the early stages of dementia.  But the oldsters egg each other on, comfort each other, and care about the world that they know they will be leaving soon.  A really enchanting read – but please start with The Thursday Murder Club,  the first in this series.  I hope there will be many more.

Old age and climate change also are topics of concern in The Emissary by Yoko Tawada. This dystopian novel takes place in a secluded Japan after an undefined period of war and climate change.  The younger generations are growing weaker and weaker from pollution, radiation, who knows what else. (In the UK, the title of the book was Last Children of Tokyo.)  It is the old who are forced to be strong, to push the wheelchairs, provide food, take charge.  Our hero here is 108-year-old Yoshiro, who is taking care of his weak (but wise) great-grandson Mumei.  Retirement is unheard of – then there would be nobody to do the work.  The extremely old do what they need to do, but they still age, ache, falter:

Stumbling as he took his shoes off, Yoshiro rested a hand on the wooden pillar to steady himself, feeling the grain of the wood under his fingers.  The years are recorded in rings inside the trunk of a tree, but how was time recorded in his own body?  Time didn’t spread out gradually, ring after ring, nor was it lined up neatly in a row; could it just be a disorderly pile, like the inside of a drawer no one ever bother to straighten?

Yoko Tawada is a wonderful writer (The Emissary won the National Book award for a work in translation), and the novel has much to say about what we have done to the world around us and the possible consequences for future generations.  It is a book to read slowly and ponder.  It will scare you, but it will also give you faith in the ability of the old to persevere, to face the challenges that are presented to them.

I also re-read Thornton Wilder’s Bridge of San Luis Rey  recently.  Surely you have read (or were forced to read) it many years ago.  If so, you probably did not fully appreciate the old characters –  the most memorable being the Marquesa de Montemayor.  The book purports to be based on the work of Brother Juniper, who is convinced that the death of five people when the old bridge collapses cannot be a random act.   In trying to make sense of their lives, he tries to make sense of all lives.  If you have never read it or cannot remember it, pick it up again some time and try to decide whether Brother Juniper comes to the right conclusion.

I cannot leave any discussion of recent books without recommending Richard Powers’ new novel Bewilderment.  For the most part, the characters are not old; the main character is a young boy.  But it is about memory and loss, climate change and mass extinctions, love and mourning.  It is about the promises and dangers of technology and what happens when we can’t bear what we are doing to the world.  And it is a good read.  If technology could put you in communication with a loved one you had lost, would you be interested?  This is a book that challenges us to think about the meaning of relationships – between people, between people and animals, between people and technology, between people and the earth. 

All of it is fine reading as we head into the colder, indoor months.  Enjoy.  There is a certain amount of divination in all these books, but if you want to read about bibliomancy (the process of divination through the use of books), try  my short story, “By the Book.”