On Turning Sixty-Five
Notes from the Field
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- $ 47.900,00
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- $ 47.900,00
Descripción editorial
"Personally, I've got a lot invested in reaching my stunning current age, and I'm damned if I'm going to hang on to that youthful crap. (I liked the idea of being a sixty-year-old so much I started claiming that age before I turned fifty-nine.) Parts of it, I don't like--the loss of energy that seems its inevitable accompaniment, for example--but when I consider how I used to boil that energy away as a younger man, and the things I boiled it away on, I am happy to accept a shorter tether and a more reflective way of going at things."
John Jerome, author of such beloved books as Truck and Stone Work, entered his sixty-fifth year with a number of goals in mind: to battle the debilities of age, to master them through understanding when he could not physically defeat them, and to keep a journal of these efforts. As he puts it, "It was time to start planning an endgame."
The result is a warm, compassionate, and honest look at the twelve months that led him to the gateway of old age--a survey of this time of life which ranges from strict physiology to expansive philosophy, from delicate neurosurgery to rough weather on a Canadian canoeing trip, from the despair and isolation of illness to the love and comfort of a sound marriage. The writing, in its clarity, grace, and humor, matches its author's spirit. "The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our time," Jerome reminds us. Reading this wise and funny chronicle of one man's--and everyman's--journey toward citizenship, senior division, will be time well spent, for young and old alike. It is that rare kind of book which comes to life as a companion, and even a friend.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"It's going to happen to you," Jerome writes at the outset of this deeply personal (and occasionally depressing) memoir about growing old, "and the outcome is ultimately going to be negative." Inspired by a rereading of Henry David Thoreau, outdoor enthusiast Jerome (The Elements of Effort, etc.) decided to spend his 65th year considering the philosopher's eternally poignant question: How to live? This book is the quiet, melancholy result. Month by month, as Jerome reflects on the emotional and physical effects of aging--the new limitations of his body, the distress of losing his contemporaries to illness and death, the adjustments in his priorities and lifestyle--he records the changes, big and small, brought on by the pasing years. Describing his struggle to "draw the line between fighting and accepting," he chronicles his disappointment when he and his wife, Christine, find they don't have the brawn to take as many summer canoe trips as they had planned. He also details his efforts to neutralize the aging process: he juggles to strengthen his cognitive skills, swims to strengthen his body, and attempts to maximize pleasure--in his sex life, his diet and alcohol consumption. Jerome's humorous and gently self-deprecating style serves him well; although he offers no new insights on age and death, his talent for conveying his experience with an evolved, observant awareness makes this capably written book relevant for anyone facing 65.
