An Unanticipated Country

British novelist Penelope Lively (we've used a couple of her books, including Consequences and City Of The Mind, during adult Christian education classes at St. John's) reflects on aging while reviewing a new book on the subject written by...darn, I forget:

It is in a sense another country — and one we never anticipated. This reviewer (77) found herself nodding in agreement: the accumulation of ailments, the awful familiarity with hospital waiting-rooms, the black hole in the head into which disappear words and names. The way in which we no longer want the things that were once central to life: sex and shopping are cited. I was reminded of my father, in his eighties, gleefully recounting the comment of a contemporary of his: ‘D’you know, I used to be extremely interested in pretty girls, and now I can’t for the life of me remember why.’