All the Sad Old Literary Men
I recently finished a book called All the Sad Young Literary Men, written by Keith Gessen, who is the editor of the literary magazine n+1. This is not so much a novel as a series of short stories. They all center on overeducated east coast quarterlifers coping with unsatisfying relationships and hindered artistic ambitions. They are literary and they are sad and they are men, but are they young? On this, Gessen is conclusive: they are not. Not anymore. Not after they’ve graduated from their Ivy League universities and attended grad schools and ensconced themselves in overpriced Brooklyn apartments. Gessen’s message here seems to be: by the time you’ve written your thesis and defended it – by the time you’re out of school, in other words - you are officially old, or you will be very, very soon.
The trouble is, most of the guys in Gessen’s novel (they’re all a bit interchangeable) are around my age, or perhaps a little bit older. This made the experience of reading the book rather disturbing, at times. Was I, I wondered, as old as Gessen’s protagonists? By the numbers, it seemed so, but I felt downright sprightly next to most of these bitter veterans. Take the following descriptions as evidence:
In reference to a young writer, contemplating a novel he’s beginning:
“He was getting to be a certain age, he thought. It was the age when his never-to-be-written masterpieces had begun to outweigh the masterpieces he was still going to write.”
Referring to a history graduate student at Syracuse University, after being discovered by his students literally passed out at the gym (2 passages):
“No one wanted to see a man this sweaty, and this old, leaving stains all over the equipment.”
“Mark for his part sat up slowly, and then made his old-man’s dignified way to the dressing room.”
More poignantly, referring to the same history student, now finished with school and living in Brooklyn with his girlfriend:
“They both fell asleep then, in the Brooklyn night, two people no longer very young, no longer very happy, though still unsettled, still a mess.”
And, finally, in the book’s epilogue, the narrator contemplating his girlfriend’s pregnancy:
“She was too young to be having babies, and I, I was too old.”
Get the picture? I’m twenty-seven and Keith Gessen is about five years older than me so maybe he has some insight into the process of urban, intellectual aging that I haven’t yet acquired. However, it’s alarming to find that the thread linking these collected stories of intellectual, literary youth in the Thousands is not the dread of living in an age of terrorism and governmental hypocrisy, but rather the burden of mortality! And these are folks in their late twenties! “There were so many things I’d once wanted to do!” declaims one character late in the book. Well, me too, but at least I’m not trudging through life already teathered to my own tombstone. At twenty-seven, I’d like to think I’m just getting started on many things. Besides, I really only feel old when I go out to Columbia bars. Or, of course, when I read books by Keith Gessen.
The trouble is, most of the guys in Gessen’s novel (they’re all a bit interchangeable) are around my age, or perhaps a little bit older. This made the experience of reading the book rather disturbing, at times. Was I, I wondered, as old as Gessen’s protagonists? By the numbers, it seemed so, but I felt downright sprightly next to most of these bitter veterans. Take the following descriptions as evidence:
In reference to a young writer, contemplating a novel he’s beginning:
“He was getting to be a certain age, he thought. It was the age when his never-to-be-written masterpieces had begun to outweigh the masterpieces he was still going to write.”
Referring to a history graduate student at Syracuse University, after being discovered by his students literally passed out at the gym (2 passages):
“No one wanted to see a man this sweaty, and this old, leaving stains all over the equipment.”
“Mark for his part sat up slowly, and then made his old-man’s dignified way to the dressing room.”
More poignantly, referring to the same history student, now finished with school and living in Brooklyn with his girlfriend:
“They both fell asleep then, in the Brooklyn night, two people no longer very young, no longer very happy, though still unsettled, still a mess.”
And, finally, in the book’s epilogue, the narrator contemplating his girlfriend’s pregnancy:
“She was too young to be having babies, and I, I was too old.”
Get the picture? I’m twenty-seven and Keith Gessen is about five years older than me so maybe he has some insight into the process of urban, intellectual aging that I haven’t yet acquired. However, it’s alarming to find that the thread linking these collected stories of intellectual, literary youth in the Thousands is not the dread of living in an age of terrorism and governmental hypocrisy, but rather the burden of mortality! And these are folks in their late twenties! “There were so many things I’d once wanted to do!” declaims one character late in the book. Well, me too, but at least I’m not trudging through life already teathered to my own tombstone. At twenty-seven, I’d like to think I’m just getting started on many things. Besides, I really only feel old when I go out to Columbia bars. Or, of course, when I read books by Keith Gessen.
Labels: Books
posted by Keith Lubeley at
9:21 PM
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