Somewhere Near the End: Diana Athill

Far from being gruesome, this book reflects on life from the 89 year old's standpoint and reflects on a long and interesting life, unconventional, thoughful, and stimulating. It's rather difficult when you haven't got to this stage in life not to look at it with foreboding, and have a recognition that sphere's of influence reduce, physical skills and competences wane, and you become more inward looking and feeling. Diana Athill as seen here has written a book that puts this in some perspective, and leads me to the conclusion that if you choose you can go into old age being 'more of the same'. If you've always been half-pint empty, you're probably not going to change now! But you could go on being half-pint full if you choose. What is clear from the book, is that pleasures can be intensely enjoyed, the world still is a beautiful place, and people in your life can go on being a welcome and positive joy. Diana's mother's final words were 'It was absolutely sublime.' Perhaps that's a sentence we should all aspire to utter, whether we're near the end or not.