Hangover Square

I read this book by Patrick Hamilton a few days ago, around my 65th birthday. It was actually a re-read, as I first read it some time around 1960. Hamilton is well known as the author of plays, including Gaslight which was made into a successful film, but this is the only work of his that I have read. (It was also made into a film, less successful) It concerns a group of characters whose lives consist mainly of drinking, in dingy flats or their favorite Earls Court pub. (click on the author's name to find out more) The story itself is not what drew me to the book, and drew me back, more the style of the writing and the ambience it creates. I was fond of loose, almost plot-less books in the days when I first read this. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch was probably the one that started me off, after which I looked for more experimental stuff, including Alain Robbe-Grillet and other members of the French avant-garde.

However there's a certain type of English novel that appeals to me: Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell was another, the work of Henry Green, Rayner Heppenstall. Hurry on Down by John Wain follows this tradition, if I can call it that. Their structure is decided very much by contingency, which fascinated Iris Murdoch. In other words, the course of events is determined purely by immediate circumstance, one thing following another. I think the reason I liked them is that they were like life, or like a certain way of looking at life, plus the fact that I simply found them enjoyable to read.

The above is by way of introducing what is my main theme here, which is life after 65. I could have given that as the title of the piece, but I thought I'd come at it obliquely. The idea was to chronicle my progress and gradual decline through this terminal phase, but it occurred to me that anything I wrote would be a product of that process, and illustrative of it. I think one can't just say, "I am in decline/fading away or whatever" which is self-referential without referencing anything specific. It would make as much sense to simply stop writing, which is going to happen sooner or later.

My life has been governed almost exclusively by contingency, moving from one situation to another as things changed, or I felt like it, or met someone, etc. I've been in the same situation now for almost thirty years, so there hasn't been change, apart from having children, but I feel no less governed by contingency: life is contingent on things remaining the same.