Hermitic, oneiric withdrawal from responsibilities and threats is the most effective way of alleviating the pangs of middle age, suggests Marcus Berkmann. In his fifties, he is a frank and eloquent expert on ageing, by turns indignantly curmudgeonly and philosophically resigned. He is observant and witty, but there were moments when he reminded me of complaints in Punch of neighbours who failed to return borrowed lawnmowers — perhaps my fault, rather than his. He recommends a shed of one’s own as a refuge in which to escape from stressful reality. ‘If I had a garden,’ he writes, ‘I would have a shed. In fact the main reason for getting a garden would be to get a shed.’
In the meantime, without an actual shed, Berkmann makes do with what he calls a ‘visceral shed’, a ‘virtual shed’, a shed of the imagination. He says the ideal shed should be ‘largeish’, ‘with room for a desk, a chair, certainly a kettle and maybe a mini-bar. Most important of all, the shed must have a window. You need something to stare out of for hours at a time, contemplating infinity,’ not the ungardened garden, nor that phenomenon which makes many a middle age peculiarly so anguished, a family.
The book’s admirable cover, by the talented Andrew Wightman, depicts someone like the author in the hermitage of his dreams. His head is completely concealed beneath a hat as he rests recumbent in a deckchair, surrounded by undemanding paraphernalia, such as unfinished books, open, face-down; a cricket bat, golf clubs and tools, leaning against walls, as though inviting spiders to spin webs there. On a bench there are a wine bottle and a glass, both empty, with an ice-bucket and another bottle, possibly full.
Middle age, according to the OED, is the period approximately between 45 and 60. However, Berkmann recognises that it may greatly vary subjectively, in both directions. Sustained by widespread research and enlightened by a vast number of intimate interviews with middle-aged men and women who may still be his friends, Berkmann analyses some of the inconvenient, irritating and embarrassing ills the flesh and mind are heir to, and warns against cosmetic surgery.
He offers the consolations of blunted ambition and envy. And he mentions erectile dysfunction, but draws the line at discussing it, perhaps saving that subject for a later work on senile dementia.
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