Liberated, not limited, by age

* Peter Pouncey: Rules for old men waiting
* Kevin Ireland: On getting old

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as the years pass the moment at which one actually reaches old age steadily recedes. However, I have to acknowledge that after my 60th birthday, while old age didn't actually arrive, it certainly came into view.

Perhaps that is why I have been given two books about old age to review. It may also explain why both struck a chord.

Kevin Ireland's charming little essay is like enjoying a pint at the North Shore Cricket Club while listening to him pour forth in his avuncular fashion.

One of the biggest irritations about ageing, he says, is that "just when you feel you're beginning to get a handle on the way the world works, you become aware that it's probably getting close to the time when you're going to be forced to shut up and shove off." True.

Ireland's recipe for dealing with this is to refuse to bow to ageing, continue to do stimulating things and, in the spirit of the wonderful Ulysses Club slogan, "Grow Old Disgracefully".

It's a joy to read and probably should be compulsory for anyone who — while still young, of course — is eyeing up the big 60.

Peter Pouncey's novel is altogether bigger, deeper, darker and richer. His protagonist has definitely reached old age, his beloved wife has died and his life has fallen to pieces.

Realising this he comes up with his rules for old men waiting to die, basically to eat, preserve routine, write a story every day and put his memories in order.

The result is an extraordinary interweaving of his deteriorating present, rich past — focusing particularly on his own service in World War II and his son's death as a result of wounds received in the Vietnam War — and the fictional tales he writes of World War I, which he studied as a historian.

It is a glorious combination of the loves and losses, regrets and pride, accumulated wisdom and remembered foolishness, which make up a life lived to the full in an age dominated by war.

It is an elegant work, written with both cold-eyed accuracy and sympathetic understanding, which for once lives up to the promotional claim that it is "a classic in the making".

* Rules for old men Waiting, Chatto and Windus, $39.95
* On getting old, Four Winds Press, $14.95