age shall wither us...

What happens to writers as they get older is that they become more and more removed from their material. They have already been through two journeys. The journey into life, which has generated their material; and the journey out, which has given them the perspective from which they have created their work. To embark on another journey appears to be to run the risk of abandoning that hard-won perspective.

Not to do so, however, provokes the onset of atrophy; the gradual recession from the material which inspired in the first place. The writer doesn't tire so much as lose touch. In the end, all that remains is the schemata of the world the writer once knew. All that is left to write are the bones of the body.

This might suit some: those who always aspired to an other-wordly purity.

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