Old Age in Literature: Three Novels by Young Women Authors That Challenge Stereotypes

"We're going to talk about three novels about old age . Or rather, in times of political correctness, about older women." This is how journalist Natalia Ginzburg introduced the talk on Thursday. which took place in the Clarín / Ñ cultural space and brought together three young contemporary authors who wrote novels whose protagonists were women over seventy years old.

Luciana De Luca (1978), author of Otra cosas por las que llorar (Tusquets), who told the story of Carolina, a woman who has been left alone and is beginning to slowly decline cognitively due to her advanced age; Natalia Rozenblum (1984), who in Baño de damas (Tusquets) narrated the life of Ana Inés, a retired widow who spends her days at a neighborhood club with her friends and deals with her fifty-year-old daughter who moves in with her house; and Adriana Riva, who in Ruth (Seix Barrial) created a character inspired by her octogenarian mother, who enjoys going to art galleries, takes courses via zoom, and stays active. Desire, friendship, sexuality —apparently the heritage of youth—were some of the topics that ran through this conversation.

“These works challenge us, they move us,” Ginzburg described as she posed her first question: How did the idea or need to write about old age arise? De Luca took over: “There’s something about searching for a voice that revisits its entire life as if on a stair landing,” she confessed. She also added that spending a lot of time with a character “requires a significant commitment” and that writing this novel—her debut in adult literature, having previously published young adult stories—took her almost three years of work .

Rozenblum said the idea came to her in a setting similar to the novel: “I was twenty, in a club locker room, and when I saw a naked woman, I thought: she's got a pussy. Until then, I hadn't thought about that. I started telling the life of one of these older women from a younger perspective until I realized I was more interested in how she perceived herself. I was interested in the commonalities between old and young,” she confessed.

Riva revealed that her inspiration came from her mother : “I wanted to write about her. I was inspired by a novel by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Ackerman. I read the first paragraph and thought: that's my mother. Then I poured a lot of things into her voice that I also think,” she revealed.

Ginzburg asked them a question more related to narrative procedures: Why did some choose first-person narrative and others third-person narrative? While Riva and De Luca chose first-person narrative because their stories were very testimonial , Rozenblum said she chose third-person narrative because, "I tried to write in first person. I would have loved to have, but it was crazy. I was afraid of being ridiculed. Then I added dialogue." Riva added that she "stole" many moments from her mother . "I had first-person notes of things she said," she commented.

Regarding the lives they chronicled, Riva commented on how Ruth, her protagonist, “despite the fact that nothing is happening, experiences a lot of little nothings.” Her routine is filled with “cultural life” now that she has a lot of time : she attends museums, opera concerts, and takes art classes via Zoom (something that, she revealed, her own mother also did).

“I'm interested in people with desire,” Rozenblum emphasized when speaking about Ana Inés, the protagonist of The Ladies' Bathroom. She added: “Desire goes far beyond age. The daughter doesn't register with the life her mother leads. For this woman, the ladies' bathroom ends up being her space. I saw that in those places, older women didn't feel shame. On the other hand, at twenty, I did. That fascinated me,” she explained.

The woman De Luca constructed is older than the protagonists of the other two novels. “ She's from another era,” he described. “She stayed at home , rejected a certain empowerment, and discovered there was nothing there anymore. Her illness, her cognitive decline, becomes a kind of rebellion. Because she gets angry, and in that anger there is desire. It's vital,” he expressed.

Ginzburg inquired a little more about these women's small universes. Ruth's is permeated by the visual arts . Riva revealed that this choice stemmed from a personal challenge: "I was interested in exploring a world that was more alien to me. I wanted to include short texts about art that could be a break for the reader. I wanted them to be brief because sometimes museum texts push me away; they're too elitist or snobbish," she exclaimed. Rozenblum, whose protagonist shares literature , in Ginzburg's words, almost as "an open secret" with her friends, said that she thought of this as "something she keeps to herself and shares beyond what is supposed to be right."

Regarding friendship, De Luca added, “ I really enjoy the intimacy that develops in friendships between women . Between men, it's a different story.” “Growing old with friends seems essential to me,” Riva emphasized.

Toward the end, Ginzburg asked them about the reception of these works, which have been widely circulated among readers and critics. Riva was the first to take the microphone to emphasize how widely they had circulated: "They come to show something that wasn't in literature," she emphasized. "There are a lot of books about fathers, mothers, and sons, but I don't know if there are as many about older people. All three can be found at the Planeta stand. I'll pass the buck," she concluded with a laugh.

“Mine is very old,” Rozenblum added—her novel is from 2020—and emphasized that “the best part of her writing came later: I got calls from many women's reading groups, I spoke with them on Zoom, and they told me everything. I confirmed that there is sexuality in old age, and there is also modesty,” she noted.

“Sexuality is associated with youth, and that's a market bias,” De Luca added , laughing a bit about his own novel: “Mine is a bummer. I totally screwed this poor woman,” he commented, referring to the dramatic quality of his character. He then concluded: “I'm interested in this idea of ​​the range of possibilities for an older person. The possibility that life continues until life ends.”