I Believe We Can Do Better Than Our Navel

Not understanding is the entire point of art.

Photo by Heather Mount

I am thoroughly enjoying reading The Thursday Murder Club at the moment. Do not worry: this article will contain no spoilers. In fact, I haven’t finished the book myself. What follows is nothing but what you could expect to find in the first lines of the briefest of synopsis:

A group of eighty-year-olds investigate a murder in a retirement village in England.

That’s it. See? No spoilers.

My reason for bring up the book is the unusual choice of protagonists. Octogenarians don’t simply make for eccentric main characters but for a fascinating journey into the thoughts and reflections of humans who have lived so much more than me. I found it so compelling, so touching, so wise and so hilarious that I had to check whether the author was an octogenarian himself. As it turned out, he isn’t.

If I stop to think about it, I find it silly to think — particularly for a creative — that you need to be like the characters you write about. That would make for very boring literature. The entire point of art is delving into unknown pockets of meaning and feeling.

However, one thought led to the next and before I knew it I was wondering about the controversy surrounding the choice of poet…