Mark Fisher <\/a><\/p>\n 27 November, 2017<\/p>\n Death is a taboo. For those born in the Second World War, if you lived longer than 70 you were considered to be old, to be in death\u2019s waiting room. Now many live on into their nineties. Jeremy Hutchinson, the great barrister, hero of the Lady Chatterley trial, was 102 when he died recently.<\/p>\n Medical science is beginning to defeat many cancers. As a consequence we choose not to talk about death. Robert McCrum\u2019s new book dares to do so. (The title is from Prospero\u2019s speech in The Tempest<\/em>). He is a distinguished literary editor of the Observer<\/em>, and former editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber. His last book, My Year Off<\/em>, chronicled his recovery from a major stroke and considered the Ars Vivendi <\/em>(the art of living well). This book turns to the Ars Moriendi<\/em> (the art of dying).<\/p>\n Our quotidian fears are now dementia and Alzheimer\u2019s. With Lear we cry \u201cO let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!\u201d Death is, in Auden\u2019s words, \u201cthe rumble of distant thunder at a picnic\u201d. McCrum is a wise and compassionate guide through this territory. He asks, \u201cHow, When and Where am I going?\u201d <\/p>\n Alice B. Toklas asked Gertrude Stein, as Stein was dying, \u201cWhat is the answer?\u201d Stein\u2019s gnomic reply was, \u201cWhat is the question?\u201d McCrum looks death in the face, with a level stare, quoting Montaigne: \u201cLet us disarm Death of his novelty and strangeness.\u201d Indeed he finds optimism. <\/p>\n With Dr Henry Marsh, he believes that \u201cas I get older, I derive a certain spiritual consolation from this \u2018profound mystery\u2019\u201d, as he calls consciousness. He agrees with his friend Carol that \u201cbeing unwell teaches you to value things . . . I\u2019ve had moments of great joy. I feel fortunate.\u201d Like Robert Bellarmine, an Italian Jesuit contemporary of Shakespeare, he believes that \u201che who lives well, dies well.\u201d<\/p>\n He is not alone in hoping for a death free of pain, surrounded by his family, but like David Hume, an atheist, he doesn\u2019t believe in an afterlife. When Hume was asked on his deathbed to renounce the Devil, he declined to do so, declaring: \u201cNow is not the time to be making new enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n McCrum considers the many contemporaries and friends who died while he was writing this book \u2014 Lisa Jardine, Alan Rickman, Zaha Hadid, Anita Brookner and Geoffrey Hill, as well as Clive James, who has predicted his death year after year. James, like Charles II, has been \u201can unconscionable time to die\u201d. While doing so he has written a book, Sentenced To Life<\/em>, and some of his very best poetry, such as \u201cJapanese Maple\u201d. In the process he has fallen in love again with his wife, after a period of unfaithfulness.<\/p>\n McCrum writes movingly about the death of his parents. Like him I was fortunate to be holding the hand of both my parents when they died, for which I will always be grateful.<\/p>\n He considers whether we should have the right to choose. Like his friend, the writer Salley Vickers, he explores assisted dying. It\u2019s an odd right, she argues, because \u201cwe don\u2019t have the right to be born. So maybe we don\u2019t have the right to die.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a remarkable and moving book that everyone who is thinking about dying should read.<\/p>\n <\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n\n
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Robert McCrum: Compassionate guide (\u00a9PICADOR)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
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An ark in the deluge<\/a><\/p>\nWhat to read next<\/h6>\n
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