Active Aging in the Community

In Arnold Bennett’s “Preface” to the 1911 American edition of his novel The Old Wives’ Tale (1908), the author records the founding scene for his idea for a novel about an answer to the question of “what life is,” in which debilitating senescence figured as the final, troubling answer. ¹ The author recalls seeing an old woman in a restaurant in the Rue de Clichy, Paris, in 1903. The woman was both highly active and voluble, but her noisy activities evoked uncomfortable laughter:

She was fat, shapeless, ugly and grotesque. She had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to see that she lived alone, and that in the long lapse of years she had developed the kind of peculiarity which induces guffaws among the thoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels, which she kept dropping. She chose one seat; and then, not liking it, she chose another. In a few moments she had the whole restaurant laughing at her. ²