ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a reading of a range of narratives on establishments for the elderly, and of a Polish novel by Mariusz Sieniewicz, telling the story of the 33-year-old protagonist’s trip to an island-lager (a figure for an elderly people’s home) where the elderly are enslaved and work to prevent the young from growing old. Not an unambiguous cantor of “natural” ageing and transience, despite their flaws (“it is in our imperfection and mortality that the truth about the human condition is found”), Sieniewicz invites the reader to ponder what the actual dystopian problem is: a youth-worshipping culture devoted to consumption or a growing population of idle elderly whose institutionalized care is unsustainable. The question of how to cater for the elderly remains unresolved, and the picture sketched of contemporary Polish society is bleak. The writer challenges schematic portrayals of the elderly (unproductive) and the young (smitten with hedonism and ageism), and stresses the existing interconnectedness of various age groups, while contesting the homogeneity of each group based solely on age. Sceptical of collective solutions, Sieniewicz recounts the personal transformation of the protagonist, finally capable of authentic affection and bond.
