Does the “20 Under 40″ List Miss the Point? Or, A Totally Depressing but Hopefully Off-the-Mark Thought for Those of Us Already in Our Thirties and Older

June 11, 2010

Carving by Anthony Santella

Sam Tanenhaus has an interesting essay in the Times Sunday Book Review, on the New Yorker’s 20 over 40 list. He points out that these lists are designed with “futurity” in mind–the promise that these young writers show–and yet, that many writers have already hit their peak by the time they’re 40.

At the time, this anxiety struck some as comical, but history bears Ishiguro out. Even great novelists who endure in the collective memory as Prosperos, long seasoned in their “secret studies,” often performed their greatest magic when they were young. Flaubert was 29 when he began writing “Madame Bovary” (and was 34 when it was completed). Thomas Mann was 24 when he completed his first masterpiece, “Buddenbrooks.” Tolstoy, after a period of dissolution followed by military service, began writing “War and Peace” at age 34. Joyce, who wrote “Ulysses” in his 30s, already had two major works behind him. The late-blooming Proust, his youth idled in Paris salons, was only 37 when he began writing “Remembrance of Things Past.” Even Kafka, the 20th century’s most haunting exemplar of anguished paralysis, was 29 when he wrote “The Metamorphosis” and 31 when he began “The Trial.”

Personally, since I’m 32 and the idea of writing my masterpiece in a year or two is beyond comprehension, I like to think that maybe 40-is-the-new-30 applies here, too. Back in the day, 30 wasn’t all that young. In addition, an awful lot of people had to peak in their twenties or thirties, because they died not long after. Kafka and Proust may have gone on to produce thrilling and even more masterful work, had they lived longer. Fitzgerald barely got to middle age. (And yes, I know, but you never know. He may have sobered up eventually.) Crane died at 28. Nathanael West at 37. And once you go back a little further, you get the Brontes, Keats, Shelley, Rimbaud–dying before 40 was the thing back then.

The list of those, like Woolf, who accomplished more after they went over the hill, is just about as long as the list of those who didn’t. Or at least, it should be, if you factor in early death and its statistical significance to the promise of genius in a way that I would know how to do if I didn’t suck at math. Anyway, I like to think there’s hope for everyone at every age. And the older I get, the more I’ll continue to tell myself that.