“We live in a culture that bets everything on youth and hides old age”

He heard the story of Methuselah, grandfather of Noah, a long time ago. A natural phenomenon uprooted his house, and over the rubble a voice encouraged the patriarch to rebuild the house, while another, more serious, prompted him to doubt: Why build a new one if perhaps life will not be enough to finish it? ? And while he hesitated, he lived out in the open for half a century, becoming the oldest person recorded in the Bible at 969 lunar years (80 in our current calendar). Thinking about this popular tradition, the writer Giovanna Pollarolo writes a book about old age and the perception of time, with short stories starring people who dedicate themselves to projects until the last day of their lives, and others who do not see the point in continuing to fear that they will not see their efforts in life. The author is not inclined to any option, she only records one and the other.

“Methuselah” (Crocodile editions) is a strange book for a local media not given to writing about old age and the construction of its own past. Growing old as a terrifying experience, attentive to the inevitable, but also to the memory that we can leave in others. Perhaps, as the author warns, our literature has focused much more on the world of youth, Peru being a country of young people. “Perhaps the character in our lyrics whose old age is best portrayed is Don Rigoberto de Vargas Llosa,” she says.

—Is it a taboo to write about old age?

Can be. It implies approaching the end, living in a culture that bets everything on youth and hides old age.

—In your book, the story of Methuselah tells us what old age is: the moment in which we stop being interested in our life projects.

Exact. The moment you say that there is no point in doing something if you are not going to see it finished. It is something that has to do with our sense of transcendence, the need to be able to leave a legacy. Personally, at one point in the writing, I thought that this book should have blank pages at the end for each reader to write down his projects, and whether he intends to do them or not.

“Is there transcendence in a world that tends to quickly forget its dead?”

I think that what we call “legacy” should be considered. For me, what my grandparents and my parents left me is important. It is what gives a being in life, part of your family memory. I hope that some memory that I leave my children can be of some use to them.

—How much of this book is nourished by your own experience, how others measure you, treat you, discriminate against you with the friendly label of “older adult”?

It’s kind of a shock. It is important to reflect on how you see yourself and how they see you. If we do not realize that, we cannot dialogue. We focus on ourselves and close ourselves to how others see us. With the pandemic, it has been easier to lock down. We increasingly live in a bubble.

—In “Methuselah”, you approach old age in different scenarios. One of the most visible is in the field of acting.

Where they veto older people faster, especially women. In Hollywood, a fifty-year-old actor, characterizing a thirty-year-old character, can perfectly match a 20-year-old girl. Impossible to think of a reverse case.

—There are texts that you dedicate to Clint Eastwood and Jane Fonda. How in the splendor of their careers can there be people who criticize them for being too old to pursue their careers?

It has to do with the place that young people have today. Before, until the 1960s, decision-making power was in the hands of the elders. The Mexican writer José Agustín said that even before his novels appeared, young people in Latin America had no voice. If there were novels for young people, they were written by older authors who remembered their youth. Then there were no stores or music for young people, until the phenomenon of rock began. The foundations of an empire of young people were laid there, which has led us to our current situation, where even children have their own voice. Agustín said that being young in the middle of the 20th century was a transition, they had no opinion, they had nothing. In Peru, we have been repeating González Prada’s phrase “The young to the work, the old to the grave”, but it was a symbolic phrase. Today, with the bicentennial generation, it becomes very clear where the power is. I believe that the other extreme has been reached: the elderly get in the way, they are marginalized.

—In most of the stories, the narrator refers to a voice in his head, which keeps repeating to us that we are old, that it would be better to stay at home, abandon any initiative. What do we do with that voice that forces us to resign ourselves to old age?

How destructive can it be? It is a voice that prevents you from leaving yourself, that is afraid of change. He’s always there, screwing around. However, I think you have to listen to her to discuss her, because sometimes she is right. There are no truths on the subject of old age: we move on swampy ground, solving life almost daily. The only thing we can do is be aware of that.

—You were a screenwriter for the memorable “Caídos del cielo” (1989). Is reflection on old age something that has always accompanied you?

TRUE! (laughs). The couple of Carlos Gassols and Elide Brero looking for resources to complete their son’s mausoleum. At the time, she was writing about that couple with quite an outsider’s point of view. Now I feel closer to them. People die at any age, but as the years go on, you start to hear a lot more about disease and death, people obsessing over cholesterol and the pills they have to take. These are themes that begin to surround you.

—What do you think is the difference between how men and women deal with old age?

There is a discourse that women are questioning, especially young writers: talking about menstruation. Before it was a shame! Since biblical times, when she was on her period, the woman was “unclean”. What a cultural legacy that women receive! It is a package of certainties about your own body already determined before you were born, as if they were in our DNA. Changing that is quite difficult. As Rosa Montero said: “If men had had their period, literature would have reached us full of blood”. Certainly there are physical differences, but it is the culture dictated by a patriarchal society that has taught us to see them in a certain way. Before, menopause was a subject with which jokes were made without any shame. Today in certain sectors it is no longer said “This woman is hysterical, she is menopausal”, to belittle, to ridicule. I think that talking about these things can take a step forward to change that look.