Our society has a problem with ageing men.
Who are we when what we do is taken away?
In an ever changing world, what place can Stephen, a retired
university lecturer, find for himself?
Once he could escape into the life of an intellectual and the
world of Russian Literature, but where can he go now?
When the young bucks are chasing the old bulls from the herd,
where do the aging go for solace?
As men get older, do they change or do they just get
lonely?
Once, Stephen could find a distraction in football on the
television or a Five Day Test Match. But these days, with his son Simon disinterested in sport, who does he have left in his life to share these things with?
Passion and excitement were characteristics Stephen once took
for granted in his life. But for men, in the autumn of their lives, are these qualities even appropriate or wanted?
In Gogol’s ‘Diary of a Madman’, Poprishchin becomes obsessed
with the Director’s daughter. Did Stephen succumb to the same fixation with the arrival of a new and talented student in his Russian Literature class?
The web of feelings we experience in life can be complex. Are
men prone to, sometimes, confusing the emotional landscape encountered or are, indeed, the feelings the same, it’s just the action required that’s different?