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TOWARDS the end of his life, Chekhov said that everything he read seemed to him ‘not short enough’. I know the feeling, and I’ll try to keep this short. When the Russian writer said that I don’t know—I heard it from Martin Amis who, when asked about ageing, agreed with Chekhov.
Amis was referring to writing, however, not reading and not to life. Although he feared the ‘tsunami of old people’ occupying the land, he wasn’t personally ready for the euthanasia booths on street corners providing the ‘martini and a medal’ that he once proposed as the nobel exit, he was pretty confident that he would avoid the civil war between the young and the old that he saw coming.