Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion

With the impending publication of Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Martin Yalom, it may be time to look at some attempts in fiction to answer questions about the terror of death. Mr. Stone has just retired (at an age that would seem quite young to most Americans) and he is terrified at the bleakness of his life without his job as a librarian for an insurance company. With a deftly underplayed hand, V.S.Naipaul leads us through the late-blooming creativity in the Mr. Stone's bachelor soul that takes him out of his tiny, safely ordered world and into unaccustomed relations with others. He marries for the first time and starts an organization of retirees dedicated to mutual assistance (the Knights Companion of the title). There is no sentimentality here and Mr. Stone is not spared by his inventiveness. Instead, his life becomes a suffused with meaning and he lives it a bit more fully. This is a beautifully moral tale without the burden of parable. I reread it this week, and being twenty years closer to the inevitable than I was when I first read it, I found it especially and gently moving. Lynn Hoffman, author of the raucously uplifting bang BANG: A Novel and the thoroughly voluptuous New Short Course in Wine,The

A short and sweet story about a man who confronts retirement, aging and death through a unique plan to help others in the same situation - the organization of the Knights Companions. Yet he learns that he must eventually face and experience these stages of life.

This is a truly moving and brilliant book about a man who discovers the creative impulse late in life. Unlike Naipaul's customery set of third-world characters, this one is an Englishman, which sets this book apart. We witness a novelist with great imaginative power, a first-rate talent.Stone discovers he can create, with all its joys, its trials, and disappointments. He also finds love of a sort, which he struggles to pursue and maintain. Warmly recommended.

Many of V.S.Naipaul's books are set in his native Trinidad, or other Caribbean islands, or locales such as Africa. This novel, however, is entirely set in England and all the characters are English. Richard Stone, a sixty-two year old bachelor is a librarian in a corporation who is approaching retirement. Unnerved at the prospect, he suddenly decides to marry. He also draws up a plan whereby his company can help its retired employees who are now pensioners, many living in penury. The plan, against all odds, becomes a success but Naipaul shows how victories can be bittersweet. A charming book, and a real treat to read even just for the style and the use of language.