The Age of Longing

Told in the first person, this is not a conventional novel, the plot itself being minimal - though it has a beginning, middle and end - and carried along on the emotionally explicit narrative detailing the passion a man has for a younger woman. After a faltering, self-conscious start, he finally strikes up a relationship with her, during which we are taken further into the dependence she holds for him, while she in turn continues to remain out of reach despite the intimacy that develops between them. Eventually, in various twists and turns he finds increasingly hard to bear, she breaks off the relationship, leaving him distraught and on the verge of the emotional collapse alluded to in the opening paragraph of the piece, and which is again taken up in the concluding sentences that bring the story full circle.