In the final pages of “Rules for Old Men Waiting,’ Peter Pouncey writes, “a historian must involve himself passionately in the lives of the people he is studying.
He has to understand the minute variances that are the real prime movers of historical change: the choices an individual can make, from the identical background as everyone around him, to crave something different for himself and his family that is entirely different from the ‘popular’ choice.’
Like the historian, a good writer must be passionately involved in the lives of his characters. Pouncey is, simply, a good writer and his passion becomes the reader’s.
Robert McIver, 80, is living in a house “older than the Republic’ on Cape Cod. Neither has fared well since the death of his wife, Margaret. Man and home are “both large-
framed and failing fast.’ Winter is approaching, McIver is unprepared, but he doesn’t much care. His decision point comes one cold day when, heading out to collect firewood, the frozen porch collapses underneath him. The shock of the fall, and the realization that he’s been casually courting death, cause him to review his situation.
With newfound clarity, he looks at how he’s been living. It is an understandably bleak picture, but one that he’s no longer willing to countenance. “If you are going to go under,’ he thinks, “it shouldn’t be from the weight of self-pity alone.’ And so the rules are born, the ones designed to help him take back his life.
The rules are basic, “a simple skeleton of the well-ordered life for a feeble old man.’ But they are a blueprint for days that will be played out with strength and meaning, an antidote to McIver’s despair.
Under rule seven, McIver must work every morning (and nap in the afternoon if needed). Upon reflection, he adds a companion rule, “Work to consist of telling a story to the end, not just shards, but the whole pot.’ It is this work, powerful and lovely, that is shared with the reader.
A Scottish rugby player in his youth, McIver spent his career as a historian of World War I. “Rules for Old Men Waiting’ is the stories of his life and of some imagined lives as well. Much of the narrative is reminiscence, memories of his boyhood and his marriage. His formal work involves crafting a story set in the trenches of the war.
It is this story, of platoon commander Lt. Simon Dodds, career soldier Sgt. Reggie Braddis and an artist, Pvt. Tim Callum, that infuses the novel with its quiet power. As this profoundly masculine narrative plays out, the reader learns of bravery, honesty and, above all, honor. In many ways, this story-within-a-story holds a mirror to McIvey’s life, revealing much about the man who creates the story.
The reader is pulled in at the start by Pouncey’s crystalline prose, and quickly develops a liking for his direct protagonist. This early identification grows with the story; by the close of the slim volume, the reader has both profound admiration and affection for McIver.
The reading gets slower and slower, not because the book bogs down but because to be finished means being done with this character and his stories.
In the end, Pouncey has done as McIver has set out to do. Using clear language and relatively few words, he has told the story of one man’s life and he has told it to its end “not just shards, but the whole pot.’
Robin Vidimos is a freelance writer who reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
