Of course not,’ Diana said patiently, ‘but they don’t feel about it the same way. A man may fear death just as much, but in general he doesn’t resent age and death quite as woman do. It’s as if a woman lives—well, on more intimate terms with life; gets to know it more closely, if you understand me. And it seems to me, too, that a man is not so constantly haunted by thoughts of time and age as woman is. Generalizations, of course, but averagely valid, I think. ...’ Although I sympathise with Diane’s cause, I do find her a bit naïve. Some of the women she takes into her confidence do use their extra time to make a difference. But, I feel that by far the majority will do nothing positive with their extended life span. In general, we live longer now that we did 50 years ago. We are no wiser, no more philanthropic, all our efforts seem to go into making our own private lives more comfortable and finding more ways to kill or subdue our perceived enemies. And a strategy involving only women will not work long term. The story involves two scientists who discover a lichen, which can slow down the aging process considerably. They work independently to develop the drug, and keep their findings secret – even from each other, though they had identified the lichen together. I read several Wyndham novels when I was 12 or 13 - this was one of them. My recollection of those novels was that they were enjoyable but tended to have poor endings, as if Wyndham had said what he wanted, got bored and just stopped. The exception was The Day of the Triffids which had a satisfactory ending. So how would I respond to re-reading Trouble with Lichen?

I think Francis’s pessimism is more warranted. The supply of lichen is very restricted. Who gets to decide who gets the drug? Will it be only the super-rich? Only the influential? What happens to those left behind? Can you imagine the riots in France when the pension age gets raised to 100, when they are having difficulty accepting 64?! How do you decide a pension age if some will be healthy and active at 200, and some run out of puff at the more traditional pension age of 67. And what about those with dementia or long-standing health issues? Long life is not always a boon. What about the young, having to wait an eternity before getting a position/accommodation/meaningful life? We already have overpopulation and a strain on natural resources – will not lichen just tip the balance and destroy the world before our civilisation has time to adapt? Can you imagine the future if men like Trump or Putin had a lifespan of hundreds of years? Lichen does not make you immortal, just slows aging. The moral premise of this book is simple. People waste their youth because they are young. The old hate them for it. They always have. In my day we walked uphill both ways. The forward momentum of technology means that every generation of children has more opportunities, less obstacles and a more comfortable existence. And every previous generation is successively convinced that they would have done more given those opportunities because they did more with less. Wyndham’s premise is that this is obviously bullshit. People will consistently, on average, do the bare minimum with what they have regardless of the ease of getting there because they are young and dumb and proverbially (yet more family friendly than the original saying), more interested in marriage and fitting in than doing more . The greatest enemies of women aren't men at all, they are women: silly women, lazy women, and smug women. Smug women are the worst; their profession is being women, and they just hate any women who make any other kind of professional success...." Tell a woman: “woman’s place is in the home”, or “get thee to thy kitchen” and she doesn’t like it; but call it “being a good housewife”, which means exactly the same thing, and she’ll drudge along, glowing with pride.”And what of my experiment? Unfortunately, rereading this did not help me connect with my younger self the way some of my other rereads did. I thought that perhaps even if I disliked the book the second time around, the experience of rereading it would stir up something meaningful like a memory or an insight, even a vague one. But it didn’t really do anything. As each scientist wrestles with the implications and practicalities of exploiting the discovery, the world comes ever closer to learning the truth A very British book of science, discovery, and ramifications. While many Wyndham plots have made it into movies, this one strangely has not. I read it as a 2021 reading by Vanessa Kirby, who did a great job. But let's ignore all that. Let's talk about the actually interesting parts here. Ageism, classism, and sexism. In July we completed the second round of our intergenerational online reading group discussions.Three of the groups have now read John Wyndham’s Trouble With Lichen(1960). In this post I’ll give you an idea of what the groups thought of the themes which arose in this book and how this influenced broader discussions of older age and future time.

Trouble with Lichen is a scintillating story of the power wielded by science in our lives and asks, how much trust should we place in those we appoint to be its guardians? There are many flaws in this book, the most blatant of which is not like the other girls , a trend which I tend to hate, but a trend which, is at least well pulled off and relatively subtle in that our heroine is the smart girl . Her trope is smoothed out, the sharp edges dulled by the fact that she truly cares about other women, and by the fact that smart girl was a rare breed in the day she was written. Not that women would have been less intelligent, no, just less inclined to show it, especially in school when it would have gotten them the accolades to press further into a career instead of a housewifery. I also take somewhat exception to the romance in this novel. The way it is presented is probably alluding to Wyndham's own sweetheart and her steadfast adoration through a war. Love at first sight, she was, after all, there for the usual reason - the prospective husband was simply married, with children almost her age. how many people are going to favour the prospect of long life at the cost of, say, two or three hundred years as an underling[…] because behind them all is the assumption that the days of our age are three score years and ten, or thereabouts. Take that away, and they won’t work, most of them will even lose their whole raison d’etre’. John Wyndham, Trouble With Lichen (Penguin, 1960 (this edition 2008)), p. 87 Several group members, of all ages, found the characterisation that the working classes would not benefit from longer life problematic. In the novel it seemed that only those with privilege and power were judged capable of taking on the responsibility of longer life. Yet group members did not relish the prospect of working for over a hundred years. This was especially true of those group members of working age in their 30s and 40s who are already considering that they will work longer than their parents’ generation with rising life expectancies and delayed retirement ages. Most group members of all ages suggested that not only would money and resources be required to sustain a longer life but also good health. Comparisons were made with the economic and health inequality that exists in contemporary UK society, and group members discussed whether living longer would be beneficial in this context. Time and the FutureLichens are literally everywhere in Shetland, all around us. They are actually a partnership of a fungus – which gives the lichen its scientific name and an algae. A symbiotic relationship – one that benefits both participants. The algae produces sugars by photosynthesis and the fungi steals these sugars so that it can grow. In return the fungus provides protection and gathers nutrients and moisture from the environment. Splari says 'The mephits are laying traps for sporali that venture into these caverns. They have placed piles of tainted lichen in several locations. Once a sporali eats the tainted lichen, they become mindless slaves for the mephits. Will you [help] me?'

Although it was written in 1960, it is not dated in the slightest. The search for ways to prolong one’s life is just as prevalent today as then, and the desire (particularly, but not exclusively, in women) to maintain their youthful physical beauty well into adulthood is even more pronounced today. Splari says 'I came from Corathus to find some lost members of my tribe, and I wound up in here somehow. The mephits are [capturing] my brethren and making them mine for floating ore. Please help me to stop this.'It was a genius move for John Wyndham to center an age-slowing narrative on women, who are still today pressured to remain youthful-looking forever, or succumb to social invisibility. . . . Wyndham was uniquely gifted at skewering humankind’s foibles while maintaining a shred of hope that our better angels would prevail.”—Kate Folk, from the introduction If you’re suggesting that women are anxious to live longer, but men don’t much care, I’m going to disagree thoroughly,’ Francis objected. ‘I don’t think they like dying any more than woman do, oddly enough.’