Stephen Vizinczey - In Praise of Older Women: The Amorous Recollections of A. V (Phoenix Fiction Series)

In Praise of Older Women
the amourous recollections of Andrs Vajda by Stephen Vizinczey
Few novels have ever enjoyed such extraordinary
success as Stephen Vizinczey's first novel, In Praise
of Older Women .
Subtitled "the amorous recollections of Andrs
Vajda," this wildly funny, affectionate, and pene
trating novel is "dedicated to older women and
is addressed to young men." Recalling with irony
and insight his youthful love affairs with girls
his own age and with mature women -- both in
Europe and in America -- Vajda (now a middle
aged thirty) writes a book of memory and advice:
that a woman of a certain age -- say thirty-five -
can be a more graceful, more intelligent, a better
lover, and a more delightful companion in sex,
than all the nubile young girls and perpetual teen
agers idolized in advertising, films, and fiction.
An instantaneous best seller in England and
America, In Praise of Older Women has been
acclaimed by critics for its freshness and candor
and will soon be published in Sweden, Finland,
Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
PRAISE FOR IN PRAISE OF OLDER WOMEN
"A rarity among books -- an erotic novel in which
sexual experience is not a torment, a novel that af
firms its pleasures and joys...." -- MAX LERNER, New
York Post
"Delightful ... Andrs is a confirmed lover of wom
en. He likes to be with women, to talk to women, to
sleep with women. The novel is a series of his enjoy
ments, but it differs from almost any other similar
novel I know in that every erotic episode is unique
and interesting." -- Washington Sunday Star
"In Praise of Older Women is extraordinary in its
modesty and buoyancy, its fearlessness and persistent
unemphasized sadness. It comes to the boundaries of
life, but only after alert and energetic explorations....
It is a good novel." -- The Hudson Review
"A minor masterpiece of serious comedy. Its treat
ment of sex is both funny and honest, without a trace
of either post-Lawrentian portentousness or of the
pornographic snigger." -- IVON OWEN
Stephen Vizinczey was born in Hungary in 1933
and fled to the West after the Hungarian uprising in
1956. After a stay in Italy, he reached Canada where
he wrote scripts for the National Film Board, one of
which, Four Religions , won an Ohio TV award. In
1962, after founding and editing the literary maga
zine Exchange , he joined the Canadian Broadcasting
Company as a writer and producer. Most recently he
has been living in London with his wife and children,
and is at work on a play and a second novel.
In Praise of
Older Women
the amorous recollections of
Andrs Vajda
by
Stephen Vizinczey
BALLANTINE BOOKS * NEW YORK
Copyright 1965 by Stephen Vizinczey.
All rights reserved. AU names and characters in this book are
fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, is purely coincidental.
Originally published in Canada by
Contemporary Canada Press
First edition: August, 1965
First Canadian paperbound edition: October, 1966
Second Canadian printing: November, 1966
First U.S. paperbound edition: January, 1967
Second U.S. printing: January, 1967
Chapters One and Two originally appeared in The Tamarack
Review and Chapter Twelve in Prism International.
Cover photo by Jack Jensen.
Printed in the United States of America.
BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC.
101 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
This book is dedicated to older women
and is addressed to young men -
and the connection between the two is my proposi
tion.
Woher dein Recht, in jeglichem Kostme
In jeder Maske wahr zu sein? -- Ich rhme.
-- RAINER MARIA RILKE
Contents
1. On Faith and Friendliness 11
2. On War and Prostitution 19
3. On Pride and Being Thirteen 34
4. On Young Girls 45
5. On Courage and Seeking Advice 59
6. On Becoming a Lover 72
7. On Being Promiscuous and Lonely 80
8. On Being Vain and Hopelessly in Love 87
9. On Don Juan's Secret 100
10. On Taking It Easy 114
11. On Virgins 129
12. On Mothers of Little Children 143
13. On Anxiety and Rebellion 162
14. On Happiness with a Frigid Woman 175
15. On Grown Women as Teenage Girls 198
16. On More than Enough 215
To Young Men Without Lovers
In all your amours you should prefer old
women to young ones... because they have
greater knowledge of the world.
-- Benjamin Franklin
This book is dedicated to older women and is addressed to young men --and the connection between the two is my proposition. I'm not an experton sex, but I was a good student of the women I loved, and I'll try torecall those happy and unhappy experiences which, I believe, made a manout of me.
I spent my first twenty-two years in Hungary, Austria and Italy, and myadventures in growing up differed considerably from the adventures ofyoung men in North America. Our dreams and opportunities were influencedby dissimilar amorous conventions. North American culture glorifiesthe young couple, the happiness of honeymooners; in Europe it's theaffair of the young man and his older mistress that has the glamour ofperfection. The young North American aspires to be a pioneer in love andpursues the virgin, while the European tends to value continuity andtradition and hopes to enrich himself with the wisdom and sensibilityof the past. Unfortunately, the opportunities for young men to minglewith older women are diminishing, as over-industrialization everywheresplits the human community into age groups, replacing the crowded familyhome with teenage hangouts, old people's homes and the quiet apartmentsof the middle-aged. Since I grew up in an integrated society, I havethe extravagant notion that my recollections may help to bring about abetter understanding of the truth that men and women are created equalregardless of their dates of birth -- and may thereby stimulate a broaderintercourse between the generations.
As I'm going to describe my own experiences, I ought to reassure thereader that I don't intend to overwhelm him with my personal history.It's his curiosity about himself that I hope to stimulate. What follows isa highly selective memoir centred not so much on the personality ofthe narrator as on the universal predicaments of love. Still, to theextent that this book is an autobiography, I am conscious, like Thurber,of Benvenuto Cellini's stern dictum that a man should be at least fortyyears old and should have accomplished something of excellence beforesetting down the story of his life. I don't fulfil either of theseconditions. But, as Thurber says, "Nowadays, nobody who has a typewriterpays any attention to the old master's quaint rules."
Andrs VajdaAssociate ProfessorDepartment of PhilosophyUniversity of SaskatchewanSaskatoonCanada1965
One
On Faith and Friendliness
Everything comes to us from others...
To Be is to belong to someone.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
I was born into a devout Roman Catholic family, and spent a great partof my first ten years among kindly Franciscan monks. My father washeadmaster of a Catholic school and an accomplished church organist,who also had an unfortunate obsession with politics. He supported thereactionary but pro-clerical regime of Admiral Horthy and made speechesagainst the local Nazi movement. In 1935, when I was two years old, hewas stabbed to death by a Nazi fanatic. His services to the Church and hisuntimely death (and the fact that there were several priests on both sidesof our family) endeared me to the fathers, and I was always a welcomeguest in their monastery. My mother and I were living then in the first,thousand-year-old city of Hungary, the name of which I won't torment youwith. We had an airy second-floor apartment on one of the main streets ofthe town -- a narrow street of ancient churches and fashionable shops.We lived just a few minutes' walk away from the monastery, which I used tovisit even before I reached school age. So instead of having one father,I grew up with a whole order of them: they taught me to read and write,they talked to me about the lives of the saints and the history of theChurch, they told me about the far-off cities where they had studied --Rome, Paris, Vienna -- but above all they listened to whatever I wantedto say. They always had a warm and understanding smile for me, and I usedto walk in the wide, cool corridors of their monastery as if I owned theplace. I remember their loving company further back than my own mother's,although, as I said, I lived alone with her from the age of two. She wasa quiet and tender woman who always picked up things after me. Since Ididn't play much with other children, I was never in a fight; and betweenthe monks and my mother, I was surrounded with radiant love and a senseof absolute freedom. I don't think they ever tried to control me or bringme up, they just watched me grow, and the only restriction I felt wasthe awareness that they were all rooting for me to do my best. This mayaccount for the fact that I became an open-hearted and affectionate boyand a conceited brat. Taking for granted that everyone would love me,I found it natural to love and admire everyone I met or heard about.