Patrick Comerford
John Banville was interivewed by Marin Doyle in The Irish Times some weeks ago following the publication his latest novel, Venetian Vespers, and when asked about reaching the age of 80 he declared: ‘I expected to be dead, or at least gaga, by now’.
I’ve not quite reached 80 today, but I am glad to be alive at 74 and glad to find that I am not ‘at least gaga by now’. But, unless I am going to live to be 148, I have to concede something is wrong about still feeling middle-aged today. I’m up and about, enjoying life, feeling deeply loved, thinking too far ahead, and revelling in all the loving birthday greetings I have been receiving during the day.
According to Trainline, 74 trains run daily on the busiest and most popular train route in the UK, between London and Manchester, with an average journey time of 2½ hours. At 74, I am neither popular nor busy, nor am I running daily for 2½ hours.
But at this stage in my life, is 74 just another number along the road or on the pilgrimage of life, a number on a front door or a creaking gate, a mumber for the bus from Putney Exchange to Baker Street Station, Birmingham to Dudley, or Eden Quay to Dundrum Luas, or perhaps merely a broken speed limit?
In maths, 74 is a positive composite number, a semiprime or subprime (2 x 37), with factors 1, 2, 37, and 74, and it is the sum of two perfect squares (52 + 72 = 25 + 49 = 74).
A semiprime, or biprime or a pq number, is a natural number that is the product of exactly two prime numbers, which can be the same or different, like 6 (2×3) or 9 (3×3), or, for that matter 74 (2x37). They are important in number theory and cryptography, as they are difficult to factor, making them useful for security, and they include prime squares like 4, 25, and 49. Semiprimes that are not square numbers are called discrete, distinct, or squarefree semiprimes
The number 74 is represented as LXXIV in Roman numerals and 1001010 in binary, it is a palindromic number in base 6 (202) and base 36 (22).
In science, 74 is the atomic number of tungsten, a strong and dense metal. It has the highest melting point of all metals, which means it needs great heat to turn into a liquid. Because of this, tungsten is often used to make the filaments or tiny wires that glow inside old-fashioned light bulbs. It is also used in tools that need to be very hard, like drills.
I am aware a little more than usual today that the poet Seamus Heaney was 74 when he died in 2013.
When he reached the age of 74, the poet Michael Blumenthal, a former Director of Creative Writing at Harvard and retired Professor of Law at West Virginia University, said he had felt like 38 ‘’ever since I turned 38’: ‘Now that I am a limping 74-year-old, I am just trying to keep up with my peers and not feel jealous about the ones who can still walk without pain. Inside, I still feel like 38, outside like 74.’
He reflected wisely: ‘I am calmer, slower, more patient. I am no longer plagued, or motivated, by terribly much by way of ambition. I have a sense of being able to sit back and watch the world and its events go by … Life has its own plans for us, often not the ones we made.’
Perhaps, at 74, I am less of creaking gate or a dense metal and more like the sum of two perfect squares, a positive composite number, a semiprime, difficult to factor and useful for security, yet discrete and distinct. Outside I may look 74; inside, in my mind and in my heart, I still feel like I am 37, in my prime, or somewhere between 25 and 49, two prime squares.
For poets and lovers and lovers of poetry, it is worth remending ourselves how in Sonnet 74, Shakespeare says only the poet’s body will die, but the spirit of the poet will continue to live in his poetry and in the love he gave and shared:
But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee.
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be rememberèd.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
