Sometimes it is strange to get used to the heroes of great literature, and then turn our eyes to the real example of an ordinary failed life. In great literature, the hero may not always venture out as Joseph Campbell would have it, but he is not wrong to note that the hero tends to evolve and learn. This is, in fact, the expected effect of years in the course of a life. Then we see the real example of someone who does not seem to have learned anything, who has not matured at all; someone who stumbled when he was young and continues to stumble when he is old. It is strange because it seems an almost insulting waste, a fierce, inhuman refusal to learn lessons from experience. That is the only real failure: not making the most of what was lived.