For those who haven't read it yet, This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a semi-autobiographical novel about the coming of age and loss of innocence of a wealthy boy named Amory Blaine. It was the first novel that Fitzgerald published. He was fresh out of Princeton.
I started reading This Side of Paradise as a skeptic. Fitzgerald is generally known for his "lyrical" prose, which I thought from reading his more famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was more pretentious and weightless than lyrical - weightless as in lacking the seriousness and depth of someone that has truly struggled or suffered, just as you would expect from an author that grew up with Fitzgerald's privileged background. I recall with The Great Gatsby that I found it difficult to get past his "style" to find any substance in it, such that even after finishing the novel, I was hard pressed to find a good topic for a paper. Yes, I know, commentary/exploration of the American aristocracy, American dream, new money and old money, blah blah - to me it was just a rich person writing about what he knew, which was other rich people.
Not having been entirely impressed with The Great Gatsby, I hadn't read anything by Fitzgerald in over a decade, so I had very few expectations for This Side of Paradise other than some light reading in pretty prose about a wealthy young boy growing up. My impressions from Gatsby of pretentiousness and weightlessness came flooding back as I started to read This Side of Paradise, where I found the same flowery prose (this time sans the sinister undertones of adultery and murder) and worried I'd get annoyed and never finish; but unlike with The Great Gatsby, by the end of This Side of Paradise, I understood and felt its gravitas.
I started out enjoying it as a story about a carefree, young boy growing up with the leisure of an excellent private education, the luxury of being consumed by young love, and the indulgence of reading, writing and reciting poetry to his heart's content. With so much leisure, luxury and indulgence in the foreground, Fitzgerald barely had room to squeeze in a few nods to the idyllic background settings, such as Princeton and Lake Geneva.
Then the usual tragedies befall the hero - love lost, school boys part ways, death in the family, a slight implication that his family's fortune, which had never been the greatest among his peers, has begun to dwindle - and you start to feel sorry for him, but not too much. The beginnings of his disillusionment are still somehow shallow, immature and overly dramatic. You can still see him finding his way to success, marrying his second or third love, and regaining the sheen and confidence he had in his youth.
Suddenly, there's war, which comes and goes quickly in the book, but signals a dramatic shift in Amory's development. There is also the loss of a job, a deeper love, good friends to both death and circumstance, and even more money, until finally his misfortunes have stripped him of all of his ego, the youthful, unsubstantiated confidence of his youth. I was impressed with Fitzgerald's willingness to break down his hero (presumably a version of himself) to that extent.
I also found Fitzgerald's emphasis on the loss of love, both romantic and platonic, rather than the tragedy of war, to be refreshing and brave. He allows that the war changes Amory and contributes to his loss of innocence, but it is Amory's relationships that define him more than his circumstances, a notion that I agree with.
Don't get me wrong, Fitzgerald's writing is still flowery and overly dramatic all the way through to the end, and I'm still put off by his devotion to poetry, but I found plenty to love about the choices Fitzgerald made in the story, and wish I had read it first as a teenager so that I could compare my impressions then and now.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Live in a bubble or die
Today is one of those days that brings into sharp relief the simple fact that I do not get along with nature. My body has been trying to tell me to live in a bubble as long as I can remember. All the way back to elementary school, I remember having sneezing contests with myself - would I break a new record with the number of sneezes I'd have in a row? My record was well into the twenties. If I hadn't made it a game, I don't know how I would have coped, because my allergies have always been just plain miserable.
People suggested exercise, but I'd have a sneezing and coughing fit after every run. Swimming was supposed to be particularly helpful, but I had to be careful to not sit around in cold water too long or get cold while laying wet in the shade, since that would trigger sneezing fits. On the other hand, so would stepping into direct sunlight from the shade. Hot or cold, sun or shade, I couldn't win.
I came to describe them (to the myriad of doctors and others that were interested) as "like hay fever, except everyday and all year long, worst in the morning and late at night." I loved cats, but they triggered particularly awful symptoms. Who knew the clear liquid protecting the whites of your eyes could grow thick, puffy, and gooey. Ahhh, allergic reactions are awesome in their own special way. I didn't learn until much later that these were called "anaphylactic" allergies that would one day threaten my life.
In college, I moved to Berkeley, where the air was better (than in LA) and the moisture in the air from the more frequent rain was helpful, but I faced new enemies - most of the buildings were old and difficult to rid of mold and dust. But by then, I had learned to deal with it pretty well, for the most part (i.e., kept tissue with me at all times, drank lots of water, exercised in the early mornings when after dust and pollen had settled in the night and the air was dewy and cool). And to a certain extent, I thought, I had outgrown at least the really awful everyday allergies, and really was left with just seasonal allergies. By then, I had developed a great appreciation for breathing easy, literally. Boy did I enjoy breathing easy through my nose - still do.
Then in the summer of 2003, while still living in my Berkeley studio apartment and just a few weeks before taking the California bar exam, my allergies took an ugly turn. I had my first severe anaphylactic allergy attack, with ALL the symptoms (I won't go into the gory details). Suffice it to say, it was ugly. I was ugly, for days ... and, I'm told by the ER docs and everyone else, I could have died, although, despite the throat constriction, I never thought at any point in the entire event that I would get to a point where I couldn't breathe altogether, as is the fear with anaphylactic allergies. In fact, I've had a number of episodes since then, some just as bad with even quicker reactions, but I'm always surprisingly calm, considering the circumstances.
In any case, I finally got one of those pinprick tests after that first full-blown anaphylactic allergy attack, to see what could have caused it. Well, it turns out, I'm allergic to nearly everything they test for, in varying degrees. I'm allergic to various nuts, fruits, seafood, and numerous environmental allergens, although not enough where I would break out or die from exposure to just one thing, except maybe elm trees. Out of the more than 30 common allergens that they tested for, I am at least somewhat allergic to more than 90%. They give each reaction a rating - a combination of numbers between 0 and 4, and anywhere from one to three +'s. For instance, my reaction to elm trees was a 4+++. The reaction spread so far it melded into the other nearby bumps, making it difficult to rate a few of my other reactions. Even the control prick, the mere act of pricking my skin, caused a 1+ reaction. I could tell from the nurse's reaction that this was not normal, not even at the allergy clinic. I was special. Again, the message was that I should maybe consider living in a bubble.
Confusingly, most of it I ate or was exposed to regularly. So I didn't stop eating all of it, but I have cut out a few things that seem to have directly caused my most severe reactions (yogurt, peanut butter, old chocolates, particularly fruit-filled, anything that might have any chance of having developed mold, or turned, at all), and to be careful not to mix too many of those foods or allergens together (i.e., not eat lots of peanuts and clean a dusty closet right afterward). As for living in a bubble, that's just not an option.
People suggested exercise, but I'd have a sneezing and coughing fit after every run. Swimming was supposed to be particularly helpful, but I had to be careful to not sit around in cold water too long or get cold while laying wet in the shade, since that would trigger sneezing fits. On the other hand, so would stepping into direct sunlight from the shade. Hot or cold, sun or shade, I couldn't win.
I came to describe them (to the myriad of doctors and others that were interested) as "like hay fever, except everyday and all year long, worst in the morning and late at night." I loved cats, but they triggered particularly awful symptoms. Who knew the clear liquid protecting the whites of your eyes could grow thick, puffy, and gooey. Ahhh, allergic reactions are awesome in their own special way. I didn't learn until much later that these were called "anaphylactic" allergies that would one day threaten my life.
In college, I moved to Berkeley, where the air was better (than in LA) and the moisture in the air from the more frequent rain was helpful, but I faced new enemies - most of the buildings were old and difficult to rid of mold and dust. But by then, I had learned to deal with it pretty well, for the most part (i.e., kept tissue with me at all times, drank lots of water, exercised in the early mornings when after dust and pollen had settled in the night and the air was dewy and cool). And to a certain extent, I thought, I had outgrown at least the really awful everyday allergies, and really was left with just seasonal allergies. By then, I had developed a great appreciation for breathing easy, literally. Boy did I enjoy breathing easy through my nose - still do.
Then in the summer of 2003, while still living in my Berkeley studio apartment and just a few weeks before taking the California bar exam, my allergies took an ugly turn. I had my first severe anaphylactic allergy attack, with ALL the symptoms (I won't go into the gory details). Suffice it to say, it was ugly. I was ugly, for days ... and, I'm told by the ER docs and everyone else, I could have died, although, despite the throat constriction, I never thought at any point in the entire event that I would get to a point where I couldn't breathe altogether, as is the fear with anaphylactic allergies. In fact, I've had a number of episodes since then, some just as bad with even quicker reactions, but I'm always surprisingly calm, considering the circumstances.
In any case, I finally got one of those pinprick tests after that first full-blown anaphylactic allergy attack, to see what could have caused it. Well, it turns out, I'm allergic to nearly everything they test for, in varying degrees. I'm allergic to various nuts, fruits, seafood, and numerous environmental allergens, although not enough where I would break out or die from exposure to just one thing, except maybe elm trees. Out of the more than 30 common allergens that they tested for, I am at least somewhat allergic to more than 90%. They give each reaction a rating - a combination of numbers between 0 and 4, and anywhere from one to three +'s. For instance, my reaction to elm trees was a 4+++. The reaction spread so far it melded into the other nearby bumps, making it difficult to rate a few of my other reactions. Even the control prick, the mere act of pricking my skin, caused a 1+ reaction. I could tell from the nurse's reaction that this was not normal, not even at the allergy clinic. I was special. Again, the message was that I should maybe consider living in a bubble.
Confusingly, most of it I ate or was exposed to regularly. So I didn't stop eating all of it, but I have cut out a few things that seem to have directly caused my most severe reactions (yogurt, peanut butter, old chocolates, particularly fruit-filled, anything that might have any chance of having developed mold, or turned, at all), and to be careful not to mix too many of those foods or allergens together (i.e., not eat lots of peanuts and clean a dusty closet right afterward). As for living in a bubble, that's just not an option.
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