When reading a novel that grips me deeply and refuses to let me go until the last page, I latch on to the main character and adopt their point of view.
Great piece. I relate to much of it. I think you’re putting a two things in the same bucket: A sense of dislocation from aging paired with a sense of impending doom. The first is the slow culture shock that comes from watching my world become a foreign country.
The second is fear. My fears are similar to yours. They’re well founded, but it’s also common for men to become more fearful as we age. One of the horrors of the MAGA era for me has been watching men my age turn terrified and mask their fear with rage.
One of your topics that I like when you write about it is your Jewish identity. Happy Rosh Hashanah! We’re surely not the first generation of men to feel these things, and faith has some comfort and guidance for guys like us I reckon.
Thanks Sean. I went to services today with my three young grandchildren and their parents along with many other young families. Seeing that continuity really lifted my spirits.
David, so much of what you say resonates. However, we as humans have been at the doorstep of doom before - the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Industrial Revolution, the black plague, the rise of Third Reich, AIDs, 9/11. I could go on. Most people are good at heart and want what’s best for themselves and others. In my mind we must hold on to that faith, control what we can, and continue to demonstrate caring and kindness whenever the opportunity arises. A perfect solution, no. But I think we will collectively persevere and face these challenges together.
I don't know if most humans are good at heart Scott. I do believe that most of us have no interest in harming others and don't enjoy seeing it happen even to strangers. But until very recently I was not sure there was such a thing as good people. Folks are too quick to give themselves that label. But I really do agree with your sentiments. I wish it was more popular than all the apocalyptic thinking that's pushed by people who are getting off on believing everyone else is a faceless mob of mindless arsonists.
I haven’t read either of these books but identify with their themes as I age. The fictional character who’s haunted me most is Holden Caulfield because, in my changing perspective on him, I see the arc of my life. As a snarky, self-absorbed teen, I nodded along with him in adoration. I came to see him as the stunted architect of his problems. He saw the worst in everything and turned his back on the best.
I couldn't agree more. I remembered the book so fondly but when I reread it 20 years ago at 45, he was indeed the architect of his problems. And a little snot.
I've been reading your essays every Saturday morning for years. This one is your best.
We're the same age, and men at 64 wrestle with the same things. Your reading of Anton Chigurh as the evil loose in our own world is what finally made me understand why that film won the Oscar. It lands harder now than it did then.
And I'm now seriously considering having my windows professionally washed.
I'm 75. Your discussion of growing older in this post is very real to me and growing ever more real the older I get. When I was in high school we put on the Judy Holiday play "Bells are Ringing" complete with its concluding song, "The Party's Over." I always wondered what that song was really about besides being at a good party and having to leave after it was over. I think Judy Holiday died young from a brain tumor or something like that after experiencing great success. Regarding the first book, Switzy one can either choose to leave the party or the party abruptly ends whenever it is over with no prior notice given or despite everyone's wishes that it not end. I totally relate to the doom and gloom you speak of whether it's AI stealing our world from us or the opposite political party becoming greedily fascist enough to happily save the world by ending it. The incredibly vicious antisemitism so unrelenting right now. Because as long as Jewish people carried on despite continual threats to their existence through time, everyone else also survived along with them. I think everyone is tied to everyone else if for nothing else in that we all live on the same earth and face similar challenges and are very similar in a lot of ways. So if the overly envious have their way, we will be all gone. Cutum! Meaning "it's done" or "that's it, we're all done" in the Hindi language! Life had so much promise and maybe a lot of good things happened and yet everything looks so bleak and bad right now, we may be headed for the final shutdown. Like a movie between evil and good and evil so thoroughly dominates by taking almost all the screen time. People are leaving the theater before halftime because there's virtually no chance of winning. But we all know that the hail Mary doesn't emerge until late or almost at the end of the film if it does. But as you seem to imply, good things can still happen if one applies enough discipline to creating a new life after or going forward in their retirement. There can still be some great unexpected surprises that can still occur before the party or the game's finished. That is what keeps all of us still going. And I hope all the good things that people have received thus far or may still happen though time is running out, can amazingly still occur if will all everyone keep going. We need to keep resisting the ultimate evil until it is abruptly brought to a full stop even if in almost just right before the last moment. I know what all the doubters are thinking. But it's a fact that all films are based on true events (more or less).
Thanks Larry for the comment. I'm still hopeful and got a "hope boost" this morning going to services today with my three young grandchildren and their parents along with many other young families. Seeing that continuity really lifted my spirits.
Awesome! Children are the future and it is always really important to remember that, when things can be looking bad. Because we have no idea what they will bring to the table to fix whatever is incredibly wrong or needs fixing. Let's always make sure that the Hope they bring always remains in the equation!
You are at the age where you cannot yet accept that you're not who you were and will never be again. Been there. I've reached the point where my only comparison is where I'm at compared with where I might be at, not where I'm at compared to where I was. You have made the brilliant choice to take up a way of life with which there is no comparison to your previous existence. I don't think you worried about sentence structure when you were trying to figure out how many basis points you could squeeze out of a bond trade. In terms of comparisons with younger generations, those are a waste of time. I'm an historian...everybody I write about is dead. And I will be too. The trick is to never stop moving forward, preferably without looking back. To me, there is no emotion, none, worse than regret. I try not to have any. My choices, my vows as a younger person, may not have all been...optimal...but they got me to a place where I can still feel productive and, yes, alive. Sheriff Bell lived in the past and was shattered when he could no longer do so. I prefer Satchel Paige's philosophy...don't look back because someone may be gaining on you. That's why writing is so great...there is no time limit on creativity.
Fears come with being human. Only idiots or liars claim not to have any. Trick is not to be ruled by them. When you are, you sow the seeds of regreat. Fear can helpful too...keeps you from taking things for granted.
Granted, I am twenty-odd years younger than you, but I was struck by your line about how everybody feels so young. Perhaps I'll see things more your way when I get back to New York, but from my perspective here in the St. Louis suburbs almost everybody seems so old! Long-term economic doldrums in the region have tended to mean many of the more enterprising youth leave for elsewhere, so the affluent districts where I grew up have become dominated by the elderly and most of the business districts that used to support restaurants and shops are seas of vacant storefronts.
This is a really great treatment of these two novels--I really appreciate the way your reviews draw on your personal connections to these books, and especially with Switzy I think your personal insight helps me feel the depth/intensity of David's situation. Very moving!
I just received the comment below about my January article on inheritance. I’m wondering if you paywalled your archive.
Can you please fix the links you posted in the article.
1. Lindsay Stanberry's "counter essay". The link to counter essay opens to same place as Lindsay Stan berry link, to all her posts and so it makes it difficult to find her essay.
(This is in 2nd para)
2. Exactly the same issue in the 3rd para which refers to Allison Tait and her counter essay.
3. Two additional links with exactly the same issue, further down your article.
"Why do we get so mad about parents supporting their adult children". By Lindsay Stanberry
"Plannig the perfect trust reveals" by Allison Tait
David, re doomscrolling/spiraling, this is where I really think the natural world is so helpful. Just being in tune with the seasons, watching waves rise and fall, and appreciating that eternity is really contained in those rhythms does so much to help us regulate our emotions. In fact, there is increasing evidence that this is why so many neurodivergent people gravitate toward nature - to help them calm their nervous systems.
I agree Audrey that being outside is terrific. I actually read these books in a very beautiful setting. But I was inside the books so it probably did not have the immediate salutary effect.
This is so thoughtful, David. Thank you for sharing. I was most drawn in by how you identify with these main characters: "My instinct is to like him. And I want him to like me back just as much." I do this too and then have to wrestle with the discomfort that comes after my favorite characters make poor decisions. I think it forces me to think deeper about my own ethics and morals and how nothing is black and white. Also, thanks for adding to my ever-expanding TBR with SWITZY!
Emily, are you familiar with Emily St. John Mandel? I loved her connected novels The Glass Hotel and the Sea of Tranquility. I'm now re-reading The Glass Hotel and loving my re-read.
I thought about you yesterday, wondering if you were in NY 25 years ago, or out of town that day. I hope the September 11 anniversaries are not too difficult for you.
Thanks Kari. I'm a lifelong New Yorker. I tend not to think too much about 9/11 because it makes me so angry. It was a Tuesday and I went to the US Open finals that Sunday. Have never been back.
I was in DC when the plane struck. I made it home that night. I had to get home.
And now I wonder if the publicity around the 25th anniversary may have also affected me.
I don’t see how the 25th anniversary publicity could not have affected you. There has been so much of it, and I live on the west coast. You’re in New York. I wish peace a and recovery for you.
Lest I be accused of being fashionable, Odysseus has affected and influenced me in many ways since first encountering the Odyssey (in a kid friendly version) in elementary school. Initially it was a shared longing for home- I spent a great part of my childhood living in Mexico with relatives rather than with my nuclear family in Los Angeles. In my twenties it became a prescient tale- when I told an acquaintance I was taking premed classes (I was a real estate appraiser at the time) his comment was "brother, you're going on an Odyssey". Looking back half a century later, now retired after 30 years of practice as a Family Physician, it seems a preparation for long journeys in changing environments. I've read the book in different translations every few years (last one was Emily Wilson's) and, as they say, I don't step in the same river twice.
Great piece. I relate to much of it. I think you’re putting a two things in the same bucket: A sense of dislocation from aging paired with a sense of impending doom. The first is the slow culture shock that comes from watching my world become a foreign country.
The second is fear. My fears are similar to yours. They’re well founded, but it’s also common for men to become more fearful as we age. One of the horrors of the MAGA era for me has been watching men my age turn terrified and mask their fear with rage.
One of your topics that I like when you write about it is your Jewish identity. Happy Rosh Hashanah! We’re surely not the first generation of men to feel these things, and faith has some comfort and guidance for guys like us I reckon.
Thanks Sean. I went to services today with my three young grandchildren and their parents along with many other young families. Seeing that continuity really lifted my spirits.
Beautiful! I’m so glad.
David, so much of what you say resonates. However, we as humans have been at the doorstep of doom before - the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Industrial Revolution, the black plague, the rise of Third Reich, AIDs, 9/11. I could go on. Most people are good at heart and want what’s best for themselves and others. In my mind we must hold on to that faith, control what we can, and continue to demonstrate caring and kindness whenever the opportunity arises. A perfect solution, no. But I think we will collectively persevere and face these challenges together.
I agree, Scott. endure, persevere, and prevail!
I don't know if most humans are good at heart Scott. I do believe that most of us have no interest in harming others and don't enjoy seeing it happen even to strangers. But until very recently I was not sure there was such a thing as good people. Folks are too quick to give themselves that label. But I really do agree with your sentiments. I wish it was more popular than all the apocalyptic thinking that's pushed by people who are getting off on believing everyone else is a faceless mob of mindless arsonists.
Your solution is the best we have
I haven’t read either of these books but identify with their themes as I age. The fictional character who’s haunted me most is Holden Caulfield because, in my changing perspective on him, I see the arc of my life. As a snarky, self-absorbed teen, I nodded along with him in adoration. I came to see him as the stunted architect of his problems. He saw the worst in everything and turned his back on the best.
I couldn't agree more. I remembered the book so fondly but when I reread it 20 years ago at 45, he was indeed the architect of his problems. And a little snot.
Yes! Holden seemed super cool to my teenage self, then intolerable a decade later. I really like the short stories, though. I think they hold up well.
The novel still moves me, although it has changed. I find it bleak and painful. Of the stories, I particularly like “Uncle Wiggily.”
I've been thinking of reading the Catcher in the Rye again. I was 17 when I read it. Now I want to read Switzy.
I've been reading your essays every Saturday morning for years. This one is your best.
We're the same age, and men at 64 wrestle with the same things. Your reading of Anton Chigurh as the evil loose in our own world is what finally made me understand why that film won the Oscar. It lands harder now than it did then.
And I'm now seriously considering having my windows professionally washed.
Good one!
Thanks DJ! After reading the book I rewatched the movie, which is great but leaves out most of Sheriff Bell. Clean windows, clean mind?
Stories about "Davids" are dangerous to read...and live up to...
Loved this and can totally relate:
"I get confused and frustrated as well trying to describe my life. My words often seem askew and insufficient. Barriers rather than breakthroughs."
Oh, and Frodo broke my heart too! How I cried, both for him and for dear loyal Samwise.
Another character that never fails to make me smile, weep, then smile again is Elinor Dashwood of Sense and Sensibility.
I came to say Elinor Dashwood! Sense and Sensibility is to me a perfect jewel of a book. The entire breadth of human experience all in one capsule.
One of the greatest novels of all time. I cry every time.
Thanks Jennifer. That scene in the pub when everyone's happy but not Frodo... that got me!
I'm due for a reread of Sense and Sensibility.
An excellent book is one that can inspire the reader to look within. I love a more personal review of books. You are a master “weaver.”
Thanks Carissa!
David,
I'm 75. Your discussion of growing older in this post is very real to me and growing ever more real the older I get. When I was in high school we put on the Judy Holiday play "Bells are Ringing" complete with its concluding song, "The Party's Over." I always wondered what that song was really about besides being at a good party and having to leave after it was over. I think Judy Holiday died young from a brain tumor or something like that after experiencing great success. Regarding the first book, Switzy one can either choose to leave the party or the party abruptly ends whenever it is over with no prior notice given or despite everyone's wishes that it not end. I totally relate to the doom and gloom you speak of whether it's AI stealing our world from us or the opposite political party becoming greedily fascist enough to happily save the world by ending it. The incredibly vicious antisemitism so unrelenting right now. Because as long as Jewish people carried on despite continual threats to their existence through time, everyone else also survived along with them. I think everyone is tied to everyone else if for nothing else in that we all live on the same earth and face similar challenges and are very similar in a lot of ways. So if the overly envious have their way, we will be all gone. Cutum! Meaning "it's done" or "that's it, we're all done" in the Hindi language! Life had so much promise and maybe a lot of good things happened and yet everything looks so bleak and bad right now, we may be headed for the final shutdown. Like a movie between evil and good and evil so thoroughly dominates by taking almost all the screen time. People are leaving the theater before halftime because there's virtually no chance of winning. But we all know that the hail Mary doesn't emerge until late or almost at the end of the film if it does. But as you seem to imply, good things can still happen if one applies enough discipline to creating a new life after or going forward in their retirement. There can still be some great unexpected surprises that can still occur before the party or the game's finished. That is what keeps all of us still going. And I hope all the good things that people have received thus far or may still happen though time is running out, can amazingly still occur if will all everyone keep going. We need to keep resisting the ultimate evil until it is abruptly brought to a full stop even if in almost just right before the last moment. I know what all the doubters are thinking. But it's a fact that all films are based on true events (more or less).
Thanks Larry for the comment. I'm still hopeful and got a "hope boost" this morning going to services today with my three young grandchildren and their parents along with many other young families. Seeing that continuity really lifted my spirits.
Awesome! Children are the future and it is always really important to remember that, when things can be looking bad. Because we have no idea what they will bring to the table to fix whatever is incredibly wrong or needs fixing. Let's always make sure that the Hope they bring always remains in the equation!
You are at the age where you cannot yet accept that you're not who you were and will never be again. Been there. I've reached the point where my only comparison is where I'm at compared with where I might be at, not where I'm at compared to where I was. You have made the brilliant choice to take up a way of life with which there is no comparison to your previous existence. I don't think you worried about sentence structure when you were trying to figure out how many basis points you could squeeze out of a bond trade. In terms of comparisons with younger generations, those are a waste of time. I'm an historian...everybody I write about is dead. And I will be too. The trick is to never stop moving forward, preferably without looking back. To me, there is no emotion, none, worse than regret. I try not to have any. My choices, my vows as a younger person, may not have all been...optimal...but they got me to a place where I can still feel productive and, yes, alive. Sheriff Bell lived in the past and was shattered when he could no longer do so. I prefer Satchel Paige's philosophy...don't look back because someone may be gaining on you. That's why writing is so great...there is no time limit on creativity.
Thanks Larry. That's a great philosophy. I'd say I have more fears than regrets. But the fears are about things I cannot control.
Fears come with being human. Only idiots or liars claim not to have any. Trick is not to be ruled by them. When you are, you sow the seeds of regreat. Fear can helpful too...keeps you from taking things for granted.
Granted, I am twenty-odd years younger than you, but I was struck by your line about how everybody feels so young. Perhaps I'll see things more your way when I get back to New York, but from my perspective here in the St. Louis suburbs almost everybody seems so old! Long-term economic doldrums in the region have tended to mean many of the more enterprising youth leave for elsewhere, so the affluent districts where I grew up have become dominated by the elderly and most of the business districts that used to support restaurants and shops are seas of vacant storefronts.
Thanks Ivy for the comment. I think the aged parents in Franzen's Corrections lived in the St. Louis suburbs. I prefer seeing younger people!
This is a really great treatment of these two novels--I really appreciate the way your reviews draw on your personal connections to these books, and especially with Switzy I think your personal insight helps me feel the depth/intensity of David's situation. Very moving!
Thanks Greta!
I'm looking forward to reading Switzy- just got it!
Hi Allison,
I just received the comment below about my January article on inheritance. I’m wondering if you paywalled your archive.
Can you please fix the links you posted in the article.
1. Lindsay Stanberry's "counter essay". The link to counter essay opens to same place as Lindsay Stan berry link, to all her posts and so it makes it difficult to find her essay.
(This is in 2nd para)
2. Exactly the same issue in the 3rd para which refers to Allison Tait and her counter essay.
3. Two additional links with exactly the same issue, further down your article.
"Why do we get so mad about parents supporting their adult children". By Lindsay Stanberry
"Plannig the perfect trust reveals" by Allison Tait
Thank you.
I did not paywall it (I don't have a paid tier)! Should be open and available...
Thanks Allison.
David, re doomscrolling/spiraling, this is where I really think the natural world is so helpful. Just being in tune with the seasons, watching waves rise and fall, and appreciating that eternity is really contained in those rhythms does so much to help us regulate our emotions. In fact, there is increasing evidence that this is why so many neurodivergent people gravitate toward nature - to help them calm their nervous systems.
I agree Audrey that being outside is terrific. I actually read these books in a very beautiful setting. But I was inside the books so it probably did not have the immediate salutary effect.
This is so thoughtful, David. Thank you for sharing. I was most drawn in by how you identify with these main characters: "My instinct is to like him. And I want him to like me back just as much." I do this too and then have to wrestle with the discomfort that comes after my favorite characters make poor decisions. I think it forces me to think deeper about my own ethics and morals and how nothing is black and white. Also, thanks for adding to my ever-expanding TBR with SWITZY!
Emily, are you familiar with Emily St. John Mandel? I loved her connected novels The Glass Hotel and the Sea of Tranquility. I'm now re-reading The Glass Hotel and loving my re-read.
Thanks again for recommending No Country.
I have been looking at Station Eleven for years, but never picked it up. Should I start with The Glass Hotel?
I couldn't get into Station Eleven. Just not a fan of most dystopian novels (except The Stand).
I preferred The Glass Hotel and its semi-sequel Sea of Tranquility.
ok thank you! I'll for sure check it out!
I thought about you yesterday, wondering if you were in NY 25 years ago, or out of town that day. I hope the September 11 anniversaries are not too difficult for you.
Thanks Kari. I'm a lifelong New Yorker. I tend not to think too much about 9/11 because it makes me so angry. It was a Tuesday and I went to the US Open finals that Sunday. Have never been back.
I was in DC when the plane struck. I made it home that night. I had to get home.
And now I wonder if the publicity around the 25th anniversary may have also affected me.
I don’t see how the 25th anniversary publicity could not have affected you. There has been so much of it, and I live on the west coast. You’re in New York. I wish peace a and recovery for you.
Thanks Kari!
Lest I be accused of being fashionable, Odysseus has affected and influenced me in many ways since first encountering the Odyssey (in a kid friendly version) in elementary school. Initially it was a shared longing for home- I spent a great part of my childhood living in Mexico with relatives rather than with my nuclear family in Los Angeles. In my twenties it became a prescient tale- when I told an acquaintance I was taking premed classes (I was a real estate appraiser at the time) his comment was "brother, you're going on an Odyssey". Looking back half a century later, now retired after 30 years of practice as a Family Physician, it seems a preparation for long journeys in changing environments. I've read the book in different translations every few years (last one was Emily Wilson's) and, as they say, I don't step in the same river twice.