Consecutive issues of The New York Review contain essay/reviews of ruminations on decline and death: Frank Kermode on Julian Barnes's Nothing to Be Frightened Of (October 9) is followed, in the October 23 issue, by a piece co-authored by Diane Johnson, a novelist, and John F. Murray, a physician, on (besides two other new books) David Shields's The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead.
Kermode begins with a brief examination of some of the wisdom on death available in the western literary canon. He does not seem particularly impressed. For example, having quoted some lines from Hamlet--
We well know that death shall come
And our future is unknown:
stealthy as a thief he comes
and body and soul he does part
So be of trust and confidence:
Be not too much afraid of death,
For if you fear him overmuch
Joy you nevermore shall touch.
--he paraphrases, "Death will do terminally bad things to you, so don't be too afraid of him--it will spoil your fun," advice that he judges an "unhelpful non sequitur." (Kermode does mention, without commenting on the possible significance, that the speaker is Polonius.) Montaigne's view--that people make too much of death on account of having all their lives made too much of life--is the occasion for some philosophical taxonomy: stoic philosophy versus the "authentic shudder" of Barnes's "thanatophobia."
Apparently Barnes's exposition of his death dread--the fear of dying as well as the fear of oblivion--deploys his brother as a kind of foil. Kermode's description of this brother is intriguing. He is, I guess, a philosopher living in France, where he breeds llamas and regards with cool bemusement his more famous brother's anxieties. The term the brother applies to Julian's thanatophobia is "soppy." I get the idea that Nothing to Be Frightened Of is not a very funny book, but the possibilities for comedy come into view. Julian's brother could be like Mickey's dad in Hannah and Her Sisters--the scene where Mickey is back home, questioning his father about the fear of death. Aren't you afraid? You won't exist! Etc. His father is busy getting together a snack and seems not to be listening too closely. "Who thinks about such nonsense?" he finally interjects. "Now I'm alive. When I'm dead, I'll be dead." On the supposed horror of oblivion he has this to say: "I'll either be unconscious or I won't. If not, I'll deal with it then. I'm not gonna worry now about what's gonna be when I'm unconscious." He might have added that neither does he quake when considering the long period of nonbeing that preceded his birth, so why all the fuss about the other side of the (very) brief interregnum?
The second review makes the point that, after our reproductive years have passed, and our genes successfully transferred to the next generation's repositories, nature no longer cares for us. It is, as is said, all downhill from there. This sometimes long period of decline is referred to by the authors as "evolutionary largesse." But the largesse, if that is what it is, has unfriendly accoutrements:
Beginning in the twenties and thirties, but accelerating in the forties, fifties, and sixties, is a steady age-related waning of physical performance as the lungs and heart reduce their capacities to deliver oxygen into the bloodstream and pump it around the body; blood vessels harden and become less elastic; muscles shrink and weaken; reflexes slow and coordination worsens; bone density decreases and fragility increases; and the usually vigilant immune system no longer protects against the onset of infection and the transformation of healthy cells into malignant ones.
One recognizes the hard truth even while feeling that perhaps it is not really so bad as that makes it sound. The co-reviewers of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead suggest that its author is too eager to press upon us the unpleasant facts of our biological lives. They remind us that there is a considerable amount of individual variation to the pace of our steady declines, and that remedial measures such as exercise "to some extent" can work in our favor. Social life, too, may usefully divert us from dwelling too constantly on what is happening to our bodies. Maybe it's only because I'm fifty and fairly healthy, but I say: Soldier on! Let me know if you have a better idea.
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