Re: Is it just me (and meds)

Hi all,

Just got home and enjoyed all the posts (and drat, I knew the trivia
question, too).

But Jim, I think it's a mistake to too quickly conflate Esther and Sylvia.
Of course the novel is certainly autobiographical. But the narrative and the
character are both pretty specific in how they are drawn on the page and I
think they should be thought of that way as well; and in that case, I think
judging Esther the way you do Sylvia (solely on the basis of agency and personal
responsibility) is simply too easy and finally both too harsh and too simplistic.
 In the novel, there are a number of things being discussed, including
contemporary social taboos, professional expectations, personal responsibility, the
culture's dealing with the mad and other such issues, and Esther's problem is
not strictly one of self-involvement or even simple depression (clinical or
otherwise). In fact, there's a certain amount of Holden in Esther and I think
she demands our concern and even our respect, in places, even as she is
swallowed up by glass.

Also, I think it is important to hear just how this novel, written so long
ago now, still resonates powerfully among a young female audience, even in this
allegedly cynical generation Z age. I taught it again only a year and half
ago and it certainly prompted some very useful and very worthwhile discussion
among a number of interested young women (and men) between the ages of 17 and
21, many of whom who became very thorough and very passionate and very creative
in their readings and in their use of the work. I don't think it can be too
casually dismissed, even if you are willing to criticize the author's life as
simply self-indulgent (which I also think is too simplistic, but for other
separate reasons that needn't be discussed here).

I think it is, finally, still a powerful book.

Also, on the subject of writers and anti-depressants, etc.... it is a road
many of us have traveled I am sure. In my earlier days, sometime after
college, I saw a professional for a disorder I had long had and which I don't feel
the need to discuss here. I was prescribed, almost automatically, first
Anafranil and then Prozac, with Xanax on the side (for sudden attacks). As the level
of Anafranil (and later Prozac) in my system reached functioning levels, the
symptoms of my disorder certainly subsided; but as anyone who has been on
these suckers will tell you, so did my ability to feel much of anything or care
very deeply about anything. I gradually came to feel as if I was walking around
encased in bubble-wrap. It sucked. And I certainly couldn't write anything
like poetry (which I had been doing for some time).

So, despite knowing that the symptoms would return, I weaned myself off all
of these things. And it's been nearly ten years now and I have learned to live
with what I do and made some appropriate and necessary arrangements and
adjustments, but I have not wrapped myself up in the gauze of the pills and
although there are certainly times when I care way too much, it's better than not
being able to care at all.

Just a thought from a member of the army of the once medicated here in the
States.

--John

PS: tina -- nice rant, and I'll the other JD you said hi. :)

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Received on Tue Jun 24 19:23:32 2003