FAIR WERTHER FRIENDS

"Pity,” said Stephen Dedalus, one of the twentieth century’s original sad young literary men, is “the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.” [...]his interspersal of world-historical events (the 2000 election, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Russian Revolution) throughout the personal lives of his characters (“So why was Mark always ending up like Liebknecht?”) is a gambit that will grow old for readers long before Mark concludes that such parallels are of “limited use” for deciphering his own affairs. The postcollege years are wasted trying to figure out where the fun is, and before you know it, you’ve entered that shadowy territory known as the late twenties, ruled by anxiety (I’ve got to start living), guilt (I’m not living enough), and regret (I didn’t live when I had the chance).