Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  It was built in 1934 or ‘35 by the Youth Labor Corps (I could just imagine them: blond, shirtless, singing Deutschland über Alles, lifting the pink sandstone rocks of the Neckar Valley while blowsy Rhine maidens brought steins of piss-dark beer), and it was nestled in the crotch of the Heiligenberg, or Holy Mountain, where a shrine to Odin had reputedly once stood. I would reach the amphitheater by driving across the river from the old town, down a wide street which led to the suburbs, then up the Holy Mountain, following the signs to the ruins of St. Michael’s Basilica. The amphitheater itself was not, sinisterly enough, marked. The road wound upward through the woods, the light filtered down between the black-green pines, and I was Gretel in a huffing, puffing Volkswagen, but no one was dropping bread crumbs behind me. As I wound my way up the hill, thinking of all those cruel German fairy tales featuring frightened little girls and dark woods, the car would stall in third gear. Afraid of rolling backward down the hill, I’d shift into second and stall again. Finally, I would have to climb in first gear. At the top of the Heiligenberg was a smallish tower built of red sandstone, with mossy, worn-down steps winding to a lookout on top. I’d climb the slippery steps for a view of the city—and there it would be: the gleaming river, the dappled woods, the pinkish hulk of the castle. Why did chroniclers of the Third Reich say everything about Germany except that it was beautiful? Was that too morally ambiguous? The beauty of the countryside and the ugliness of the people. Couldn’t we cope with such irony? Descending from the tower, I’d walk deeper into the woods past a small restaurant called Waldschenke (or, forest tavern) which featured fat-bottomed burghers drinking beer outside in summer, mulled wine inside in winter. There I had to leave the car and continue up through the forest (leaves crunching underfoot, pines drooping overhead, sun obliterated by foliage). Since the tiers of seats were cut into the hillside, the entrance to the amphitheater was from above. Suddenly the theater gaped beneath you—row after row of weedy seats, littered with bottle glass, condoms, candy wrappers. At the base was an apron stage flanked by flagpoles for the swastika or the German Eagle. And on either side were entrances for speakers to appear surrounded by brown-shirted bodyguards. But the most astonishing part was the setting: a gigantic pine-rimmed bowl nestled in the unearthly quiet of those fairy-tale woods. The ground was sacred. Odin had been worshipped, then Christ, then Hitler. I would dash down the hill over the tiers of seats and stand in the dead center of the stage reciting my own poetry to an audience of echoes. One day I told Horst that I wanted to write about the amphitheater. “Why?” he asked. “Because everyone pretends it isn’t there.” “Do you think that’s enough of a reason?” “Yes.”

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Before we came to Heidelberg, the setting for the first two months of our marriage was as strange as our reason for getting married. There we were, two terrified, transplanted Manhattanites, plunked down in San Antonio, Texas. Bennett was shorn of his hair, stuffed into army greens, forced to sit through hour after hour of army propaganda on how to be an army doctor—something he detested with his whole heart. I stayed “home” in a sterile motel outside San Antonio, watched television, tinkered with my poems, felt enraged and powerless. Like most native New York girls, I had never learned to drive. I was twenty-four and stranded in a Texas motel facing a sun-parched strip of highway between San Antonio and Austin. I slept until ten-thirty, awoke and watched television while I carefully made up my face (for whom?), went downstairs and gorged myself on a Texas brunch of pancakes, sausages, and grits, put on my bathing suit (which was growing tighter and tighter), and baked in the sun for two hours or so. Then I swam in the pool for five minutes and went back upstairs to confront my “work.” But I found it nearly impossible to work. The loneliness of writing terrified me. I looked for every excuse to escape. I had no sense of myself as a writer and no faith in my ability to write. I could not see then that I had been writing all my life. I had begun composing and illustrating little stories when I was eight. I had kept a journal from the age of ten. I was an avid and ironic letter-writer from age thirteen, and I consciously aped the letters of Keats and G.B.S. throughout my adolescence. At seventeen, when I went to Japan with my parents and sisters, I dragged along my Olivetti portable and spent every evening recapitulating the day’s observations into a loose-leaf notebook. I began to publish poems in small literary magazines during my senior year in college (where I won most of the poetry prizes and edited the literary magazine). And yet despite the obvious fact that I was obsessed with writing, despite publications and despite letters from literary agents asking whether I was “working on a novel,” I didn’t really believe in the seriousness of my commitment at all. Instead, I had allowed myself to be shunted into graduate school. Graduate school was supposed to be safe. Graduate school was supposed to be the thing that you got “under your belt” (like a baby?) before you settled down to writing. What an obvious swindle it now seems! But then it seemed prudent, wise, and responsible.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  You slept with Jerome .’ Victoria sat up in bed and touched his face. ‘Look, I hate to be cheesy, but it’s true: Jerome’s lovely, but he’s a boy , Howard. I need a man right now.’ ‘Vee – please,’ said Howard, grabbing her hand by the wrist and passing her the shirt she had been wearing. ‘We need to go downstairs.’ ‘All right, all right – keep your hair on.’ Together they got dressed, Howard hurriedly and Victoria languidly, with Howard taking a moment to marvel at the fact that the dream of many weeks – to see this girl naked – was now replaying in dramatic reverse. He’d do absolutely anything to see her with all her clothes on. Finally, after they had both fully dressed, Howard found his boxer shorts tucked in a pillowcase. These he stuffed into his pocket. At the door, Victoria stopped him by putting a hand to his chest. She breathed deeply and encouraged him to do the same. She unlocked the door. Slicked his cowlick down with a finger and straightened his tie. ‘Just try not to look like you love tomatoes,’ she said.  on beauty and being wrong  In the early years of the last century, Helen Keller embarked on a lecture tour of New England, enthralling audiences with her life story (and occasionally surprising them with her socialist views). En route she made a stop at Wellington College, and there named a library, planted a tree and found herself the recipient of an honorary degree. Hence the Keller Library: a long, draughty room on the ground floor of the English Department with a green carpet, red walls and too many windows – it is impossible to heat. On one wall hangs a life-sized portrait of Helen dressed in academic cap and gown, sitting in an armchair, her blind eyes demurely directed into her lap. Her companion Annie Sullivan stands behind her, a hand resting tenderly on her friend’s shoulder. It is in this chilly room that all faculty meetings for the Humanities are conducted. Today is January tenth. The first faculty meeting of the year is due to begin in five minutes. As when an especially important vote comes up in the House of Lords, even the most reluctant college members are present this morning, including the octogenarian tenured hermits. It’s a full house, although nobody hurries; they arrive in staggered fashion, scarves stiff and wet with the snow, with salty tide marks on their leather shoes, with handkerchiefs and ostentatious coughs and wheezes.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Potts, do we have any cots left?” Potts, also pink and bald, with white hairs growing out of his ears and other holes, would see what could be done. He came and spoke while I unscrewed my fountain pen. Impatient Humbert! “Our double beds are really triple,” Potts cozily said tucking me and my kid in. “One crowded night we had three ladies and a child like yours sleep together. I believe one of the ladies was a disguised man [my static]. However—would there be a spare cot in 49, Mr. Swine?” “I think it went to the Swoons,” said Swine, the initial old clown. “We’ll manage somehow,” I said. “My wife may join us later—but even then, I suppose, we’ll manage.” The two pink pigs were now among my best friends. In the slow clear hand of crime I wrote: Dr. Edgar H. Humbert and daughter, 342 Lawn Street, Ramsdale. A key (342!) was half-shown to me (magician showing object he is about to palm)—and handed over to Uncle Tom. Lo, leaving the dog as she would leave me some day, rose from her haunches; a raindrop fell on Charlotte’s grave; a handsome young Negress slipped open the elevator door, and the doomed child went in followed by her throat-clearing father and crayfish Tom with the bags. Parody of a hotel corridor. Parody of silence and death. “Say, it’s our house number,” said cheerful Lo. There was a double bed, a mirror, a double bed in the mirror, a closet door with mirror, a bathroom door ditto, a blue-dark window, a reflected bed there, the same in the closet mirror, two chairs, a glass-topped table, two bedtables, a double bed: a big panel bed, to be exact, with a Tuscan rose chenille spread, and two frilled, pink-shaded nightlamps, left and right. I was tempted to place a five-dollar bill in that sepia palm, but thought the largesse might be misconstrued, so I placed a quarter. Added another. He withdrew. Click. Enfin seuls. “Are we to sleep in one room?” said Lo, her features working in that dynamic way they did—not cross or disgusted (though plain on the brink of it) but just dynamic—when she wanted to load a question with violent significance. “I’ve asked them to put in a cot. Which I’ll use if you like.” “You are crazy,” said Lo. “Why, my darling?” “Because, my dahrling, when dahrling Mother finds out she’ll divorce you and strangle me.” Just dynamic. Not really taking the matter too seriously. “Now look here,” I said, sitting down, while she stood, a few feet from me, and stared at herself contentedly, not unpleasantly surprised at her own appearance, filling with her own rosy sunshine the surprised and pleased closet-door mirror. “Look here, Lo. Let’s settle this once for all. For all practical purposes I am your father. I have a feeling of great tenderness for you. In your mother’s absence I am responsible for your welfare.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  The station commander, with his high-peaked Nazi hat, was going to inspect my papers on some pretext and hustle me over to one of those green-coated policemen in black leather boots with a matching whip.... The customs guard at the border crossing was surely going to stop me, discover my little cache of Lomotil paregoric, sulfur tablets, V-Cillin, and Librium from the army dispensary—usual supply of goodies for going down to Italy—and take me away to a secret cavern under the Alps where I would be tortured in cruelly ingenious ways until I confessed that beneath my paganism, pantheism and pedantic knowledge of English poetry, I was every bit as Jewish as Anne Frank. Given the perspective of history, it’s clear that Bennett and I owed our being in Heidelberg (and in fact our marriage) to the hoodwinking of the American public by the government, which was later revealed in the Pentagon Papers. In other words, we got married as a direct result of Bennett’s being drafted—and he was drafted as a direct result of the Vietnam troop buildup of 1965-66, which was a direct result of the hoodwinking of the American public by the government. But who knew that at the time? We suspected it, but we had no proof. We had ironic headlines promising that the buildup was to “end the war and bring a lasting peace.” We had good one-liners like: “It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it....” We had activists as articulate as any who came along later. But we had no proof in black and white on the front page of The Times. So Bennett, a child psychiatrist with half his analytic training done, was drafted at the age of thirty-one. We had known each other three months. We had come to each other from other unhappy love affairs—and on my part a disastrous first marriage. We were sick of being single; we were terrified of being alone; we were happy together in bed; we were frightened of the future; we were married one day before Bennett had to leave for Fort Sam Houston. From the first, the marriage was strange. We’d both expected rescue. And there we were both clawing at each other and drowning together. Things turned hostile in a matter of days. We quickly went from verbal assaults to utter silence, punctuated by lovemaking that kept on, amazingly enough, being good. Neither of us quite knew what we had gotten into, or why.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  I assume that he’ll have gone back to New York. He hates knocking around Europe almost as much as I do. At the Gare du Nord, I find a telephone and try to place a person-to-person call. But I’ve forgotten every word of French I ever knew and the operator’s English leaves much to be desired. After an absurd dialogue, many mistakes, bleeps and wrong numbers, I am put through to my own home number. The operator asks for “le Docteur Wing,” and far off, as if under the whole Atlantic Ocean, I hear the voice of the girl who has sublet our apartment for the summer. “He’s not here. He’s in Vienna.” “Madame, le Docteur est à Vienne,” the operator echoes. “Ce n’est pas possible!” I yell—but that’s the extent of my French. As the operator begins to argue with me, I become increasingly tongue-tied. Once, years ago, when I traveled here as a college student, I could speak this language. Now I can hardly even speak English. “He must be there!” I shout. Where is he if not at home? And what on earth will I do with my life without him? I quickly put through a call to Bennett’s oldest friend, Bob, who has our car for the summer. Bennett would be sure to contact him first. Surprisingly, Bob is home. “Bob—it’s me—Isadora—I’m in Paris. Is Bennett there?” Bob’s voice comes back faintly. “I thought he was with you.” And then silence. We’ve been cut off. Only it is not quite total silence. Is that the sound of the ocean I’m hearing—or do I imagine it? I feel a tiny rivulet of sweat trickle down between my breasts. Suddenly Bob’s voice surfaces again. “What happened? Did you have a...” Then gurgling interference. Then silence. I envision some giant fish gnawing on the Atlantic cable. Every time the fish chomps down, Bob’s voice goes dead. “Bob!” “I can’t hear you. I said: did you have a fight?” “Yes. It’s too hard to explain. It’s awful. It’s all my...” “What? I can’t hear you.... Where’s Bennett?” “That’s why I’m calling you.” “What? I didn’t catch that.” “Shit. I can’t hear you either.... Listen, if he calls, tell him I love him” “What?” “Tell him I’m looking for him.” “What? I can’t hear you.” “Tell him I want him.” “What? I can’t hear you.” “Tell him I want him.” “What? Would you repeat that?” “This is impossible.” “I can’t hear you.” “Just tell him that I love him.” “What? This is a horrible conn...” We are cut off for the last time.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  The fattest boy on the stage now took his turn with a solo. He was also the angriest, and the other boys dropped back in order to give him the space he needed for whatever it was he was angry about. ‘It’s a very worthy effort,’ shouted Claire to her class above the  the anatomy lesson unbearable noise of another chorus. ‘They have the power of the troubadour voice . . . But I’d say they have a little to learn about integration of idea and form – you break a form in two if you have all this undigested political fury in it. I think I’m going to go up for a cigarette.’ Deftly she rose without the need of putting her hands to the floor. ‘I’ll come up too,’ said Zora, and made heavier work of the same movement. They made their way through the crowds in the basement and restaurant without conversation. Claire wondered what was coming. Outside, the temperature had dropped another few degrees. ‘You want to share? Be quicker.’ ‘Thank you,’ said Claire and accepted the cigarette she was passed. Her fingers trembled a little. ‘Those guys are wild,’ said Zora. ‘It’s like, you so want them to be good, but – ’ ‘Right.’ ‘Something to do with trying too hard, I guess. That’s Levi all over.’ They were silent for a minute. ‘Zora,’ said Claire, letting the wine take her along, ‘are we OK?’ ‘Oh, absolutely ,’ said Zora with a certainty and speed that suggested she’d been waiting for the question all night. Claire looked at her doubtfully and passed back the cigarette. ‘You sure?’ ‘ Seriously . We’re all adults. And I have no intention of not being an adult.’ Claire smiled stiffly. ‘I’m glad.’ ‘Don’t mention it. It’s all about compartmentalization.’ ‘That’s very mature of you.’ Zora smiled contentedly. Not for the first time when talking to Howard’s daughter Claire felt estranged from her own being, as if she were indeed just another of the six billion extras playing in that fabulous stage show, the worldwide hit called Zora’s Life. ‘What’s important,’ said Zora, her voice turning excessively  On Beauty diffident, ‘is finding out, you know . . . whether I can actually do this thing, writing.’ ‘That’s a daily discovery,’ said Claire evasively. She felt Zora’s avid stare; she sensed something important was about to be said. But now the door of the restaurant was thrown open. It was Ron. The diners behind him complained of the draught. ‘Oh my God – you’ve got to see this guy. He’s amazing . Downstairs. He’s blowing everybody away .’ ‘This better be good – we’re smoking.’ ‘Zoor – I’m telling you. He’s like Keats with a knapsack.’

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  That’s classic anxiety: Anxiety followed by depression might be worse than depression followed by anxiety, because in the latter, a person might be starting to process prediction error again. [back] 38. sit in the control network: van den Heuvel and Sporns 2013. to learn effectively from experience: Browning et al. 2015. imprecisely or not at all: A brain awash in prediction error is not always anxious; consider the infant’s lantern of attention ( chapter 6 ) or times when novelty and uncertainty are pleasant (e.g., meeting a new lover); see, e.g., Wilson et al. 2013. See heam.info/anxiety-3 . your brain ignores them: Damasio and Carvalho 2013; Paulus and Stein 2010. error that you can’t resolve: Specifically, from using prediction error as a “teaching signal” (McNally et al. 2011; Fields and Margolis 2015). know their disease is permanent: Six months after a serious operation (a colostomy), those who had a chance of having their colostomies reversed were less satisfied with life than those with permanent disability (Smith et al. 2009). Hope can be a cruel mistress. [back] 39. also with chronic fatigue syndrome: To be clear, I am not saying that depression and chronic pain are the same phenomenon. I am saying that they have a set of common causes. There is a longstanding debate whether certain chronic pain syndromes are independent of depression, as opposed to being expressions of depression. In the past, this debate has been framed as a version of “it’s all in your head,” where spontaneously experienced pain in the absence of tissue damage is assumed to be a sign of mental illness. This line of argument assumes that depression is merely a mental illness, but this historical distinction is not meaningful in the light of modern neuroscience. Both depression and chronic pain can be considered neurodegenerative brain diseases that have metabolic and inflammatory roots. The fact that some prescription drugs are successful at reducing some instances of depression but not of chronic pain (or vice versa) does not mean the two are distinct biological categories, because depression has degenerate causes. Not everyone suffering from depression (i.e., the variable members of that category) is treated successfully with the same medication (i.e., variation is the norm). The same logic probably works for any category of chronic pain. [back] 40. are highly variable and malleable: Barrett 2013. [back] 41. symptoms sounds just like autism: The diagnostic symptoms of autism are consistent with my description; see heam.info/autism-1 . [back] 42. have multiple, complex causes: Jeste and Geschwind 2014. See also heam.info/autism-2 . [back] 43. “An Inside View of Autism”: Grandin 1991. “why she was not a cat”: Grandin 2009. “and all is well”: Higashida 2013 . [back] 44. is a failure of prediction: Van de Cruys et al.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  24 para. Sic placito ocius surrexit et ad aliud me cubiculum inducit: ibi corpus splendentibus linteis coopertum introductis quibusdam septem testibus manu revelat et diutine insuper fleto! obtestata fidem praesentium singula demonstrat anxie, verba concepta de industria quodam tabulis praenotante. ‘Ecce’ inquit * Nasus integer, incolumes oculi, salvae aures, illibatae labiae, mentum solidum. Vos in hanc rem, boni Quirites, testimonium perhibetote '; et cum dicto consignatis illis tabulis facessit. : * At ego, *Iube' inquam * Domina, cuncta quae -1 Thisis the ingenious suggestion of Nic. Heinsius for the MSS’ usu perfleto. í 3 84 . THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK II behold I am a man made all of iron, and have never desire to sleep, and am more quick of sight than Lynceus or Argus, and must be all eyes.' * [ had scarce spoken these words, when he took me by the hand, and brought me to a certain house, the gate whereof was closed fast, so that I went through a small wicket, and then he brought me into a chamber somewhat dark, the light being shut out, and shewed me a matron clothed in mourn- ing vesture and weeping in lamentable wise: and he stood by and spake unto her and said : * Behold here is one that is employed to watch the corpse of your husband faithfully this night. Which when she heard, she pushed aside her hair that hung before her blubbered face that was yet very fair, and turned her unto me, saying: ‘Mark you, young man, take good heed and see you be vigilant to your office.’ * Have no care,’ quoth I, ‘So that you will give me something above that which is due to be given, | wherewith she was contented; and then rose and brought me into another chamber, wherein the corpse lay covered with white sheets, and she called seven witnesses, before whom she removed the cloth, and wept long over him, then shewed the dead body and every part and parcel thereof, and with weeping eyes desired them all to testify the matter, which done she said these words that she had composed of set purpose, while one wrote and noted the same in tables ; * Behold his nose is whole, his eyes safe, his ears without scar, his lips untouched, and his chin sound: do you, good citizens, bear witness hereto’: and then was all inscribed with the hands of the witnesses to confirm the same. “This done, I said unto the matron: * Madam, I pray you bid that I may have all things here : 85 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  et vino pulcherrimo atque copioso memet made- feceram et unguento fragrantissimo prolubium libi- 22 dinis suscitaram. Sed angebar plane non exili metu, reputans quemadmodum tantis tamque magnis cruri- bus possem delicatam matronam inscendere, vel tam lucida tamque tenera et lacte ac melle confecta membra duris ungulis complecti, labiasque modicas ambrosio rore purpurantes tam amplo ore tamque enormi et saxeis dentibus deformi saviari, novissime quo pacto, quamquam ex unguiculis perpruriscens, mulier tam vastum genitale susciperet : heu me qui dirupta nobili femina bestiis obiectus munus instruc- turus sim mei domini! Molles interdum voculas et assidua savia et dulces gannitus commorsicantibus oculis iterabat illa, et in summa * Teneo te," inquit * Teneo meum palumbulum, meum passerem," et cum dieto vanas fuisse cogitationes meas ineptumque monstrat metum : artissime namque complexa totum me prorsus, sed totum recepit. Illa vero, quotiens ei parcens nates recellebam, accedens totiens nisu rabido et spinam prehendens meam appliciore nexu inhaerebat, ut Hercule etiam deesse mihi aliquid ad supplendam eius libidinem crederem, nec Mino- tauri matrem frustra delectatam putarem adultero mugiente, lamque operosa et pervigili nocte trans- acta, vitata lucis conscientia facessit mulier, condicto 23 pari noctis futurae pretio. Nec gravate magister meus voluptates ex eius arbitrio largiebatur, partim mercedes amplissimas acceptando, partim novum spectaculum domino praeparando: incunctanter ei denique libidinis nostrae totam detegit scaenam. At ille liberto magnifice munerato destinat me spectaculo publico: et quoniam neque egregia illa uxor mea propter dignitatem neque prorsus ulla alia 510 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK X

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  FOREWORDIt’s very hard to write a foreword for a book that has shaped my life as much as it did my mother’s. Would either of us be anything without the incredible success of Fear of Flying? Would I have the career I have today, writing for Vanity Fair and punditing, if my mother had not become famous from a book she wrote before I was born? It’s an impossible question to answer, but one that I come back to again and again: how much of my success is due to hers? Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night haunted by just how much of my life is tied to her and to this book. I became a writer because I thought that was what people did. As a kid, I don’t think I even knew there were any careers besides policewoman and writer of autobiographical novels—and possibly communist who went to jail due to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Maybe I wanted to become a writer to get her to pay attention to me or to respect me or to just be interested in me. I am not sure why I fell down this very-hard-to-maneuver rabbit hole, but the minute I became a writer (I published my first book in 2000), my entire life became inextricably bound to a novel written in 1973, when I was negative five. There are many, many women (and men, too) who found themselves in the story of Isadora Wing, but I am not one of those people. When I was growing up, women my mother’s age would stop us in stores and restaurants, look earnestly into her eyes and tell her how the book had changed their lives. It changed the trajectory of my life, too, just in a completely different way. I do not have a normal relationship with the book or the author. I think of this book as the reason I have a career today but also as the anvil my mother could never get out from under. So you can see why I found this assignment very intimidating. It’s just a book, I told myself, but it’s a book that means very different things to me than it does to anyone else. I was not inspired to find sexual freedom by reading about Isadora’s adventures! In fact, I felt deeply uncomfortable with the content—but that was probably pretty healthy, since Isadora was basically my mother. On top of that, I knew many of the people the characters were based on, which adds a truly disturbing dynamic to the experience of reading such an explicit book.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  And then, spread across this room: big nose, small ears, obese, on crutches, hair red as rust, wheelchair, six foot five, short skirt, pointy breasts, iPod still on, anorexic with that light downy hair on her cheeks, bow-tie, another bow-tie, football hero, white boy with dreads, long fingernails like a New Jersey housewife, already losing his hair, striped tights – there were so many of them that Smith couldn’t close the door without squashing somebody. So they had come, and they had heard. Howard had pitched his tent and made his case. He had  the anatomy lesson offered them a Rembrandt who was neither a rule breaker nor an original but rather a conformist; he had asked them to ask themselves what they meant by ‘genius’ and, in the perplexed silence, replaced the familiar rebel master of historical fame with Howard’s own vision of a merely competent artisan who painted whatever his wealthy patrons requested. Howard asked his students to imagine prettiness as the mask that power wears. To recast Aesthetics as a rarefied language of exclusion. He promised them a class that would challenge their own beliefs about the redemptive humanity of what is commonly called ‘Art’. ‘Art is the Western myth,’ announced Howard, for the sixth year in a row, ‘with which we both console ourselves and make ourselves.’ Everybody wrote that down. ‘Any questions?’ asked Howard. The answer to this never changed. Silence. But it was an interesting breed of silence particular to upscale liberal arts colleges. It was not silent because nobody had anything to say – quite the opposite. You could feel it, Howard could feel it, millions of things to say brewing in this room, so strong sometimes that they seemed to shoot from the students telepathically and bounce off the furniture. Kids looked down at the table top, or out of the window, or at Howard with great longing; some of the weaker ones blushed and pretended to take notes. But not one of them would speak. They had an intense fear of their peers. And, more than that, of Howard himself. When he first began teaching he had tried, stupidly, to coax them out of this fear – now he positively relished it. The fear was respect, the respect, fear. If you didn’t have the fear you had nothing. ‘Nothing? Have I really been so very thorough? Not a single question?’ A carefully preserved English accent also upped the fear factor. Howard let the silence stretch a little. He turned to the board and slowly unpeeled the photocopy, letting tongueless questions pelt his back. His own questions kept him mentally occupied as he rolled Rembrandt into a tight white stick. How much longer on the divan? Why does the sex have to mean everything?

• From On Beauty (2005)

  All this was made  kipps and belsey more poignant and difficult for Kiki by Monique’s weave: a cheap, orange synthetic hairpiece that was in need of renewal, and today seemed further back than ever on her skull, attached by thin threads to her own sparse hair. ‘I start in here?’ asked Monique timidly. Her hand hovered near the high zip of her coat, but she did not undo it. ‘Actually, Monique, could you start in the study – my study,’ said Kiki quickly and over something Howard was starting to say. ‘Is that OK? Please don’t move any papers – just pile them up, if you can.’ Monique stood where she was, clutching her zip. Kiki stayed in her strange moment, nervous of what this black woman thought of another black woman paying her to clean. ‘Zora will show you – Zora, show Monique, please, just go on, show her where.’ Zora began to vault up the stairs three at a time, Monique trudging behind her. Howard came out from behind the pro-scenium and into his marriage. ‘If this happens,’ said Howard levelly, between sips of coffee, ‘Monty Kipps will be an in-law. Of ours. Not somebody else’s in-law. Ours .’ ‘Howard,’ said Kiki with equal control, ‘please, no ‘‘routines’’. We’re not on stage. I’ve just said I don’t want to talk about this now. I know you heard me.’ Howard gave a little bow. ‘Levi needs money for a cab. If you want to worry about something, worry about that. Don’t worry about the Kippses.’ ‘Kippses?’ called Levi, from somewhere out of sight. ‘Kippses who? Where they at?’ This faux Brooklyn accent belonged to neither Howard nor Kiki, and had only arrived in Levi’s mouth three years earlier, as he turned twelve. Jerome and Zora had been born in England, Levi in America. But all their various American accents seemed, to Howard, in some way artificial – not quite the products of this house of his wife. None, though, was as inexplicable as Levi’s. Brooklyn? The Belseys were located two hundred miles north of Brooklyn. Howard  On Beauty felt very close to commenting on it this morning (he had been warned by his wife not to comment on it), but now Levi appeared from the hallway and disarmed his father with a gappy smile before biting the top off a muffin he held in his hand. ‘Levi,’ said Kiki, ‘honey, I’m interested – do you know who I am? Pay any attention at all to anything that goes on around here? Remember Jerome? Your brother? Jerome no here? Jerome cross big sea to place called England?’ Levi held a pair of sneakers in his hands. These he shook in the direction of his mother’s sarcasm and, scowling, sat down to begin putting them on. ‘So? And what?

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  The fiction of the self, paralleling the Buddhist idea, is that you have some enduring essence that makes you who you are. You do not. I speculate that your self is constructed anew in every moment by the same predictive, core systems that construct emotions, including our familiar pair of networks (interoceptive and control), among others, as they categorize the continuous stream of sensation from your body and the world. As a matter of fact, a portion of the interoceptive network, called the default mode network, has been called the “self system.” It consistently increases in activity during self-reflection. If you have atrophy in your default mode network, as happens in Alzheimer’s disease, you eventually lose your sense of self.38 Deconstructing the self offers a new inspiration for how to become the master of your emotions. By tweaking your conceptual system and changing your predictions, you not only change your future experiences; you can actually change your “Self.” Suppose you are feeling bad—worried because you are struggling with your finances, angry that you did not receive the promotion you deserved, dejected because your teacher believes you are not as intelligent as other students, or heartbroken because your lover abandoned you. A Buddhist mindset would describe these feelings as the suffering that results from clinging to material wealth, reputation, power, and security in an effort to reify the self. In the language of the theory of constructed emotion, wealth, reputation, and the rest are firmly within your affective niche, impacting your body budget, which ultimately leads you to construct instances of unpleasant emotions. Deconstructing the self for a moment allows you to reduce the size of your affective niche so concepts like “Reputation,” “Power,” and “Wealth” become unnecessary.39 Western culture has some common wisdom associated with these ideas. Don’t be materialistic. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Sticks and stones. But I am asking you to take this one step further. When you are suffering from some ill or insult that has befallen you, ask yourself: Are you really in jeopardy here? Or is this so-called injury merely threatening the social reality of your self ? The answer will help you recategorize your pounding heartbeat, the knot in the pit of your stomach, and your sweaty brow as purely physical sensations, leaving your worry, anger, and dejection to dissolve like an antacid tablet in water.40 I’m not saying this kind of recategorization is easy, but with practice it’s possible, and it’s also healthful. When you categorize something as “Not About Me,” it exits your affective niche and has less impact on your body budget. Similarly, when you are successful and feel proud, honored, or gratified, take a step back and remember that these pleasant emotions are entirely the result of social reality, reinforcing your fictional self. Celebrate your achievements but don’t let them become golden handcuffs. A little composure goes a long way.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Except for the Rev. Rigor Mortis (as the girls called him), and an old gentleman who taught non-obligatory German and Latin, there were no regular male teachers at Beardsley School. But on two occasions an art instructor on the Beardsley College faculty had come over to show the schoolgirls magic lantern pictures of French castles and nineteenth-century paintings. I had wanted to attend those projections and talks, but Dolly, as was her wont, had asked me not to, period. I also remembered that Gaston had referred to that particular lecturer as a brilliant garçon; but that was all; memory refused to supply me with the name of the chateau-lover. On the day fixed for the execution, I walked through the sleet across the campus to the information desk in Maker Hall, Beardsley College. There I learned that the fellow’s name was Riggs (rather like that of the minister), that he was a bachelor, and that in ten minutes he would issue from the “Museum” where he was having a class. In the passage leading to the auditorium I sat on a marble bench of sorts donated by Cecilia Dalrymple Ramble. As I waited there, in prostatic discomfort, drunk, sleep-starved, with my gun in my fist in my raincoat pocket, it suddenly occurred to me that I was demented and was about to do something stupid. There was not one chance in a million that Albert Riggs, Ass. Prof., was hiding my Lolita at his Beardsley home, 24 Pritchard Road. He could not be the villain. It was absolutely preposterous. I was losing my time and my wits. He and she were in California and not here at all. Presently, I noticed a vague commotion behind some white statues; a door—not the one I had been staring at—opened briskly, and amid a bevy of women students a baldish head and two bright brown eyes bobbed, advanced. He was a total stranger to me but insisted we had met at a lawn party at Beardsley School. How was my delightful tennis-playing daughter? He had another class. He would be seeing me. Another attempt at identification was less speedily resolved: through an advertisement in one of Lo’s magazines I dared to get in touch with a private detective, an ex-pugilist, and merely to give him some idea of the method adopted by the fiend, I acquainted him with the kind of names and addresses I had collected. He demanded a goodish deposit and for two years—two years, reader!—that imbecile busied himself with checking those nonsense data. I had long severed all monetary relations with him when he turned up one day with the triumphant information that an eighty-year-old Indian by the name of Bill Brown lived near Dolores, Colo.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  The voice – young-sounding and very London – threw Howard for a moment. ‘ Hi .’ ‘Sorry, who’s this?’ ‘I’m . . . who’s that?’ ‘This is the Kipps residence. Who’s that ?’ ‘Ah – the son, right.’ ‘Pardon? Who is this?’ ‘Er . . . look, I need to – this is awkward – I’m Jerome’s father and – ’ ‘Oh, right, let me just call him – ’ ‘No – no – no, wait – one minute – ’ ‘ ’Sno trouble – he’s having dinner, but I can call him – ’ ‘No, don’t – I – look, I don’t want to . . . Thing is, I’ve just come from Boston . . . we only just heard, you see – ’ ‘OK,’ said the voice in an exploratory way that Howard couldn’t get a handle on. ‘Well,’ said Howard, swallowing hard, ‘I’d quite like to sound out someone in the family a little . . . before I speak properly to Jerome – he didn’t explain much – and obviously . . . I’m sure your father – ’ ‘My father’s eating too. Do you want to – ’ ‘No . . . no, no, no, no, no , I mean, he won’t want to . . . no . . . no, no – I just . . . whole thing’s a bloody mess, of course, it’s just  kipps and belsey a matter of – ’ began Howard, but then could not think what indeed it was a matter of. A cough came down the line. ‘Look, I don’t understand – do you want me to get Jerome?’ ‘I’m right near you, actually – ’ Howard blurted. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Yes . . . I’m calling from a phone-box . . . I don’t really know this bit of town and . . . no map, you see. You couldn’t . . . pick me up maybe? I’m rather – I’ll only get lost if I try to get to you – no sense of direction at all . . . I’m just at the station.’ ‘Right. It’s really an easy walk, I could give you directions.’ ‘If you could just pop up here, it would be very helpful – it’s getting dark already and I know I’ll take a wrong turn, and . . .’ Howard cringed into the silence. ‘I’d just like to ask you a few things, you see – before I see Jerome.’ ‘All right,’ said the voice at last, tetchy now. ‘Well – let me get my coat, yeah? Outside the station, right? Queen’s Park.’ ‘Queens . . . ? No, I, er . . . Oh, Christ , I’m at Kilburn – is that wrong? I thought you were in Kilburn.’ ‘Not really. We’re between the two, closer to Queen’s Park.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  Withdrawals from your body’s budget don’t require actual physical movement. Suppose you see your boss, teacher, or baseball coach walking toward you. You believe that she judges everything you say and do. Even though no physical movement seems called for, your brain predicts that your body needs energy and makes a budget withdrawal, releasing cortisol and flooding glucose into your bloodstream. You also have a surge in interoceptive sensations. Stop and think about this for a minute. Someone merely walks toward you while you are standing still, and your brain predicts that you need fuel! In this manner, any event that significantly impacts your body budget becomes personally meaningful to you. Not long ago, my lab was evaluating a portable device for monitoring the heart. Whenever the wearer’s heart rate sped up 15 percent above normal, the device would beep. One of my graduate students, Erika Siegel, was wearing the device as she worked quietly at her desk, and it remained silent for some time. At one point, I walked into the room. When Erika turned and saw me (her Ph.D. advisor), the device beeped loudly, to her embarrassed surprise and to the amusement of everyone else around us. Later in the day, I spent time wearing the device, and during a meeting with Erika, it beeped several times as I received emails from a granting agency. (So Erika had the last laugh that day.)31 My lab has experimentally demonstrated the brain’s budgeting efforts hundreds of times (as have other labs), observing as people’s body-budgeting circuitry shifts resources around, and sometimes as their body budgets fluctuate in and out of balance. We ask volunteers to sit completely motionless in front of a computer screen and view pictures of animals, flowers, babies, food, money, guns, surfers, skydivers, car crashes, and other objects and scenes. These pictures impact their body budget; heart rates go up, blood pressures change, blood vessels dilate. These budgetary changes, which prepare the body to fight or flee, occur even though the volunteers are not moving and have no conscious plan to move. When our volunteers view these pictures during an fMRI experiment, we observe their body-budgeting regions controlling these inner-body movements. And even though our subjects are lying down, completely motionless, they simulate motor movements like running and surfing, as well as the sensations from moving muscles, joints, and tendons. The pictures also change our volunteers’ feelings as interoceptive changes in their bodies are being simulated and corrected. Based on these and hundreds of other studies, we now have good evidence that your brain predicts your body’s responses by drawing on prior experiences with similar situations and objects, even when you’re not physically active. And the consequence is interoceptive sensation.32

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  a good occasion. For I will fall down when I come yonder, bending my legs beneath me, and surely I will not rise again for any scourging or beating, and not only will I defy the cudgel, but even be pierced by the sword, if they shall use it upon me." And the cause why I determined so to do was this: I thought that I was so utterly feeble and weak that I deserved my discharge for ill health, and certainly that the robbers (partly for that they would not stay in their journey, partly in haste to flee) would take off the burden from my back, and put it upon my two fellows, and so for my further punishment leave me as a prey to the wolves and ravenous beasts. But evil fortune prevented so good a consideration ; for the other ass, being of the same purpose that I was of, and forestalling me, by feigned and coloured weari- ness fell down first with all his burden upon the ground as though he were dead, and he would not rise neither with beating nor pricking, nor stand upon his feet, though they pulled him all about by the tail, by his legs, and by his ears; which when the thieves beheld, as without all hope, they said one to another : “ What, should we stand here so long about adead orrathera stony ass? Let us be gone " ; and so they took his burden and divided some to me and some to my horse. And then they drew their swords and cut through all his hamstrings, and dragged him a little from the way, and threw his body while he yet breathed from the point of a hill down into a great valley. Then I, considering with myself of the evil fortune of my poor companion, purposed now to forget all subtlety and deceit and to play the good ass to get my masters' favour, for I perceived by their talk that we were well nigh come home to our journey’s end where they lived and» had their 151 LUCIUS APULEIUS illa et habitatio. Clementi denique transmisso clivulo, pervenimus ad locum destinatum, ubi rebus totis exsolutis atque intus conditis, iam pondere liberatus lassitudinem vice lavacri pulvereis volutatibus dige-

• From On Beauty (2005)

  The images were faint, ageing. ‘I have no idea when those were taken.’ ‘Sure,’ said Victoria. ‘Tell it to the judge.’ ‘I’ve never seen them before.’ ‘You know what I thought when I saw them? Rembrandt’s portraits. Right? Not that one – but look at that one, with your hair all over your eyes. And it works because you look older in that one than that one . . .’ She was leaning into him, shoulder to shoulder. Howard touched one of his faces softly with his own thumb. It was Howard Belsey. This was what people saw as he moved through the world. ‘Anyway . . . they’re mine now,’ she said, snatching them back. She folded the strip in half and put it in her pocket.  on beauty and being wrong ‘So tonight – you picking me up? Like in the movies – I’ll wear a corsage and then later I’ll throw up on your shoes.’ She moved away from him and took one step up, her arms stretched between the banister and the wall, swaying forward and back, fatally like one of Howard’s own children back in  Langham. ‘I don’t think . . .’ began Howard, and then started again. ‘What is it that we’re meant to be going to?’ ‘Emerson Hall. Three professors a table. You’re mine. Food, drink, speeches, go home. Not complicated.’ ‘Does your . . . Monty – does he know you’re going with me?’ Victoria rolled her eyes. ‘No – but he’ll think it’s perfect . He thinks Mike and I should always put ourselves in the paths of liberals. He says you learn how not to be stupid that way.’ ‘Victoria,’ said Howard and made an effort to look her in her eyes, ‘I think you should find someone else to go with. I think it’s inappropriate. And, to be honest, I’m really not in the right state at the moment to go to some – ’ ‘Oh, my God – hello? Girl whose mother just died. You are so bloody self-obsessed.’ Victoria climbed back up the stairs and put her hand to the fire door. Her eyes filmed over with ready tears. Howard felt sorry for her, naturally, but mostly he felt extremely anxious that if she were to cry it should be far away from here and him, before anyone came down these stairs or through that door. ‘Of course, I recognize that . . . of course . . . but I’m just saying . . . you know, we’ve made this . . . awful mess and the best thing now is to stop it exactly where it – just draw a line before more people are hurt.’ Victoria laughed horribly. ‘ But isn’t that true? ’ Howard pleaded in a whisper. ‘ Wouldn’t that be best? ’ ‘Best for who?

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  During the late sixties, early seventies, I was principally a student who wrote poetry. A Ph.D. candidate in eighteenth-century English literature at Columbia, I also taught at City College of New York. I slogged back and forth from 116th Street and Broadway to 135th Street and Convent Avenue with a briefcase bursting with my students’ blue books for English literature from Chaucer to Pope and for freshman composition. I was overworked, underpaid and full of angst about my future. I had just been through the shattering experience of nursing my first love through a schizophrenic breakdown that finished our marriage. I wanted to be a writer but I had no idea how to begin. Between graduate courses and teaching, I wrote poems—poetry has proven to be my creative lifeline to this day—but I hardly had the time to start the novel I longed to write. Or perhaps I was just scared. If poems were read at all, it was by a tiny readership. A novel might really expose me to public view. I loved my students at CCNY, but I wasn’t sure the Ph.D. program at Columbia was right for me. I wanted to write my own books instead of reading other people’s books about books about books. I was too much a good girl and a compulsive student not to keep winning fellowships I didn’t really want, but I didn’t have the guts to break out of academe. Like all writers, I was terrified of walking down the street naked. Like all writers, I feared I was a fraud. Writing seemed risky. Teaching seemed practical. How could I know my life would prove the opposite true? I wanted to write the novel to end all novels, but I was afraid to fail, to fall, to fly. So I did what I always did those days when I was in a quandary. I fell in love with a man who I thought was offering escape. Escape—whether it takes the form of marriage or the Foreign Legion—is an illusion. We all know that we take ourselves along wherever we go. My second marriage to a young psychiatrist (after a schizophrenic, a psychiatrist seemed safe) may have seemed like a way of escape but it wound up plunging me back into myself. Though we hardly knew it publicly in 1966, the Vietnam War was already under way. My second husband was drafted in the first doctors’ draft since the Korean War. He chose to give the Army three years so he could go to Europe rather than ‘Nam—and I followed.