I was asked about the omission of Tender is the Night in the comments of the last post. The omission was not meant as a slight to the book. I have yet to meet the Fitzgerald book that I don't like (and, since he wrote so few, it's unlikely that I shall). But I don't own a copy, and so the litany of titles from the Lost Generation on my bookshelf doesn't include it. Tender is the Night is a thinly veiled autobiographical account of life with Zelda; whereas This Side of Paradise is a thinly veiled autobiographical account of life at Princeton and Fitzgerald's (first) engagement to Zelda. I'm unlikely to own a copy of Tender is the Night soon, but you should. Like Erasmus, I have a backlog of dozens of books that I haven't read to finish before I'm allowed to buy ones that I have read.
I'm currently working through The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton. A contemporary of Fitzgerald, this novel was published in 1920, but basically pokes fun at New York society of the 1890s. I'm finding it somewhat off-putting, and am just figuring out why. While Fitzgerald's works are clearly set in the problems of his own day and when he attacks the elder generation it's for their hypocrysy (really, did you believe no girls kissed boys before marriage?) that limits the preparation for life, and choices allowed, to his own (which just wants to lead a rich and leisurely life), Wharton's tone is more like the self-righteous later generation passing judgment from a throne of its own making. I'm finding the tone a bit grating in the same way I'd find a modern author passing an unfettered (and even snide, at times) judgment on, say, the 1980s, without ever seeming to recognize their own generation's follies. But, I am only about a third through the book and so will withhold final judgment for another time.
Okay and about face! This is a running blog, after all. I ran an easy (7:45 pace) 11.8 miles on Saturday. I wouldn't really call this a hard run, but I did throw in some fartlek and I realize that two months later I've lost a lot of my, as my dad would say, "get up and go." Yesterday, I hit the gym for 30 minutes on the mill. I decided that I wanted to run sub-7s. There was no particular reason for this; just a whim. So, I started at 7:30s and worked down to 6:00mm over the 1/2 hour, finishing at 4.5 miles in 30 minutes.
And a question, does one nice Saturday of spring-like weather before plunging back into winter satisfy the rat's prediction of an early spring?
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Let's make fun of Victorians
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2 comments:
Maybe you lost some of your "get up and go", but you certainly are still very fit.
If 7:45 is easy for you, and you can get the pace down to 6:00 like that, then your race times should be faster than the times you have on your sidebar.
I agree, T. But I did find it very hard to change gears mid-run, which I was trying to test. That sharpness'll come back, but it's gone today. I also agree that most of the race times are soft, but would be quick to point out that all (recent) bests, except the 10k, were during training for MCM. On the other hand, I've never really run much faster than 6mm at any distance (which is probably why I don't race faster than 6mm, no?).
Erin recently read (and enjoyed) both The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth; she also predicted when I started reading the former that I'd hate it.
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