The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Angst, Authorship, Critics: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions
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They suggest that earlier generations often masked their anxieties by more | They suggest that earlier generations often masked their anxieties by more | ||
freely using opiates, but that particular escape from stress was increasingly | freely using opiates, but that particular escape from stress was increasingly | ||
blocked from the 1980s onward.<sup>20< | blocked from the 1980s onward.<sup>20<sup> As we have said, there was plenty of angst | ||
going around. The term nervous breakdown “began to cover a wide range of definitions,” embracing “a multiplicity of symptoms." {{sgn|Barke|2002|pp=569}} The very vagueness of the term no doubt increased its usefulness. While there were attempts to distinguish between mild and severe cases, such rational evaluations were not always successful: “Yet many descriptions of nervous breakdown belied this rational progression, insisting that the phenomenon always involved terrible pain: as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in ‘The | going around. The term nervous breakdown “began to cover a wide range of definitions,” embracing “a multiplicity of symptoms." {{sgn|Barke|2002|pp=569}} The very vagueness of the term no doubt increased its usefulness. While there were attempts to distinguish between mild and severe cases, such rational evaluations were not always successful: “Yet many descriptions of nervous breakdown belied this rational progression, insisting that the phenomenon always involved terrible pain: as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in ‘The | ||
Crack-Up,’ ‘Every act of life from the morning tooth-brush to the friend at | Crack-Up,’ ‘Every act of life from the morning tooth-brush to the friend at | ||