Did you know that each peaceful, natural death at age eighty-one is a tragedy without compare?
Young people rarely think about death, for it seems to be so far removed from them. Unlike them, Lenny spends a lot of time pondering about it. The man writes, “Did you know that each peaceful, natural death at age eighty-one is a tragedy without compare?”, for he himself is not getting younger. The man is afraid that one day he is not going to open his eyes and the world won’t even notice that he, the one and only Lenny Abramov, is no longer alive. Neither our “complex personalities” nor our “cerebral cortexes shimmering with floating words” will ever exist again. This thought is slightly frightful.
Why is it so hard to be a grown-up man in this world?
Lenny is not just “a grown-up man in this world”, he is a quickly aging grown-up man in this world! To make the situation even worse, he is hopelessly in love with a young woman who can only say one thing about him, “You’re old, Len.” Lenny says that his “youth has passed, but the wisdom of the age hardly beckons”, which basically means that he is at loss. However, a life is always hard, no matter how old a person is.
I think a part of me is falling in love with Ben, but I know it can’t happen, because another, sick part of me thinks that my dad is always going to be the only man for me.
Eunice seems to be a confident young woman who knows what she wants and her own worth. However, it is only an illusion. Like many other children of tyrannical parents, she is rather insecure about herself. The vivid example of it is her affair with Ben. One part of her want to fall in love with Ben, but “it can’t happen.” The main reason of it is the idea that her “dad is going to be the only one man” for her. He plays such an important role in her life that she can’t get rid of his influence. It is rather important for parents to remember that their task is to bring up an individual not a marionette.
