Narcissus Leaves the Pool

Narcissus Leaves the Pool is the title of a charming (as far as I can tell, having read only the first chapter thus far) book of essays by Joseph Epstein that I fortunately happened upon and purchased this morning at Barnes and Noble, courtesy of a gift card very kindly given me by my friends Hec and Woweene last night.

Epstein is the author of two books I have previously read, both of which I found delightful and insightful: the first, a slim volume entitled Envy; the second, heftier volume, a bestseller entitled Snobbery: The American Version.

Over panfried noodles enjoyed in an old haunt in DC's Chinatown, Full Kee, I pored over the engaging first essay of my newly purchased book (which gives the book its title, incidentally). Besides being elegant and witty, It's the kind of essay that speaks very powerfully to a mid-lifer like me.

The (then) sixty-one year old Epstein reflects on his body at 61, reviewing his relationship to it since his more athletic youth, to the present, when the natural processes of aging, while not exactly ravaging him, have certainly forced him to accept that, corporeally speaking, things are not what they used to be--and that they will never be the same again. 

Much of the essay confronts today's emphasis on fitness and healthy living as a form of denial of mortality. "At some point in one's life . . . one has to become reconciled to one's body, to play the cards that one was dealt," he writes. "But not quite any longer. The currently belief, widely held, is that we can do a lot to change things: lose weight, tone things up, somehow or other cheat the dealer." Epstein concludes: "We can, I suppose, for a while."

In the end, for Epstein, "Working out is, as T. S. Eliot described poetry, a mug's game. It is so because one cannot finally win at it."

"My own relationship with my body has changed gradually over the years," he reflects. "I used to think it an agreeable companion that yielded me great pleasure on many fronts. Today, I look at it somewhat paranoically, chiefly for signs of betrayal, for ways it might let me down."

Epstein is not maudlin or morbid, however. As he takes stock, he recognizes that the body given him "hasn't been a lemon. . . . It has chugged along pretty well and required relatively little servicing." 

And yet, he adds, "with so much mileage on it, breakdowns oughtn't come as a surprise."

His final paragraph is worth quoting at length. Maybe it is just me, looking at 50 coming around the corner. Yes, it is true that yesterday, I was flattered no end when my Argentinian barber, on discovering I was 49, announced to everyone in the barbershop: "Look, this guy's almost 50! Can you believe it? He looks 36!" (Although one, of course, wonders, whether Jose, my barber, was being unduly kind, since he knew I was a priest, and both he and the Italian owner of the barbershop were obviously Catholics.) 

But I am not 36. I am 49. And maybe that's why Epstein's final paragraph strikes me as both poignant and ineffably wise:

"Thrift and prudence may, with luck, make one wealthy. Thoughtfulness and learning may, with even more luck, make one wise. But there stands the body to mock both wealth and wisdom and every kind of accumulation. . . . Beyond a certain point one ceases to grow stronger, more beautiful, more desirable. Neither all the king's personal trainers nor all the king's cosmetic surgeons can put any of us together again. The body reminds us that we are in the swim only for a short, however glorious, while. Then, no matter what one's station in life, or what one's natural endowments, the whistle blows and it's everybody but everybody out of the pool, and that includes you--which is to say me--Narcissus, baby."