The ancient flavors of death and defeat

Not a book I have read but have merely found it via a review.

House of Meetings by the widely talented British author, Martin Amis.

The book, which is about the grim days of Russia under Stalin... but I won't get into the horrors that be*. Instead, I want to merely highlight this paragraph, that I found in its entirety at this blog post..

“There is a Western phenomenon called the male midlife crisis. Very often it is heralded by divorce. What history might have done to you, you bring about on purpose: separation from woman and child. Don’t tell me that such men aren’t tasting the ancient flavors of death and defeat.

In America, with divorce achieved, the midlifer can expect to be more recreational, more discretionary. He can almost design the sort of crisis he is going to have: motorbike, teenage girlfriend, vegetarianism, jogging, sports car, mature boyfriend, cocaine, crash diet, powerboat, new baby, religion, hair transplant.

Over here, now, there’s no angling around for your male midlife crisis. It is brought to you and it is always the same thing. It is death.”

* I own copies of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 and Gulag Archipelago Volume 2 but have never had the heart to read them! Some day I will stop getting books from the library and read the ones I already own - which for the most part sit in boxes in the basement!