Letters

The novel  Eyeless in Gaza Damon LaBarbera Eyeless in Gaza  was written by the English scribe Aldous Huxley in 1936 and describes, in achronological chapters, the interacting lives of a privileged cohort over decades. Although it may not be Huxley's best-known book and is somewhat obscure nowadays, I very much value the book.  Some readers opine, and I am inclined to agree, that this book is equal to  or superior to his more famous books, including  Brave New World or Doors of Perception.   Eyeless in Gaza is  written in that style which Huxley so masters--detachedly humorous, perceptive, and funny--and, strangely enough, spiritual. The prose gives us entry to the inner monologue, sometimes wickedly depicted, of his protagonists (assuming a book can have more than one protagonist).  The characters are finely tuned, struggling with ethical issues and living the extraordinarily free and thoughtful lives of well-to-do intellectuals of that day. T his...

  A psychiatrist in Panama City, Florida, recently died, I was very sorry to hear. I was an intimate part of the mental health community in Panama City from the mid-eighties to 2020. Attrition of old friends and mentors and acquaintances proceeds at an accelerated pace after 60, and the normalcy of the subjective experience, over time, if that is what it is, rather than a sort of numbing, is one of the strangest adaptive qualities of older age. The world's structures, rules, and mores stay roughly the same, but it is peopled with a new set of actors. In any case, I was very sorry to hear of Dr. Zumarraga's death. He was a kind and competent individual from the Philippines, and one aspect of our friendship was that my Dad had served in Manilla during the forties, during the conflagration of that city. At the same time, Dr. Zumaragga was a youngster there. I first met Dr. Zumarraga at the Life Management Center in 1986. He attended weekly meetings to provide psychiatric coverage....