Fear of Flying

After Brian, Isadora dated Charlie Fielding, a man who always looked like he was in mourning, though he was not. He was unselfconscious and oblivious to people around him. He was always horny but afraid of being “vulgar.” He lived on the income from his trust fund and what he earned conducting a choral group and giving piano lessons. His uncle, a famous ballroom dancer, had changed his last name from Feldstein to Fielding and gotten a nose job, and he had offered money to his entire family to do the same. Charlie had agreed to change his name but refused to alter his nose. He wrote a few unfinished symphonies and carried a conductor’s baton in his pocket. Others saw him as a failure, but he felt himself to be a misunderstood genius.

Charlie declared children to be “boring,” a grave insult in his view, though he also favored “banal” and “vulgar” when scorning others (299). Isadora was “madly” in love with him, though his personal hygiene was lax, including his failure to clean himself adequately after bowel movements. He played the piano, like Isadora’s father, and this aroused her. They met when they were both featured on a television show for young artists.