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Many friends have said to me that they love New York now in a way they never did before, and their love, I've noticed, takes for its object all the things that used to exasperate them--the curious combination of freedom, self-made fences, and paralyzing preoccupation that the city provides.

I don't know what the author means when he says "curious combination of freedom, self-made fences, and paralyzing preoccupation that the city provides." After he finishes all that, he talks about how his daughter loves bump into her imaginary friend. You can click on the link to see the later part.

link of source: http://www2.newton.k12.ma.us/~Joseph_Golding/FOV1-00043828/FOV1-00046D02/FOV1-0005AEAF/Bumping%20into%20Mr%20Ravioli.doc

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Since this is an example of narrative writing, he will not necessarily mean things literally.

The author is basically stating that his friends love New York now than they used to in the past. But the strange (curious) thing is that the reasons they love the city now are the same reasons they used to hate it before. The reasons were/are:

" the curious combination of"

a strange combination of

"freedom,"

the ability to do whatever you want

"self-made fences,"

creating emotional, physical and social barriers between themselves and other people

"and paralyzing preoccupation that the city provides."

and having so many choices and things to do in the city that you are constantly busy doing something that you are unable to think or act normally

These things are a "curious combination" because by themselves they may make sense, but put together (combined) they seem curious (strange) together and seem to work against each other.

Hope this makes sense.

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  • Do you acually mean: "and having so many choices and things to do in the city that you are constantly busy doing something AND you are unable to think or act normally"? English is not my first language, so I hope you can break it down a bit more. Thank you
    – pxc3110
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 22:37
  • I meant "that"- meaning being busy causes the inability to think and act normally. For example, have you ever had a very busy day at work/school where you were constantly moving around doing something? The side affects may be that your normal behavior changes- you forget to eat lunch, call home, or do something else that you normally would do. The author's point is the city's activities are like a distraction from normal behavior.
    – Gary
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 22:46
  • Thanks. Do you happen to know why they hated this way before but love it at present?
    – pxc3110
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 22:57
  • The author writes in the same paragraph right after your quoted text "… just bouncing from obligation to electronic entreaty, just spotting a friend and snatching a sandwich, just being busy, just living in New York." They hated how New York made them live like that. But then he writes "… [i]f everything we've learned in the past year could be summed up in a phrase, it's that we want to go on bumping into Charlie Ravioli for as long as we can." This was written in 2002, a year after 9/11. After that event people came to appreciate and accept life in the city as it was.
    – Gary
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 23:32

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