Letters, page 50
Having smashed up both legs moderately badly—I did the same last year, along with my right arm, in a Bronx gutter,[*11] not a Norwegian mountain—I myself certainly find “purely physical” pain much easier to bear. But then physical pain—especially if it is gnawing or recurrent—can erode one’s morale and call out “mood pain” (as you say in your paper). Thus I have had a grumbling, infernal, unstable “disc” for 25 years…and this can seriously undo my morale; so that I think “I’d give a limb to be rid of this pain, this chronic hateful brittleness, vulnerability”—I never found an acute injury or pain “hateful” in this sort of way. I have also known in myself and heard from others, how hateful a migraine can be: Freud said of his (migraines): “the essential man is unaffected,” but this may have been more an expression of his strength of will, or “ego.” I think “the essential man” can be almost swept away, and one may have to “hold on” through a migraine’s fury, as through a psychosis (though this, admittedly, is the other extreme).
I have written more—and more “confessionally”—than I intended. I take the liberty of sending you my Migraine, of which a new edition comes out this month (but it adds little to, and may be worse than, the original 1970 one).
With kindest regards,
Oliver
To Kate Edgar
August 30, 1985
119 Horton St., City Island, NY
Dear Kate,
I hope you are well. I have been meaning to get in touch with you for a longish time, but have felt…inhibited, hesitant, uncertain, whatever…
One (perhaps minor) thing which bothered me—but I should hate to be seen as ungrateful—is this: that Colin decided to cut all Editorial Acknowledgements out of the book (including, therefore, your name—and his own), basically because he cannot bear to be in the same room, or the same paragraph, as Jim Silberman. But you know, and I know, and he knows, and Jim knows, and others know, what a crucial part you played in the genesis and organization and editing of this book, even if it is not formally expressed (as it should be). I take the liberty of sending you a copy of the advance proofs, which you may very much recognize and feel as your book.
For various reasons, production and publication has been delayed. […] Therefore the US publication is rescheduled for the first weeks of January. […] I am feeling mildly annoyed with Summit about the whole thing. I expressed this, though not too strongly—because I like him—to Jim: I also said that if there had been someone like you around, this would not have happened, and that I was now concerned with the next (the Tourette) book, which would need exceptionally discerning and sensitive editorial guidance and help. […] I asked him whether, if I worked with you, Summit would accommodate you and pay you appropriately. He said yes, of course, and that I should contact you. But, as I said at the start, I somehow couldn’t, or didn’t […] because I wouldn’t want to make any working between us contingent on any arrangement with Summit. […]
What I am leading up to, I suppose, is […] whether we might make some sort of private arrangement between us, my retaining you as—I can think of no term general enough!—but as some sort of literary/intellectual factotum, inciting, organizing, typing, editing, etc.: a Tourette book, in particular, but also other things: odd pieces, case-histories, essays, lectures, etc. I need someone to turn to—though quite WHAT would be involved, I don’t know. Sometimes, as you know, I can write enormously in a very short time—and then I may fall into a dead period when I find it difficult to do anything. And, of course, you yourself are working full-time; you have […] I know not what other commitments and demands on your own time. […]
Anyhow, do, please, give me your thoughts on all this—how you feel, how you stand, and so forth.
And, again, more thanks than I can express for your crucial part in making The Man Who…possible.
Yours,
Oliver
To Samuel Sacks
September 21, 1985
119 Horton St., City Island, NY
Dear Pop,
First—we have exchanged telegrams—all my best wishes for the New Year. […]
This is something of an “in-between” time for me—it always is, when I am waiting for a book, and I have not found it too easy to settle my mind on anything much. An unexpected interest this summer has been deafness: the problems of the congenitally deaf, and sign language. I will be doing an Essay-Review on this […] for the NY Review of Books—but in so doing have aroused my own interest in the subject, and the unexpected light it casts on language and languagelessness—this makes it a “neurological” subject, like Aphasia. Last weekend, in my super new-car, a Toyota Cressida—which I love and which, for the first time in years, lets me feel safe, and gives me some pleasure, driving—last weekend, then, I drove up to Cape Cod, and then took the ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard, an island (next to Nantucket) settled in the 1640’s and where, in the remoter, more isolated (and more inbred) villages there was a singular hereditary deafness for 250 years (first noted in the 1690’s, the last deaf disappeared in the 1950’s). What is fascinating here is that everyone learned sign language, hearing and deaf alike, so there was none of the usual isolation, discrimination, etc. which can make the lot of the deaf so painful elsewhere. I found it a very moving and interesting experience.
My Chair[*12] at Sarah Lawrence has an inaugural Lecture soon, and will then settle down to a series of Thursday evenings, 2–3 hours each, in which I will deal with various aspects of Human Nature—Memory, Language, Identity, etc., as these may be illuminated by Neurology. It will be my first experience with undergraduates—philosophy students, etc—I hope it goes well. Things will be recorded—perhaps it can provide a foundation or form for a book.
I have also now been formally invited to a “Regents” Professorship at the University of California, and will spend February in residence on the Santa Cruz campus (this is fairly close to San Francisco)—it will get me out of the dreadful weather here, and into a State I have never ceased to love. […]
I will be breaking the fast with [Madeline Gardner] and family. All of them, as well as the Weinbergers[*13] up in Canada, join me in wishing you a Happy New Year, and, soon, a Happy Ninetieth as well!
All my love,
Oliver
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In the fall of 1985, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was published in the United Kingdom.
To Richard Gregory
December 26, 1985
119 Horton St., City Island, NY
Dear Richard,
I just received a copy of your review in New Society, and must write to you at once to express my gratitude and pleasure. I cannot write much more than this (or will be in trouble if I try), because I have a nasty ’flu with a highish temperature, and will fly into febrile tangents if I try to think (but perhaps I do that anyway).
There is no-one whose judgement in “our” realms I respect more than yours, and as your review of Awakenings (can it be 12½ years ago?) was crucial in allowing me to come to terms with it, so your review of Hat will assist me to come to terms with what may be a considerably more eccentric production. […]
I am not sure how much I myself can answer the question of how much is actually observed and how much “interpretative creation,” as you so nicely put it—they seem to merge into one another, hintings into guessings. The theorist and/or the dramatist in me may push towards some sort of completion or formulation, even leap to this, without my being quite aware of what is happening. When I showed “Witty Ticcy Ray” the piece on him—perhaps in itself an impropriety or cruelty, like showing the mirror to Jimmie,[*14] but I have never known how open to be in this delicate and difficult matter of writing about my own patients—he first said, severely: “You take a few liberties!” But when I took out my red pen, and said “What shall I remove?” he said “It’s essentially true. Leave it as it is.” I am somewhat haunted by all this. I was going to quote in my preface Molloy’s words: “Perhaps I am inventing a little, perhaps embellishing, but on the whole that’s the way it was”—but Colin forbade me! On the whole I have found it difficult enough to try to imagine how things were, or might have been, with so many of the patients: perhaps the essential question has always been: “How is it, how might it be, with such-and-such a person in such-and-such a situation?” and I cannot disentangle observation and interpretation in the attempt to reach some construction. But perhaps I should have sought to be more conscious, or more explicit, in laying bare my assumptions. The next book, I think, will be a series of “Essays”—thematic rather than narrative in approach—and an Essay may permit what a Tale does not.
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I have felt for a long time that there was a certain parallel between us, your examining Illusions as I approach Diseases, both of us seeing in these “simplified” situations the possibility of delineating Mechanisms, or Strategies, “normally” invisible. I suppose this has always been the justification of “pathologizing,” and the analogy so often made with experimenting.
Beyond this there lies a deeper parallel, in that we are both driven, by our experiments, or observations, to Philosophy—or, rather, to “philosophize.” This is oddly rare, even suspect. Did not Rutherford[*15] say to his new workers at the start of each academic year: “I’ll have no discussion of the Universe in this laboratory!” You and I, without losing our scientific marbles (at least you don’t lose yours, I may sometimes lose mine) feel compelled by our observations to think about Inner Worlds, Inner Universes, the constructing powers and mechanisms of Mind. […]
I am very glad you spoke, in your review, of the dignity of the patients (even though often subject to the most terrible indignities). I don’t think of this much, but I suppose it is implicit, and forms, somehow, the moral centre of the doctor/patient relation and work; that provided one respects the patient, one can do or say almost anything (if one does not, one may become a Doctor Moreau or Mengele). I hope I respect them, even though I often laugh at or with them; it is curious how much laughing there can be in the most awful places and situations. People often say “How can you work in these frightful grim places, with these incurable diseases?” but there is dignity and humour all the way (otherwise it would be intolerable). […]
I hope you are in good health and spirits, and effervescing as usual with new work and ideas. And I thank you more than I can say for your lovely review.
All my best wishes for the New Year,
Oliver
To F. Robert Rodman
January 26, 1986
119 Horton St., City Island, NY
Dear Bob,
[…] I have felt, if not actually exhausted, close to exhaustion for the last 3–4 months; and if not actually ill, then close to illness (the very words “close to” are ominous, evocative: should one think of Health and Illness as Lands? Contiguous, adjacent, whatever? Like Gowers’ “Borderlands of Epilepsy”?). I did get a horrible and persistent ’flu around Xmas—an unprecedented bronchitis/pneumonitis, fever around 102. Then England—rushing round, and a very distressing situation at home: my brother, floridly psychotic, physically attacking my old father—and everyone, apparently, in a state of laissez-faire, saying there was no call to do anything unless there was an “emergency.” Then back here, to a mountain of piled-up work, correspondence, etc, and a mounting mountain of “publicity” etc. associated with Hat here—and promptly fell ill again, I thought with a Shigella, a beastly dysenteric thing with a high fever, but it subsided after five days. Maybe it was a relapse of the ’flu. So I am not just speaking metaphorically when I say “close to illness,” even tho’ the “illness” is (mercifully) trifling. The whole organism is exhausted—I have never felt so unfit, so stressed, so lacking basic physical resistance to trifles. I can only hope that I find California “relaxing”—I dare not hope that it would actually be “refreshing” or “regenerative”—and not an ordeal which I have to go through.
Clearly, to use the Californian word, I need some “Stress-Reduction”—I have never been so conscious of “Stress.” Clearly there must be some good thinking and doing in the economy of life—I find (for example) that I am receiving nearly 5000 letters a year, many interesting, many with attached manuscripts, theses, books, theories, poems, etc. And I feel compelled to answer them all. (One of the reasons why I sounded low when we spoke was that I had been answering letters since five in the morning.) Paradoxically, with finding myself the world’s correspondent, my genuine correspondence—as with a few choice spirits and minds like yourself—my genuine correspondence has taken a beating. I no longer have time, leisure, to write proper letters, since I am too “busy,” every day, “dealing with correspondence” (to say nothing of a score or more phone calls). And sleeping, and eating, and exercise, is all awry—I eat grossly, sleep poorly, have had no exercise for months. Bad. Bad at an animal level. The animal’s in bad shape.
But what worries me more is “spiritual” sickness—I mean neurosis (though not just neurosis). Shengold suggested, with some hesitancy, some months ago, that I should consider going deeper with him—there has been no “analysis” for years, but a (relatively superficial) “supportive” therapy. Obviously more than this, but still not deep. This has kept me alive, kept me going, kept me “functioning,” in a fashion and perhaps made possible my brief bouts of creativity (I was going to write “ecstasy,” but am not sure how much ecstasies are connected with creativity. I have known no ecstasy of mind since 1982, though for the 15 years before this I had several ecstasies a year, some a few minutes, some—sweet and mild—lasting weeks). He has hesitated, and I have hesitated, he feels hesitation is right—for I may not tolerate anything “deeper.” Perhaps I only “function” at all through keeping the deep at a remove. He also observes that I don’t complain, say, of sexual deprivation—though this is absolute, and has been, for at least seven years (tho’ I complain frequently, and increasingly, of “loneliness” and “boredom”). But what most concerns me—for I would, not gladly but resignedly, suffer any instinctual or relational gratification if I could hold on to some intellectual or creative depths—what most concerns me is the feeling of becoming superficial.
This has, perhaps, come to a sort of climax with Hat. Everyone says “Ah, it is brilliant” (and so it is), but I say to myself, and others perhaps say, “But compared with Awakenings it is shallow.” It lacks the passionate intensity, the passionate feeling for others’ lives, that that showed. I don’t know whether others feel this, but I certainly do. It seems to me that I no longer care as deeply for my patients as I did—so much so that on the rare occasions when I find myself caring, I have to fight back tears. This is partly because of a change in the patients I see—a third of my patients at Beth Abraham, for example, are in COMA. Not much relating with them, as a start. But there is also a change in me. I started to feel it (I think) in 1979—I see, as I leaf back through my notes, a perceptible decline in concern and passion starting then (it was in 1979, coincidentally, that I […] perhaps closed my heart to any future or possible love-relationships). […]
Perhaps it is also, specifically, something to do with enterprises—Awakenings was a grand enterprise, so too was my Tourette thing. (I am violently riled that I have not felt able to write about [Tourette’s], because this could be a great book, on a great theme, while all the rest, even if “brilliant,” is piddling and fiddling and trifling around.) I have not had any real enterprises since ’76, and I am not hopeful that I will have any “enterprises” again (I could not help contrasting this feeling, wistfully, and rather enviously, with your feeling of bubbling with a thousand, or at least lots of things to do). I am not actually doing anything. I have nothing to do. I am drifting, and Hat was merely a random collection of odds-and-ends caught while drifting. Or is this a self-libel, a falling-back into the depressive position?
I was reading a biography of Reich[*16] which the publishers sent me some months ago. With admiration, with pity, with all sorts of feelings. How mad his later enterprises became; and yet how they energized him and those who went with him. I found myself thinking: what is “better”—a mad enterprise, a mad energy, or none at all? But merely to ask such a question is itself depressive. Because these are not real choices: the real thing is good enterprise—a good enterprise, lots of them, full of good feeling, good energy. This is what I felt, almost flame-like, flaming in you today.
* * *
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When I spilled some of these feelings over to Eric—I do not generally spill them: only occasionally, and to very old and special friends like you and Eric—he said tersely, “But you’re having no sex.” And I have a feeling that Shengold said something like this—but more delicately and deeply. Is the superficiality of my work, then, due to superficiality of relationships—to running away from whatever has deeper feeling and meaning? Is this perhaps spoken of, in a camouflaged way, when I describe the “superficialization” of various patients—tho’ in their cases (“A Matter of Identity,” “Yes, Father-Sister,” etc) it is due to organic disease? I speak of the fascination and horror of “equalization”—and clearly I see this as some sort of allegory for myself. But it is a false one, because it excludes dynamic. What is going on in myself is distancing, remove.
I had difficulty responding to your book,[*17] partly because of its so-manifest warmth and concern—both for your patients, and the predicaments and problems they exemplify; partly, specifically, because it made me yearn as a patient—“How lucky his patients are to have him!” I thought—and contrasted this with my feeling of unsatisfactoriness in my own therapy. Though it was just about this time that Shengold made his suggestion of “going deeper.”
