Subject
[Fwd: Re: Kinbote's health]
From
Date
Body
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I believe that Kinbote, even had he not committed suicide, would likely
have
soon died from cerebral sclerosis. My evidence follows:
⌠Whatever energy I possessed has quite ebbed away lately, and these
excruciating
headaches now make impossible the mnemonic effort and eye strain that
the
drawing of another such plan would demand.■ √ commentary to line 71
⌠┘these dark evenings that are destroying my brain.■ √ commentary to
line 130
⌠Migraine again worse today.■ √ commentary to line 181
⌠Certainly the migraines that have lately tormented me to such a degree
that I
once had to leave in the midst of a concert┘■ √ commentary to lines
376-377
⌠Often, almost nightly, throughout the spring of 1959, I had feared for
my
life┘ I cannot describe the depths of my loneliness and distress┘ I
suppose it
was then, on those masquerading spring nights with the sounds of new
life in the
trees cruelly mimicking the cracklings of old death in my brain┘ At
times I
thought that only by self-destruction could I hope to cheat the
relentlessly
advancing assassins who were in me, in my eardrums, in my pulse, in my
skull┘■ √
commentary to line 62
⌠Incidentally: the reader should not take too seriously or too
literally the
passage about the alert doctor (an alert doctor, who as I well know once
confused neuralgia with cerebral sclerosis).■ √ commentary to line 691
⌠The card (his twenty-fourth) with this passage (lines 287-299) is
marked July
7th, and under that date in my little agenda I find this scribble: Dr.
Ahlert,
3.30 P.M. Feeling a bit nervous, as most people do at the prospect of
seeing a
doctor┘ Ten minutes later Dr. A. √ who treated Shade, too √ was telling
me in
stolid detail that the Shades had rented a little ranch some friends of
theirs,
who were going elsewhere, had at Cedarn┘■ √ commentary to line 287
My first clue was that while I imagine some people attributed the
migraines as a
symptom of Kinbote▓s insanity, in actuality, mental illness is not
physically
painful. Dr. Ahlert is apparently the ⌠alert doctor■ from the poem,
and has
evidently diagnosed Kinbote with cerebral sclerosis. (I wasn▓t able to
find out
much from the internet about CS, most of the sites were very heavy on
the
medical jargon. But I did discover that while nowadays it seems to be
primarily
a problem of newborns, it is still invariably fatal.) So Kinbote was
told that
he only had a short time to live, and never being a stable person to
begin with,
went into denial, exteriorized the threat to Shadows, and escaped into
fantasy
(if Brian Boyd is right, perhaps nudged by the ghost of Hazel). Also,
apparently Dr. Ahlert hasn▓t quite got the knack of client
confidentiality, and
divulges personal information to other patients. One can well imagine
him
divulging to his other patient, Shade, that his neighbor, poor fellow,
is an
incurable case. It really makes Kinbote seem much more sympathetic to
realize
this, especially in rereading the comments to line 62. So lonely,
sitting there
in that big house, the only other sign of human habitation being the
lights from
Shade▓s house, waiting to die, his head pounding, one can excuse even
Kinbote▓s
execrable wish ⌠for the poet▓s suffering another heart attack■.
Steve Anderson
"D. Barton Johnson" wrote:
> From Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>:
>
> Kinbote's attempt, like Smurov's, was botched. Nabokov is dead. Kinbote
> lives.
<snip>
I believe that Kinbote, even had he not committed suicide, would likely
have
soon died from cerebral sclerosis. My evidence follows:
⌠Whatever energy I possessed has quite ebbed away lately, and these
excruciating
headaches now make impossible the mnemonic effort and eye strain that
the
drawing of another such plan would demand.■ √ commentary to line 71
⌠┘these dark evenings that are destroying my brain.■ √ commentary to
line 130
⌠Migraine again worse today.■ √ commentary to line 181
⌠Certainly the migraines that have lately tormented me to such a degree
that I
once had to leave in the midst of a concert┘■ √ commentary to lines
376-377
⌠Often, almost nightly, throughout the spring of 1959, I had feared for
my
life┘ I cannot describe the depths of my loneliness and distress┘ I
suppose it
was then, on those masquerading spring nights with the sounds of new
life in the
trees cruelly mimicking the cracklings of old death in my brain┘ At
times I
thought that only by self-destruction could I hope to cheat the
relentlessly
advancing assassins who were in me, in my eardrums, in my pulse, in my
skull┘■ √
commentary to line 62
⌠Incidentally: the reader should not take too seriously or too
literally the
passage about the alert doctor (an alert doctor, who as I well know once
confused neuralgia with cerebral sclerosis).■ √ commentary to line 691
⌠The card (his twenty-fourth) with this passage (lines 287-299) is
marked July
7th, and under that date in my little agenda I find this scribble: Dr.
Ahlert,
3.30 P.M. Feeling a bit nervous, as most people do at the prospect of
seeing a
doctor┘ Ten minutes later Dr. A. √ who treated Shade, too √ was telling
me in
stolid detail that the Shades had rented a little ranch some friends of
theirs,
who were going elsewhere, had at Cedarn┘■ √ commentary to line 287
My first clue was that while I imagine some people attributed the
migraines as a
symptom of Kinbote▓s insanity, in actuality, mental illness is not
physically
painful. Dr. Ahlert is apparently the ⌠alert doctor■ from the poem,
and has
evidently diagnosed Kinbote with cerebral sclerosis. (I wasn▓t able to
find out
much from the internet about CS, most of the sites were very heavy on
the
medical jargon. But I did discover that while nowadays it seems to be
primarily
a problem of newborns, it is still invariably fatal.) So Kinbote was
told that
he only had a short time to live, and never being a stable person to
begin with,
went into denial, exteriorized the threat to Shadows, and escaped into
fantasy
(if Brian Boyd is right, perhaps nudged by the ghost of Hazel). Also,
apparently Dr. Ahlert hasn▓t quite got the knack of client
confidentiality, and
divulges personal information to other patients. One can well imagine
him
divulging to his other patient, Shade, that his neighbor, poor fellow,
is an
incurable case. It really makes Kinbote seem much more sympathetic to
realize
this, especially in rereading the comments to line 62. So lonely,
sitting there
in that big house, the only other sign of human habitation being the
lights from
Shade▓s house, waiting to die, his head pounding, one can excuse even
Kinbote▓s
execrable wish ⌠for the poet▓s suffering another heart attack■.
Steve Anderson
"D. Barton Johnson" wrote:
> From Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>:
>
> Kinbote's attempt, like Smurov's, was botched. Nabokov is dead. Kinbote
> lives.
<snip>