Dear Nabokovians,
Vladimir
Nabokov suffered from
the skin disease psoriasis. I really do not know how severe his complaints
were. In February 1937 Nabokov suffered a bad attack (Boyd, The Russian
Years). On May 15 of that year, he wrote to Véra: `I continue with the
radiation treatments every day and am pretty much cured. You know - now I can
tell you frankly - the indescribable torments I endured in February, before
these treatments, drove me to the border of suicide - a border I was not
authorized to cross because I had you in my luggage.' He went sunbathing a lot as did
`radiation therapies' (Selected Letters). Boyd mentions one more exacerbation of
psoriasis, which occurred in the late sixties when the strain of writing
‘Ada’ fell from Nabokov's shoulders.
(Boyd, The American Years).
How
about his fiction? Nabokov devotes one page, all‑in‑all, to the disease, in
‘Ada’. He mentions `a spectacular skin
disease that had been portrayed recently by a famous American novelist in his
Chiron and described in side-splitting style by a co-sufferer who wrote
essays for a London weekly'. With this famous writer Nabokov refers to Updike
and his novel The centaur; the essayist of the a
London weekly is hitherto unknown (as
far as I know). The two psoriasis patients in Ada exchange notes with
tips: `Mercury!' or `Höhensonne works wonders'. Other pieces of advice
are found in a one‑volume encyclopedia, and involve taking hot baths at least
twice a month and avoiding spices. A doctor describes these patients as
`Crimson-blotched, silver-scaled, yellow-crusted wretches, harmless
psoriatics'. The narrator is less pathetic and speaks of `meek
martyrs'.
And
in ‘Pale Fire’ psoriasis is attributed to Shade’s daughter who has ‘psoriatic
fingernails’ (Pale Fire, 355).
My
question is: are there other references to psoriasis in Nabokov’s fiction or
non-fiction? The reason why I ask this is a keen interest in the disease. Some
years ago I published an article on ‘Literature and psoriasis’ (British
Medical Journal 1997:1709-1711), including the above Nabokov references. Now I
am reworking this material for a booklet on the same theme. Therefore I am
very eager to know whether I missed certain phrases on the disease by
Nabokov.
Thanks in advance.
Frans
Meulenberg
Erasmus
University / Medical Center
Department of Philosophy, medical ethics and history