In one of the biographies of Saul Steinberg an entire
paragraph was devoted to Nabokov's ill-health when he was fifty years old
(lumbago, psoriasis, digestive, pulmonary and cardiac problems) and to his
admiration about how Nabokov managed to find sufficient energy and joy to
write "Lolita", "Pale Fire" and "Ada" without delving into his
sufferings, unlike John Updike, who freely describes how
psoriasis disturbed his relationship with the world from early infancy on,
dictated the destiny of his marriage and his professional choice.
From the Pynchon-l-digest V2 #3464 distributed at the
Nabokov-L (cf. 2003-08-04 David Morris and Frans Meulenberg), I
read a little more about Nabokov's psoriais* and was informed
that John Updike has been also mentioned (together with the librarian
Verger) in "ADA": "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 `HЖhensonne' 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 Thick-Skinned Art of John Updike: 'From the
Journal of a Leper' by Jay Prosser -The Yearbook of English Studies
Vol. 31,
North American Short Stories and Short Fictions (2001), pp. 182-191 - Published
by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3509384
and findarticles.com/p/articles/mi.../ai_n28890340/
Abstract:
This essay examines the significance of skin in Updike's work, beginning with
his representation of psoriasis in his short story,'From the Journal of a
Leper'. The conception of skin as an aesthetic or writing surface is considered,
as well as the interfaces between autobiography and fiction, self and other, and
finally men and women in Updike's writing.The most revealing moment in Updike's
autobiography Self-Consciousness comes when he quotes from his short story,
'From the Journal of a Leper', as he frequently does cite his fiction in this
strange characteristic of his autobiography.... The dream captures two sides to
psoriasis.. Either way, as the potter says on waking, 'This skin is me, I can't
get out' (p. 188): the skin is the self. The dream attaches the strongest
significance to skin, and its citation in Self-Consciousness means that this
short story 'From the Journal of a Leper' may be read to examine the
significance of skin...to unpack the metaphorical valences of skin and
superficiality, and the surface and interfaces between Updike's life and art,
between autobiographical self and fictional other...Skin is of undoubted
autobiographical importance for Updike, and it is in this sense that the
citation of 'From the Journal of a Leper' is revealing. The chapter 'At War With
My Skin' in Self-Consciousness (pp. 39-74) tells how Updike too has suffered
from psoriasis and, like the potter, has a self formed through and thoroughly
invested in his psoriatic skin. His skin is the most manifest reason for and
symptom of his self-consciousness. Many of the details from Self-Consciousness
repeat identically the psoriatic circumstances of 'From the Journal of a Leper',
so that the earlier short story reads like a proleptic autobiography, a covert,
because fictional, rendering of Updike's own psoriatic skin...
** - Hazel does commit suicide, but Nabokov resisted the impulse.
Cf. Brian Boyd: V.Nabokov The Russian Years: "In February 1937 Nabokov suffered a bad attack ...On May 15
of that year, he wrote to VИra: `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'. "
Curiously, two of the writer who were mentioned in
"Pale Fire" in a significant way, appear in March 5, 1989, in
the "New York Times" (ie and too late to hqwve been the one elaborated
on in "Ada"). It's about Updike's 'Self-Consciousness' by
Denis Donoghue, who informs that Unamuno's assertion, ''consciousness
is a disease,'' was often quoted by Updike and to a very particular use.
"If it is, then self-consciousness is the act of the mind that takes its sores
as privileged objects of attention. A good deal of 18th-century satire, notably
in Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, was provoked by the dismayed reflection
that everything spiritual may be reduced to its physical correlative: as
with a churlish fellow who would insist that spirit itself is nothing but wind.
Mr.Updike's fixation on his ailments has the opposite intent: to convert his
symptoms into corresponding inwardness, and to make his blotches seem in the end
like his idea. According to this procedure, every disease corresponds to a
certain form of spirituality. If you suffer from psoriasis, it is because you
have, morally, a sensitive skin. A stammer is the outward sign of a scruple,
appropriate to a man who refuses to say the first thing that comes into his head
...If you add to physical ailments the sundry devices for warding them off, you
make a fairly complete regimen which can be turned to spiritual
account"
Warning:
although I tried my best to keep the names, dates and links straight, they were
often dispersed in various sites and with cuts and muddles.If anyone is
interested in these informations or queries, please check them again in the
internet before using the information.