Letters, p.62
Letters, page 62
I must stop and return to Liveing![*6]
Again, my thanks to you both for a wonderful weekend,
Oliver
PS I enclose some oddments written at different times, and slightly hyperbolic & embarrassing to me now, about the importance of Liveing for me in the past. Now I must write something more reasoned, less personal.
To Dan Frank
Editor, Alfred A. Knopf
August 21, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Dan,
I am so glad we met last week, and could talk over some of the questions of the islands experience—and, hopefully, book—to and fro. We are also getting to know each other a little—this is not easy, because we are both (I think) shy.
With Kate on holiday, I had a little “holiday” myself—not to Labrador (as I had intended), but to the XIXth Century, where I could reconstruct an atmosphere which calmed me, protected me from the (dis)stresses of the present, and gave me an odd sense of anchor and “home.” I completed quite a long essay on my “ancestor” Edward Liveing—and Kate, who is now back, is going over this now. It is in somewhat the same mood, I suspect, as my Humphry Davy essay, though the connections (Liveing’s book, approach, directly stimulated mine) are much closer.
With this on its way now, I turned to my (April ’93) Guam MS, last night—and was so bored I lost consciousness after about twenty pages! I have just completed it this morning. The tone of the entire thing is wrong, it seems to me—certainly, at least, for the first 50 pages. As soon as I start talking about some of the patients, the tone changes, and they, at least, come alive. What is missing (I suspect you feel the same) is a sense of the island itself, in its islandness, its geography, its plants (I went fern-collecting with a botanist in the jungle there), its reefs (I went snorkelling […]), the physical and human landscape of the place which needs to be always there, as background, to […] the house-calls etc.
I think I need to reconceive, redo, the whole thing—putting it in the form of a personal narrative (like Pohnpei, a journey following the one to Pingelap in ’94) but drawing on the earlier stuff for “data” of all sorts—from the patient-portraits to the “medical” stuff about lyticobodig and its “mystery” and investigation etc (tho’ this must somehow be embedded in narrative, perhaps in small portions, and not as a great medical-historical “lump”). Then, I think, after Guam, our flight to (little) Rota, with its cycad forests, medicine men, indigenous nature & culture more intact—and meeting old Bill Peck, who, in his own long life and person, can bring all the island themes together. I only HOPE I can do this! […]
Thanks!
To Abba Eban
Cousin, Israeli Statesman
November 7, 1995
2 Horatio St., New York[*7]
Dear Aubrey,
I had meant to write to you last week to say how awed I was by the CD-ROM of Heritage[*8]—I had never, in fact, seen a CD-ROM before (and this, clearly, was marvellously and responsibly done, although the doing, the adding to, can go on forever), and it brought all sorts of images to mind: an electronic Talmud, an infinite encyclopedia (a Borgesian dream), or one of those Pascalian spheres whose centre is everywhere and whose periphery nowhere. I can see that such an instrument will revolutionize education (or could) and history, and your Heritage, in particular, will gain a prodigious new dimension of reference from this.[*9]
I had meant to write this, and write it now, but now the hideous events in Israel have overtaken us, and I have been glued, like everyone else, to the television for days.[*10] I know you had known Rabin for many years, and played a considerable part in his life, and the personal loss to you must be very real. So much has been said, but what you have said (on Charlie Rose etc.) has always been full of emotion but untouched by sentimentality, and (like Kissinger’s words) gives the measure of the man most faithfully. You, of course, were already clear thirty years ago as to what needed to be done, and what he was trying to do now. […]
One doesn’t know what to say after events like these, but I felt I had to write.
My love to you all,
Oliver
To Merlin Donald
Cognitive Neuroscientist, Author of Origins of the Modern Mind
November 17, 1995
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Merlin,
Good, as always, to hear from you.
Yes, I stay in touch with Susan Schaller, and I am sure she’d be delighted to hear from you. […]
When Susan started writing about “alinguals,” nobody believed her; they said no such creatures existed, and she had a hard time getting due recognition. But now many people have taken up the theme, including Ursula Bellugi[*11] et al. at the Salk.[*12] (There is an interesting piece about Nicaraguan alinguals and their (communal) creation of language, in the latest Scientific American.) When I visited a deaf-blind summer camp near Seattle this summer—itself astounding for its revelation of tactile language, tactile intelligence, the potential richness of a world based on the tactile, etc.—I encountered one fine, dignified Phillipine man of about 60 with no language, but the most eloquent, concrete “home-sign” and mime; he “told” us a beautiful story of how he had seen a bird swoop to catch a fish in mid-air. But what the bird was, where the incident occurred, when, etc., could not be conveyed. And yet there was a sort of mythic generalization. I think it would be hugely valuable for someone like you to explore the mind of such a man…for you could do so in a way which neither Susan, nor Ursula, nor anyone else could do. So I am delighted your interests have veered in this direction.
Let’s keep in touch.
Best,
Oliver
To Stephen Jay Gould
September 5, 1996
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Stephen,
Sunday was fun, with the five of us—tho’ I have to remember that rum is not a soft drink, and stick to Diet Coke!
Here is the final proof of Island—it goes off to the printers on Monday, and (I guess) the first UK copies will come out by the end of the month. I feel infinitely less anxious about the book since you “vetted” it with such care (tho’ I occasionally left the original locutions intact—e.g. calling the “Lost World” creatures Jurassic, even tho’ you reminded me that some were Cretaceous; but I thought “Mesozoic” too much of a word at this point). Since some things slipped, inexplicably, between Galley and Page proofs—such as the last word of BOOK I!—I shudder to think what may happen between now and the printed book, and pray there will be no inverted pictures as in your one (tho’ I hasten to add that only a minority of readers will notice the inversion in yours, and no-one will blame you for it, and you should not obsess on it—because you have written a magnificent and far-ranging book, and this is what people will respond to, and not a printer’s error. I sense I am speaking to myself as well as to you!).
I was excited to hear that you had written the central part of a long-incubated history of evolutionary theory—for this is the most central part of yourself, and will be the deepest self-expression and fulfillment when you complete it. But having done the central portion, you can now take “time off” and help Full House on its way, without feeling a painful sense of interruption. (Not that this sort of travelling for books is exactly “time off”—it is as exhausting as anything I know.)
I envy you this central interest, and identity; I often think that, as a clinician (and perhaps a dilettante) I myself just pick up odd things which come my way, and play with them, though they then seem to get charged with unexpected significances, or to allow views I had never expected. But I have never perhaps had a sufficient passion for a General Theory, or Theory generally (an incoherent passion for Darwin is as close as I come).
Let’s see each other soon again—and again, more thanks than I can say for your great help—and your friendship.
My love to you both,
Oliver
To Jane Goodall[*13]
Primatologist
September 28, 1996
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Jane (if I may),
Some of what you describe sounds like visual agnosia—in particular “prosopagnosia.” One does not have to have a lesion or a disease (like “the man who”) to have this—there is a huge variation in visual-gnostic abilities, and there are some (sometimes very gifted) people who lack visual gnosis almost completely, on a congenital basis. I enclose the story here of a “Dr. S”—a “gifted” psychoanalyst.[*14] When I read it, I thought I was reading about myself, because my defects in this area are very severe too. I have constant embarrassment due to my failure to recognize people—Kate, my assistant, has to explain that it is “nothing personal,” and that I may fail to recognize her after 10 years of daily contact—and I am also constantly getting lost due to my difficulty in recognizing places (or left/right) etc. In writing about Dr. P., “The Man Who,” I felt I was partly writing about myself. You will find some interesting self-descriptions of such difficulties in facial recognition in Bertrand Russell’s autobiography—and his “strategy” (making a mental, verbal list of “salient characteristics”) for dealing with this. He himself ascribes this to “coldness” or “social indifference,” but it sounds more neurological to me.
In other ways visual memory and recognition can be very acute. As a fern- and cycad-lover, I instantly recognize them, as, I am sure, you instantly recognize your (non-human) primate friends and subjects.[*15]
On the language-problem I cannot comment. (I am hopelessly monoglot myself.) Your grand work does not, however, seem to have suffered in the least (and perhaps this is true of mine also)! (despite all these “problems”).
with best wishes,
Oliver
To Lewis Frumkes
Writer and Humorist[*16]
February 20, 1997
[2 Horatio St., N.Y.]
Dear Lewis,
One of my favourite words is APOCOPE—I use it (for example) in “A Surgeon’s Life” (“the end of the word omitted by a tactful apocope,” Anthropologist on Mars. Vintage p. 94).
I love its sound, its explosiveness (as do some of my Tourettic friends—for whom it becomes a 4-syllable verbal tic which can be impacted or imploded into a tenth of a second) and the fact that it compresses 4 vowels and 4 syllables into a mere 7 letters. I also like SYZYGY (for some of the same reasons and because it has 3 distinct meanings).
Oliver Sacks
PS I also like “ZAROB” and “UBE.”
To Jared Diamond
Geographer, Author of Guns, Germs, and Steel
April 14, 1997
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Dr. Diamond,
I have been meaning to write to you since your review of Island,[*17] and reading your splendid piece in the May Discover, I can refrain no longer.
I am in strong agreement with all you say there—and well remember my own passionate indignation at the indignity of Sagan’s rejection.[*18] I was deeply moved by Stephen (Jay Gould)’s appreciation of him, a few weeks ago, in Science.
What you say about younger scientists being afraid to address themselves to the public is painfully true—my own mentor, A. R. Luria, was sixty-five when he published The Mind of a Mnemonist (although the work—and relationship—it tells of occurred thirty or more years earlier). And I have a vivid memory of the reaction of the publisher’s medical “reader,” when I submitted my own first book (Migraine) for publication—I was 34 then. “It is too easy to read,” he said. “This may arouse suspicion. Professionalize it!”
It may be that in the sphere of clinical medicine and neuropsychology etc. there need not be the absolute gulf between “technical” and “popular” language there has to be, say, in physics or genetics or molecular biology; I (like to) think that Luria’s late books, and (hopefully!) my own, can address themselves equally to both scientific and general audiences; but the balance is a difficult (and delicate) one to maintain.
I am most appreciative of the care and generosity with which you reviewed Island—which is certainly among the oddest of my books. (I was not unaware of the risks in venturing beyond my “usual” clinical realm—into botany, colonial history, etc—and using a style or format which was sometimes impressionistic; but the experiences themselves were both so wide-ranging, and so brief, that I felt I could not honestly attempt anything more comprehensive or systematic.) You were certainly right in indicating that more should have been said about “founder effects” etc. on Pingelap, and about “prions”—and I will, at the least, have footnotes on these in a coming edition. (Indeed, by a series of coincidences, your review of Island, being sent the proofs of Richard Rhodes’ new book,[*19] and having a patient with Creutzfeldt-Jakob have all converged to make me think intensely about prions etc., and to write a little about them in my own review of Rhodes’ book.)
What is “proper” or “permissible” in scientific writing has been argued, as you know, since the founding of the Royal Society—Sir Thomas Browne (whom I adore!) was rejected by the RS, despite his obvious eminence & suitability in other ways, because his writing was felt to be too personal and “fine”—a sort of precursor to Sagan’s rejection.
I very much admire your work—and your new book—and write now to express my thanks and appreciation—
Oliver Sacks
To Austen Riggs
Zoologist[*20]
April 14, 1997
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Dr. Riggs,
Many thanks for your letter. The question(s) you raise are not easy to answer, not least because of the unclear nature of so much dream-experience (in all of us), and not knowing how much it is “transcribed” (e.g. into sensory images, perceptions etc.) in the telling. One may “know,” or “be given to understand” that someone in a dream has red hair—but does one actually see it as red?
For myself (I have normal color vision) I am unable to say, in the vast majority of my dreams, whether they were in colour or black-and-white—they do not seem clearly in either mode. But occasionally (for example) I dream that I am making a color print, using the old dye-transfer method (which I used to do many years ago)—I “see” the yellow, the magenta, the cyan diapositives in my dream, and align them carefully so the picture bursts into full color. This, for me, is one sort of color dream. In another sort, color may have a special significance e.g. the blue of a particular cycad species. Perhaps one only “constructs” color in dreams to the extent that it is “needed,” or carries some special significance or use. A different sort of color-dream (for me, and for many others) has to do with some organic disturbance—a migraine, a drug-effect, a fever, a delirium; such dreams seem to me far less conceptual or symbolic, and far more sensuous (and scattered) than “normal” dreams—and rich, thick, almost lithographic colors, and iridescences, and iterative geometric patterns etc. seem characteristic in these. One may have these in a semi-waking state, and see the colored images or patterns projected on the ceiling.
I think the question—does one dream in color, do one’s dreams contain colored elements, has some similarities to questions like: do one’s dreams contain movement? Do they contain depth—specifically, stereopsis? (I sometimes dream I am looking thru a stereoscope—stereo-photography, like color-photography, was once a passion of mine—but otherwise I have no idea whether I dream stereoptically.) Movement is nearly always mentioned in dreams, tho’ I recognize (in myself) a particular category of dream which much more resembles motionless dioramas—I describe some of these in my new book (The Island of the Colorblind). Curiously, before I started on the actual writing of this, I kept having repetitive “black-and-white” dreams—dreams of the island, the vegetation, sunsets etc. which looked a little like old movies, and made me think (in my dream) that I had become an achromatope myself.
Typewriter ribbon finished. Will try to write legibly next page!
I wondered if these dreams—in which black-and-whiteness per se was so important an element—represented a witty prompting from my unconscious that it was time to write about the Island.
With the colorblind painter, damage to (the V4 areas of) the prestriate cortex knocked out all forms of “color-construction”—not just perception, but (chromatic) imagery, memory and dreaming. People with damage to the primary visual cortex (V1), cortically blind, seem to lose all visual dreaming.
To return to your questions—I would suspect that if color is not memorable in your dreams, it is because it is rarely a significant element in them. What we need, among other things, are sophisticated forms of brain-imaging (capable of differentiating activity in different areas of the visual cortex) of people as they dream. There might be many surprises—including (who knows?) a surprise for you: I can imagine that V4 might be very active in yr dreams, that you might in actuality dream in color, but have no memory of this on waking since the color lacks significance.
Enough!
With kind regards,
Oliver Sacks
To Jim Poyser
