NPPF More On Seizures - LATH

[charles albert]

I would urge anyone seeking to grasp the function of seizures in PF to learn
about "fugue states"


love,
cfa
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "sZ" <keithsz at concentric.net>
To: "The Neo-Nabokov List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2003 7:41 PM
Subject: NPPF More On Seizures - LATH


> From Book 7/Chapter 2 of _Look at the Harlequins!_
>
>      At  the  start  of  the  great  seizure,  I  must   have  been
totally
> incapacitated, from top to toe, while my mind, the images racing through
me,
> the tang of thought,  the genius of  insomnia, remained as strong and
active
> as ever (except for the blots in between). By the  time I had  been flown
to
> the Lecouchant Hospital in coastal France, highly recommended by Dr.
Genfer,
> a Swiss relative of its director, I became aware of certain curious
details:
> from the  head down I was paralyzed in  symmetrical patches  separated  by
a
> geography of  weak  tactility.  When  in  the course  of that first week
my
> fingers  "awoke"  (a  circumstance  that  stupefied  and  even  angered
the
> Lecouchant sages, experts in dementia paralydea,  to such a degree that
they
> advised  you   to  rush  me   off  to  some  more  exotic   and
broadminded
> institution---which  you did) I  derived much  entertainment from mapping
my
> sensitive spots which were always situated in exact opposition, e.g. on
both
> sides of my forehead, on the jaws, orbital parts, breasts, testicles,
knees,
> flanks. At an average stage of observation, the average size of each spot
of
> life never exceeded that of  Australia (I  felt gigantic at times) and
never
> dwindled (when I dwindled myself) below the diameter of  a medal  of
medium
> merit, at which level I  perceived my entire skin as that of a leopard
> painted by a meticulous lunatic from a broken home.
>      In  some connection with those  "tactile symmetries" (about  which I
am
> still  attempting to correspond  with a not too responsive  medical
journal,
> swarming  with  Freudians),  I  would  like  to  place the  first
pictorial
> compositions, flat, primitive images, which occurred in duplicate, right
and
> left of my traveling body,  on the opposite panels of my hallucinations.
If,
> for example, Annette boarded a bus with her empty basket  on the left  of
my
> being, she  came  out of that bus  on my right with a load of  vegetables,
a
> royal  cauliflower  presiding over the  cucumbers. As the  days passed,
the
> symmetries got replaced by more elaborate inter-responses, or reappeared
in
> miniature  within  the  limits  of  a given image. Picturesque episodes
now
> accompanied my mysterious voyage. I glimpsed Bel rummaging after work
amidst
> a heap of naked babies at the  communal  day-nursery, in frantic  search
for
> her own firstborn, now ten months old,  and recognizable  by the
symmetrical
> blotches of  red  eczema  on  its  sides and little legs. A
glossy-haunched
> swimmer used one hand  to brush away from her face wet strands of  hair,
and
> pushed with the  other (on the other side  of my  mind) the raft on which
I
> lay, a  naked  old man with a rag around his foremast, gliding supine into
a
> full moon  whose snaky reflections  rippled  among the water lilies.  A
long
> tunnel  engulfed  me,  half-promised  a  circlet of  light at its  far
end,
> half-kept the promise, revealing a publicity sunset, but I never reached
it,
> the tunnel faded, and a familiar mist took  over  again. As was  "done"
that
> season, groups of smart idlers visited my  bed,  which  had slowed down in
a
> display hall  where Ivor  Black  in the  role of a fashionable  young
doctor
> demonstrated  me  to  three actresses playing  society  belles: their
skirts
> ballooned as they settled down  on white chairs, and one lady, indicating
my
> groin, would  have touched me with  her  cold fan, had not the learned
> Moor struck it aside  with his ivory pointer, whereupon my raft  resumed
its
> lone glide.
>      Whoever charted my destiny had moments of  triteness. At times my
swift
> course  became  a celestial affair at  an  allegorical  altitude  that
bore
> unpleasant religious  connotations--unless simply  reflecting
transportation
> of  cadavers  by  commercial aircraft.  A  certain  notion  of  daytime
and
> nighttime, in more or less regular alternation, gradually established
itself
> in  my mind as my grotesque adventure reached its  final phase. Diurnal
and
> nocturnal effects  were  rendered obliquely at first  with  nurses and
other
> stagehands going to  extreme lengths in the  handling of movable
properties,
> such  as  the bouncing of  fake starlight  from  reflecting surfaces or
the
> daubing of dawns here and there at suitable intervals. It had never
occurred
> to me before that, historically, art, or  at least  artifacts, had
preceded,
> not followed, nature; yet that is exactly what happened in my case. Thus,
in
> the mute remoteness clouding around me, recognizable sounds were produced
at
> first optically in the  pale margin of the film track  during the taking
of
> the  actual  scene  (say,  the  ceremony  of scientific feeding);
eventually
> something  about the running ribbon  tempted the ear to replace the eye;
and
> finally hearing returned--with a vengeance. The first crisp nurse-rustle
was
> a thunderclap; my first belly wamble, a crash of cymbals.
>      I owe thwarted obituarists, as well as all lovers of medical lore,
some
> clinical elucidations. My lungs and my heart acted, or were induced to
act,
> normally;  so  did my  bowels, those buffoons  in  the cast  of  our
private
> miracle plays. My frame lay flat as in an  Old  Master's Lesson of
Anatomy.
> The prevention  of bedsores,  especially  at  the Lecouchant  Hospital,
was
> nothing  short  of  a  mania, explicable,  maybe,  by a  desperate  urge
to
> substitute pillows and various mechanical devices for the rational
treatment
> of an unfathomable disease. My body was  "sleeping"  as a giant's foot
might
> be "sleeping"; more accurately,  however, my condition was  a horrible
> form of protracted (twenty  nights!)  insomnia with my mind  as
consistently
> alert as that of the Sleepless Slav in some circus show I once read about
in
> The Graphic. I  was not even a mummy; I was--in the beginning, at
least--the
> longitudinal section of a mummy,  or rather the abstraction of its
thinnest
> possible  cut. What  about  the  head?--readers  who  are  all head must
be
> clamoring to be told. Well, my brow was like misty glass (before two
lateral
> spots got cleared somehow or other); my mouth stayed mute and benumbed
until
> I realized I could  feel my tongue--feel it in the phantom form of the
kind
> of air bladder that might help a fish with his respiration problems, but
was
> useless to me. I  had some sense of duration and direction--two things
which
> a beloved creature seeking to  help a poor  madman with the whitest of
lies,
> affirmed,  in  a  later  world,  were  quite  separate phases  of  a
single
> phenomenon.  Most  of  my  cerebral  aqueduct  (this  is  getting  a
little
> technical) seemed to descend wedgewise, after some derailment or
inundation,
> into the structure housing its closest ally--which  oddly enough is also
our
> humblest sense, the easiest and  sometimes  the most gratifying  to
dispense
> with--and, oh,  how  I  cursed it  when I  could not  close  it to ether
or
> excrements, and,  oh (cheers  for  old  "oh"),  how I thanked  it for
crying
> "Coffee!" or "Plage!" (because an anonymous drug smelled like the cream
Iris
> used to rub my back with in Cannice half a century ago!).
>      Now comes a snaggy bit: I do  not know  if my eyes remained always
wide
> open "in a glazed look of arrogant stupor" as imagined by a reporter who
got
> as far as  the  corridor  desk.  But I  doubt very  much I could
blink--and
> without  the  oil of blinking the motor of sight could hardly have run.
Yet,
> somehow, during my glide down those illusory canals and cloudways, and
right
> over another  continent,  I did glimpse  off  and on,  through
subpalpebral
> mirages, the shadow  of a hand or the glint of an instrument. As to my
> world  of sound, it  remained  solid fantasy.  I heard strangers  discuss
in
> droning  voices all the books I  had  written or thought  I had written,
for
> everything they mentioned,  titles,  the  names  of characters, every
phrase
> they  shouted  was preposterously  distorted  by  the  delirium  of
demonic
> scholarship. Louise  regaled the company with one of her good
stories--those
> I called  "name hangers" because  they  only  seemed  to reach this or
that
>
> point--a quid pro quo, say,  at a party--but were  really meant to
introduce
> some high-born "old friend" of hers, or a glamorous politician, or  a
cousin
> of that politician. Learned papers were read at fantastic symposiums. In
the
> year of  grace  1798, Gavrila Petrovich Kamenev,  a gifted  young poet,
was
> heard chuckling as he composed his  Ossianic pastiche Slovo o polku
Igoreve.
> Somewhere in Abyssinia drunken Rimbaud was  reciting  to a surprised
Russian
> traveler the  poem Le Tramway ivre (...En  blouse  rouge,  ?  face en pis
de
> vache,  le  bourreau  me  trancha  la t?te aussi...).  Or else I'd hear
the
> pressed repeater hiss in a pocket  of my  brain and tell the time, the
rime,
> the meter that who could dream I'd hear again?
>
>