A Worn-Out Baseball

"When my father's father died in the French Quarter of New Orleans sixty years ago, the popularly accepted story was that on a humid night in mid-August, he had eaten a dozen bananas and then taken a cold bath.  He was a man of eighty-seven whose life had been a strenuous assertion of his appetites, and this explanation suited him, just as it suited his friends in the French Quarter.  It would be more satisfying to me, it would allow me to feel that I owned my illness, if my urologist were to say: 'You know, you've beat the hell out of this prostate of yours.  It looks like a worn-out baseball.'  Nobody wants an anonymous illness.  I'd much rather think that I brought it on myself than that it was a mere accident of nature." 

---Anatole Broyard, "Doctor, Talk to Me"

Today's selection is taken from On Doctoring: Stories, Poems, Essays edited by Richard Reynolds, MD and John Stone, MD (with Lois LaCivita Nixon PhD, M.P.H. and Delese Wear, PhD). This book is given to all first year medical students in the United States and includes literary works (plays, poems, short stories, excerpts) by dozens of well-known authors on the subject of doctoring and what it entails.  Some of these authors, such as the American modernist poet, William Carlos Williams, were doctors themselves and share their unique insights into the doctor-patient relationship.

Broyard is both wise and humorous in acknowledging the importance of fitting the diagnosis to the patient's needs and personality.  This does not entail misconstruing the illness, but rather shaping the narrative of that illness so that it is consistent with the life of the suffering subject. This is not a small distinction.  In the case of Broyard's grandfather who over-indulged, the tale of  the bananas and cold baths that brought him to his death is wildly improbable, yet nonetheless "fits" the character of the man.  His death, far from happening to him,  is cast simply as the natural culmination of a life lived at a high pitch.   

In the similar case of Broyard himself, it is clear that he desires agency.  He does not want the doctor's reassurance that his prostate cancer is not his fault, a mere chance or accidental happening. Rather, he wants to know that his prostate was expended--hilariously "beat" (got to love that verb choice) through over-use. As Broyard concludes, "If only the patient could be allowed to see his illness as not so much a failure of his body as a natural consumption of it."  

Superstition: The Power of Basil

"The Creole sauntered across to the counter and nipped the herb which still lay there.

          'Mr. Frowenfeld, you know what some very excellent people do with this? 
          They rub it on the sill  of the door to make the money come into the house.'

Joseph stopped aghast with the drawer half drawn.

          'Not persons of intelligence and-----'

          'All kinds.  It is only some of the foolishness which they take from the slaves. Many of your best people consult the voudou horses.' "

This quote is taken from George Washington Cable's The Grandisssimes (1880) a novel set in New Orleans at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.  In this scene, Agricola Fusilier instructs the newest apothecary, the northern born Joseph Frowenfeld, in the local practice of voudou.  The herb in question is basil or basilic and it has been requested of Frowenfeld by the major female character of the novel, Aurore Nancanou, who does not have enough money to make rent.  Frowenfeld, who is the naif for most of this novel, is surprised by the citizenry's superstitious beliefs. 

For Cable, superstition is but one outer manifestations of a society that is weak and rotten--economically, politically, and racially. Seemingly exotic--much like the landscape, flora and fauna---Creole superstitions are nevertheless part of a system of beliefs that is irrational and that relocates agency in spirits rather than in human effort or worthiness.  I've written about the power of herbs before.  And while this is not the most significant passage in Cable's novel, it is interesting to think about the strong hold that superstition has on the imagination--even in contemporary times.  The idea that charms can safeguard us, or that supernatural beings can work to our advantage is a persistent one.  If Cable's assessment is historically specific in some ways, it also underscores something about human fears about the essential insecurity of life and the way we look to the material world for reassurance of our good fortune.

Bonbons in Abundance

Today's quote is rich.

     "A few days later, a box arrived for Mrs. Pontellier from New Orleans.  It was from her husband.  It was filled with friandises, with luscious and toothsome bits--the finest of fruits patés, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance. 
     "Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a box; she was quite used to receiving them when away from home,  The patés, and fruit were brought to the dining-room; the bonbons were passed around.  And the ladies, selecting with daity and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world."

---Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

Degenerate Tourists

John Kennedy Toole's novel refers to hot dogs as "gimmicks." Oddly enough this portion of the pollen suggests the broader category of food and its strange manifestations in literature and elsewhere:

     "I'm gonna put you down in the French Quarter."

     "What?" Ignatius thundered. "Do you think that I am going to perambulate about in that sinkhole of vice? No, I am afraid that the Quarter is out of the question. My psyche would crumble in the atmosphere. Besides, the streets are narrow and dangerous there. I could easily be struck down in traffic or be wedged against a building."

     "Take it or leave it, you fat bastard. That's the last chance you get." Mr Clyde's scar was beginning to whiten again.

     "It is? Well, please don't have another seizure. You may tumble into that vat of franks and scald yourself. If you insist, I imagine that I shall have to trundle my franks down into Sodom and Gomorrah."

     "Okay. Then it's settled. You come in tomorrow morning, we'll fix you up with some gimmicks."

     "I can't promise you that many hot dogs will be sold in the Quarter. I will probably be kept busy every moment protecting my honor against those fiends who live down there."

     "You get mostly the tourist trade in the Quarter."

     "That's even worse. Only degenerates go touring. Personally, I have been out of the city only once. By the way, have I ever told you about that particular pilgrimage to Baton Rouge? Outside the city limits there are many horrors."

---John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)