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Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Intellectual Content of Academic Blogs as Imagined by Our Peers
Via The Corner:
Politics, Heal Thyself [John Derbyshire]
Kathryn: While Andrew Ferguson is undoubtedly right that there is no reason to expect a doctor to make a good politician, doctors can make fine writers, having insights into the human condition vouchsafed to few of us civilians. Our own Theodore Dalrymple is a good example.In fact I had a conversation once with “Theodore” (real name Tony) about whether there was any particular literary approach common to doctor-writers like Somerset Maugham (not much read now, but a great storyteller), Smollett (ditto), and Chekhov. We concluded that there was—a certain detachment and distance, obviously essential requirements for a job which consists in part of watching people die.
The example I raised was Maugham, who as a young doctor in London’s East End had to do the paperwork for the corpses of suicides fished out of the river Thames. Up to that point, Maugham said (in his part-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage) he had supposed that thwarted love was the usual cause of suicide. In fact, he learned, financial problems were far more often the cause. That’s the kind of “cold eye” insight you get only, or mostly, from doctors.
Posted at 1:31 PMDoctors As Writers [Jonah Goldberg]
Derb - I sometimes wonder about this sort of thing. As you note there have been some great writers who were also doctors. But my guess — and it’s pure guesswork — is that statistically speaking doctors are more likely to be bad writers. Perhaps the fact that a few are exceptions to the rule doesn’t demonstrate that being a doctor helps some writers be great so much as demonstrate that some writers are great despite the fact they are doctors.Meanwhile, I have the opposite suspicion about political leaders who happen to be doctors. But we can discuss that later.
Posted at 1:53 PMRe: Writers As Doctors [John Podhoretz]
Jonah, you may be right that doctors are, on average, going to be bad writers, but they have a better track record than insurance salesmen, who have only Wallace Stevens to claim. Stevens so loved insurance, as a matter of fact, that he turned down a tenured position at Harvard to remain a vice president of The Hartford! And he did have an actuarial mind for a poet, since he wrote the immortal line: “Let be be finale of seem.” (Think about it.) [Indeed! — The Management]
Posted at 2:03 PMRe: Doctors as Writers [John Derbyshire]
Jonah: You may very well be right. I note that the three names that came to my mind—Maugham, Smollett, Chekhov—were none of them first-rank writers. They were all good, but not (either in my opinion or the general one) great writers. There’s an article to be written here, though I’m sure someone—Brookhiser, very likely—has already done it.
Posted at 2:07 PMThe Write Doctor [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:Dear Jonah,You and Derb are leaving out Walker Percy, the best of the doctor-philosopher-novelists of the 20th century! I do believe NR’s own Bill Buckley called Percy’s Love in the Ruin’s the “perfect” novel about America in the late 20th century (or something similar to that).
Percy, if you don’t know, studied medicine at Columbia and, while an intern, contracted tuberculosis. While in convalesence he did nothing but read novels and philosophy, and when he was healthy again he devoted his life to writing. A noble choice, in my mind. He was a true genius, and all NR readers would do well to drop what they are doing and go read some of the good doctor’s stuff. Start with Lost in the Cosmos or Love in the Ruins — both are good for what ails you.
Posted at 2:23 PM
Re: Writers and Insurance [John Podhoretz]
A few people have written to say that Tom Clancy sold insurance. Imagine: Wallace Stevens and Tom Clancy, discussing the virtues of a no-fault casualty policy:Stevens: Oh, the sunny complacencies of the burgher who buys no term!
Clancy: SecDef better step up and get himself some term or the JCOC will eat his lunch!
Posted at 2:26 PMPS on Writers and Doctors [John Podhoretz]
Nobody’s mentioned the greatest writer-doctor of them all — Maimonides.
Posted at 2:31 PMMore Docs [Rick Brookhiser]
This thread started with doctor pols, and there were a few of those among the founding fathers—Benjamin Rush, James McHenry. I believe McHenry did not practice. Rush did, unhappily for his patients during the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s, who almost all died under his ministrations.
Posted at 2:56 PMPPS on Writer-Doctors [John Podhoretz]
And, of course, Luke. The Luke.
Posted at 2:59 PMOther Interesting Writer Factoids [John Podhoretz]
Alexander Pope was a dwarf. Alexander Pushkin was part black.
Posted at 3:20 PMThe Dissonant Tones of Insurance [John Podhoretz]
The original American modernist composer, Charles Ives, was in insurance. I understand he and Wallace Stevens attempted to collaborate on a song called “I Got Me Some Actuarial Blues,” but neither one of them could understand the other.
Posted at 3:25 PMWalker Percy [John Derbyshire]
I’ll confess I have never (I am pretty sure) finished a Walker Percy novel. A magazine editor commissioned me to “do” him once—i.e. write a 3 or 4 thousand word piece on his oeuvre. I gave it a shot, but Percy wasn’t for me, and the piece never got written. If Percy is as great a writer as Jonah’s reader claims, it is in some way not accessible to me. I find myself saying this about a lot of American novelists, I don’t know why.Now I come to think of it, the editor in question, launching me on my Percy-athon, tried to enthuse me by saying: “He is absolutely the purest fictional exponent of Kierkegaard!” I should have taken that as a warning.
I tried very hard
To read Soren Kierkegaard
But his “Either/Or”
Just made me snore.
Posted at 3:36 PMDoctors [Andrew Stuttaford]
Chekov not great, Derb. Good heavens! High standards indeed. I’ll throw Bulgakov into the mix then. Conan Doyle was pretty good too...well, he knew how to spin a good yarn.
Posted at 3:40 PMRe: Greatest Doctor-Writers [Iain Murray]
The original and best – Galen.
Posted at 3:41 PMWriters/Columnists and Doctors/Psychiatrists [Cliff May]
The incomparable Charles Krauthammer!
Posted at 3:41 PMGod! [Jonah Goldberg]
He wrote the Bible (with some ghostwriters)!He can heal anybody!
Posted at 3:47 PMInsure? I Endure. Not Poor. [John Podhoretz]
Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was also an insurance executive. How many rhymes can you come up with for the word “indemnity”?
Posted at 5:06 PM
Comments
All that and they couldn’t come up with the William Carlos Williams.
“Theodore" (real name Tony)
Somehow, that completely stops me short.
Russell, the whole thing makes my head spin. I just don’t get appreciative criticism.
Also, I’m currently back-burning an article on doctor-poets in the late 19th Century, so if The Corner allowed, you know, normal morons to chime in, I’d have been able to help.
How many rhymes can you come up with for the word “indemnity”?
nitty
gritty
city
pretty
witty
ditty
itty
bitty
kitty
. . .
what a maroon
I don’t see how the could have overlooked Michael Crichton of “oversexed women in the workplace cause a lot of trouble” (Disclosure) and “promiscuous women will need abortions that will kill them and embarrass rich whiteys” (A Case of Need) fame.
I think this is why there are no Republicans in university English departments.
And Bill, you forgot the key rhyme: shitty.
To the head spinners,
“Theodore Dalrymple” is a pseudonym. Actual first name: “Anthony.”
“Theodore Dalrymple” is a pseudonym. Actual first name: “Anthony.”
His full name is Anthony Daniels, IIRC (which must produce the occasional look of puzzlement from those not in the know...).
Or in full, ‘Anthony Daniels the Lesser’ - I highly doubt Mr ‘Dalrymple’ is fluent in over six million forms of communication.
L-F Celine (Destouches), physician, wrote two of the greatest novels of interwar France.
Trotsky’s view: “Celine walked into great literature in the same way that men walk into their homes.”