New Jersey Nightly News; A Closer Look: Boswell's Clap and Other Essays: Medical Analyses of Literary Men's Afflictions

Oh. His name is Dr. William over the Harvard trained director of laboratories at Hackensack hospital. He's a pathologist the man who examines other doctors failures. Dr. Oliver spends his days investigating why a patient's body gives in to disease but he doesn't limit his detective work to the microscope with a morgue table. He turns it to books and the men who wrote them. Dr. Robert becomes a literary Colombo with a gimlet eye. I talked with him in the hospital's pathology library. Do you think that your literary detective work is comparable to your medical detective work. Yes I would say he was a matter of reading the record. Thinking about analyzing and. Collecting the material. Weighing the probability. That all falls into place a lot of writers. Look at my work. But it's not important to know about me.

Yeah but you don't feel that way. Right I think that's a fallacy I think you can find in a great deal about the work by knowing something about the man. And conversely the main example of that. Well a very good example for example would be do you think Florence I think Lawrence wrote his last novel Lady Chatterley's Lover in nine hundred twenty eight when he was seriously ill and dying of pulmonary tuberculosis because of his illness and the debilitating effect on it. Lawrence was impotent. And he could not satisfy the sexual demands of his wife Frieda whom he had run away with when he was married to another man. There were also discovered from various veiled hints and allusions. To Laurence was a latent homosexual. And undoubtedly a great deal of his anxiety came out in the way he set up this particular novel. And I think one of the reasons this novel is a failure. I think it's one of the weakest of Lawrence's novels for what is best was a very good writer because it stemmed from. A particular unresolved emotional conflict which he had at the

time he was writing. You were passing psychological judgment and hence a kind of literary judgment on a guy who did. Yes. Doesn't that strike you as a mite. Well I will admit he is defenseless. But then saying that I perform autopsies I can tell you that most of my patients I said. Which of you were writers DID YOU least respect. Oh Plato. Why you could light the fog the records in that. You did not accurately report the circumstances of Socrates death that it was a lot worse than that he said yes he did this to demonstrate a philosophical position. He was also writing a literary form. And he really tries to conceal very far away the fact that the prattle of Socrates was a political trial. Very much like the trial in recent years of the late Robert Oppenheimer.

I. Do not really think very highly of Plato's ethics. You talk about Boswell's gonorrhoea D.H. Lawrence is latent homosexuality Swinburne's masochism the Earl of Rochester's premature ejaculation Doesn't that strike you poor interest. I don't think there's anything particularly prurience about this. Bunch of a lot of girls of a period and remain reasonably respectable medical team here and all those suckers Lead Belly Up move the movie off Academy of Medicine in New York State. Gotta love medicine and go with a manicure clinic there is no progress on my part to supply half of that is his own prerogative. Pick a subject limit the field and I look at it and I even plan through even a little when I think. I hope. Literary essay. You did not accurately report the

circumstances of Socrates death that it was a lot worse than that he said yes he did this to demonstrate a philosophical position. He was also writing a literary form. And he really tries to conceal very far away the fact that the profile of Socrates was a political trial. Very much like the trial in recent years until later. Robert Oppenheimer. I. Do not really think very highly of Plato's ethics. Which of your writers did you most respect or most admire. Oh I'd say it was a toss up between keeps and check off. There are very few people who have been able to write poetry as well as heaps and there are very few people who have been able to write short stories and dramas and while it took off. Chekhov seems to be the. Person with a very tortured sensibility. There that. Just plays a. Role. The Russians do affect. You talk about Boswell's gonorrhea D.H. Lawrence is latent

homosexuality Swinburne's masochism the Earl of Rochester's premature ejaculation Doesn't that strike you as poor human interest. It's not like some doctors like to see people with their clothes off. But I see very few patients who look close enough until they're dead at which point they are not really a sexually interesting necrophilia is not one of my. Counsel I put it in for sure. Yes there are sexual themes here I think psyche a very important part of life and I think most people are interested in psych and you think that's an important basis of literature. It certainly seems to be if you look at what's on the books then here you're wrong about. Whom call us one who like yourself was Dr Right. Yet you seem to take some particular shots at him saying he may have buried just better mistakes.

If there were anybody published its literary It was well that was an irresistible line to act without has no intention of taking the shot. William Carlos Williams was a very much respected writer. Yet when you look at all the things or the public together under his collecting all of the way there is a. Great deal in it that is undervalued. Sort of came out of the kind of threat of very rapidly and was immediately dispatched because of the market. Martin. I think you were acting like my God the capacity of self-criticism. And as a result I would say you had a low batting if you were looking at your own weapon work. What would you say about yourself. I public a great deal of a family that's true. But I don't collect it into book form.