Hervey on my mind
So there you are reading away, eyes humming over the lines, scan to the end, hup, carriage return onto the next, brain chugging and lapping it up, but then [sound of squealing brakes] you come across a word whose meaning you’re a little shaky on. Upsetting the flow, you stop, sweep back and over it again, like the lazy setting on windshield wipers, then face the debate of whether to get up and go to the dictionary, or content yourself with a vague notion deciphered from the context.
If you do decide that the trip across the room is too much hassle, the word will stick like a burr on the brain and, guaranteed, will keep cropping up to taunt you, until at last you break down and go to the OED, ignorance in hand.
It’s the same with books. By the time you’ve seen them alluded to enough times, you invariably feel you’re missing out on some secret key, so you better go buy the damn thing.
The latest of my acquaintance is The mask of sanity, by Hervey Cleckley – alluded to in a variety of non-fiction books over the years and then, recently, by Kurt Vonnegut. I’m very taken by his tangy wisdom, so if he says I should read it, I do as I’m told.
The search was entirely in keeping with the usual ordeal in finding such books, which are generally obscure and almost invariably out of print.
After sifting through a host of obscenely overpriced offers: 60 to 300 euros for a soft cover edition (Shelf wear, rubbed edges/bumped corners, small chips at head and foot of spine. Small stain on back cover at bottom edge…) – I finally found an affordable first edition hard cover (w/ cryptic, vaguely disturbing markings in pencil by previous owner). All that was left to do was to wait for it to make its way over an ocean and a land mass or two.
But it was worth it. Published in 1941, it’s an extraordinary little book, consisting largely of case histories of a series of Cleckley’s patients, diagnosed as psychopathic, beyond the grasp of psychiatrists’ understanding and immune to any treatment. Not rabid serial killers (as the term psychopath is generally misunderstood) but men whose past mistakes only teach them to be more wily, and who are without a shred of remorse or the capacity – let alone desire – for introspection (qualities which would appear to, and often do, guarantee a bright future in business or politics).
On being approached he cursed, sobbed feebly, and was brought back to bed, passing intestinal gas with frequent loud and unpleasant effects, grinning almost triumphantly at the nurse who had hurried to him, at each detonation.
Aside from the fascinating histories, what stands out is the queer but wonderful dichotomy between Cleckley’s very formal (at times bordering on clinical) style, and the raunchiness of the stories being recounted.
At the funeral next day, having skilfully obtained more whiskey, he was led in staggering drunk and proceeded to make a shocking and memorable impression. Vomiting and defecating in the aisle of the church contributed to this effect.
Interrupted, from time to time, by sudden bursts of pure lyricism.
He has done no work except for occasional periods when for a week or ten days he showed considerable promise as an automobile salesman before launching himself on another potvaliant and fatuous rigadoon.
another potvaliant and fatuous rigadoon ... beautiful.
I suppose I should confess to a weird fascination with those entirely lacking in conscience. It’s an unsettling combination of revulsion and envy – ridiculing all my Pollyanna mists, confirmation of grimmest suspicions and causes for despair, while invariably triggering a split-second thought of, wow, that must be such a restful state of mind.
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Comment
- I thought that was a sociopath, not a psychopath?
Time for a trip to the OED.
— August Feb 19, 7:00pm # - Sociopath followed psychopath, which preceeded ‘moral imbecile.’ The evolution of language and all that. Though it has been pointed out that diagnostic classification of personality disorders amounts to little more than a sophisticated name-calling…
— Don McArthur Feb 20, 2:29am # - I have made avizandum with this issue. Not that I thought there’d ever come a day I rushed to the defense of wielders of such terms as sociopath or psychopath, which I’m not, but more to the defense of name-calling itself – which is really naming with an overtone of accusatory passion and immediacy; naming, which is the real work of poetry – to name things – being a fine thing generally, and good for the living language.
Naming things accurately is the task.
— rollo Feb 20, 7:16am #
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