Dear Editor
Dear Editor Oddities I was rather surprised to read in Pearl K. Bell's review, "Pale Nabokov" (NL, November 27): "And only Nabokov could have imagined the sexual oddities of the bizarre-minded...
...London, New York, and probably elsewhere...
...And would he necessarily be wrong to conclude that a particular girl friend is detrimental to his patient's health...
...Finally, is it really a shocking sign of lack of professionalism for a doctor to have his arm around the head of a hospitalized patient who may be suicidal, psychotic or schizophrenic...
...It was no more bizarre than some practices of today's younger degeneration...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...In the '20s and early '30s Armande's sexual performance (minus only the stage) provoked fairly constant gossip because it was a routine insisted upon by fetching young things in Paris...
...The treatment of mental illness is a new and confusing area...
...Psychiatry David Evanier's review of In a Darkness by James A. Wechsler ("Dubious Physicians," NL, July 10) brings out the pathos of the book, but I think it reveals as well an in-sensitivity to the problems of working with disturbed people...
...Is it so surprising that one psychiatrist should be unhappy about someone under his care receiving advice from another psychiatrist...
...Or that a patient might get rather distressingly different counsel from different doctors, when the same is true in more developed branches of medicine...
...In a field where trust is so crucial, should we be critical of a psychiatrist who refuses to talk to the parents of a grown man...
...If one recalls the mores and taboos of the time, said ritual, however comic, becomes understandable...
...Washington Kevin F. Cunningham Education Bravo, Robert Lekachman...
...Dear Editor Oddities I was rather surprised to read in Pearl K. Bell's review, "Pale Nabokov" (NL, November 27): "And only Nabokov could have imagined the sexual oddities of the bizarre-minded Armande, who insisted that 'they regularly make love around teatime, in the living room, as upon an imaginary stage, to the steady accompaniment of casual small talk, with both performers decently clothed.' " It is most unlikely that Nabokov imagined any of it...
...And thanks for mentioning joy as a component of schooling...
...New York City B.M.G...
...During this period of its growth experts will naturally disagree, try new methods and sometimes be tragically wrong...
...Neoconserva-tive" is an appropriate label for those still locked into old measures of achievement and "outputs...
...Nancy Wilson Early Childhood Teacher...
...Everyone in the literary or art world or the the dansant crowd knew personally or knew of some girl who couldn't or wouldn't have sex any other way...
...Your reply to the Lenkowsky-Finn letter (NL, November 13) was precisely on target...
...But to add to people's trivial or unthinking fears and prejudices is unfortunate...
...Artists, as Bell knows, select more than they invent...
Vol. 55 • December 1972 • No. 25
