Vladimir Nabokov was 44 years old when he had all his teeth pulled. His brilliant mind marinated the experience for years, then came up with a wonderful expanded metaphor.
LETTER TO EDMUND WILSON, NOV. 23, 1943
"Dear Bunny, some
of them had little red cherries--abscesses--and the man in white was pleased
when they came out whole, together with the crimson ivory. My tongue feels like
somebody coming home and finding his furniture gone. The plate will be ready
only next week--and I am orally a cripple."
FROM "PNIN"
In his novel
"Pnin" he gave the experience to his central character:
"Two hours later he
was trudging back, leaning on his cane and not looking at anything. A warm flow
of pain was gradually replacing the ice and wood of the anesthetic in his
thawing, still half-dead, abominably martyred mouth. After that, during a few
days [note the not-quite native English here, even after years of writing in
English; should be something like, "For a few days afterward"] he was
in mourning for an intimate part of himself. It surprised him to realize how
fond he had been of his teeth. His tongue, a fat sleek seal, used to flop and
slide so happily among the familiar rocks, checking the contours of a battered
but still secure kingdom, plunging from cave to cove, climbing this jag,
nuzzling that notch, finding a shred of sweet seaweed in the same old cleft; but
now not a landmark remained, and all there existed was a great dark wound, a
terra incognita of gums which dread and disgust forbade one to
investigate."
Great stuff, huh?
Nabokov As Knave
Nabokov As Knave
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