Cries and Whispers

By Richard Stengel

MARS by Fritz Zorn Afterword by Adolf Muschg Translated by Robert and Rita Kimber Knopf; 241 pages; $12.95

The terrible question of cancer patients is "Why me?" In Mars, the terminally ill Fritz Zorn cries a harrowing answer: "My parents' neuroses were responsible for producing my neurosis; my neurosis was responsible for producing my lifelong despair; my despair is responsible for my being ill with cancer; and my cancer will be the cause of my death."

Mars is a powerful addition to the literature exploring links between cancer and psychological disturbance. Susan Sontag in her book Illness as Metaphor claims that the belief in a cancer-prone character type, "far from being confined to the back yard of folk superstition, passes for the most advanced medical thinking." Sontag attempts to refute such theories, ascribing them to fear and ignorance in the face of a disease that eludes any comprehensive cure. Yet, cogent arguments seem pale beside Zorn's anguished testimony. Testimony that drowns out dissent through its own vehemence.

Fritz is the child of affluent parents, the Ordinary People of Zurich. At home there are no arguments, no problems. About matters of taste, there is no dispute: his parents are always right. Questions concerning money, love, sex, religion and politics are taboo. The child is never allowed to see that the world is not perfect. Yet his life is colored by a pervasive sadness: "We did nothing and said nothing and fought for nothing and had no opinions and spent our time being amused by other people who were ridiculous enough to do, say, or think something."

Zorn's life as a university student is equally pathetic. He takes no satisfaction in brilliant academic performances. Imprisoned by his own neurosis, he never touches or approaches anyone. He has a fear of sexuality, a fear of rejection, a fear of love. "I was taught all the common Christian virtues," he recalls, "like abstinence, renunciation, docility, patience, and, most important of all, a clear denial of almost all aspects of life. In other words, I was taught not to enjoy life but to bear it without complaint, not to be sinful but to be frustrated ... That is my life. I grew up in the best and most intact and most harmonious and most sterile and most hypocritical of all worlds."

After leaving the university, he develops a tumor on his neck. Without seeing a doctor he diagnoses the lump as the accumulation of "swallowed tears." It is confirmation that if a person suppresses his suffering, he will be devoured by the suffering buried within. When Zorn finally consults a physician, a more clinical diagnosis is offered: the growth is malignant. Cancer comes as something of a relief; the pain and suffering finally have a name.

The proximity to death and the immoderation of his pain emancipate him. He undergoes psychotherapy along with chemotherapy. Because his soul is even more afflicted than his body, the analysis causes greater anguish. He is convinced that his soul must first be cured if his body is to survive. He never finds out.

Like Schopenhauer, Zorn comes to believe that disease is the will speaking through the body. Cancer is thus a single illness that manifests itself both physically and psychologically. Like medieval physicians, who thought that health was a balance of humors, he maintains that well-being is not a quality per se, but a form of equilibrium. Ergo, cancer is not a cause of unbalance but a consequence. In the final sections of the book, Zorn, 32, obviously failing in energy and spirit,' takes the advice of Job's comforter: to curse heaven and die. The Almighty is an organism, he concludes, in which the sufferer is only a cell gone wrong. The creator, he declares, cannot escape his contagion: "I am the carcinoma of God."

Fritz Zorn is a pseudonym, chosen spitefully and well. In German, Zorn means anger. This rancorous testament is the work of a sensitive mind slowly unhinged, a desolate howl against the inhuman condition. It is a sound familiar to doctors. Occasionally, if the writer is skilled enough, laymen can hear it. In Mars even the whispers are deafening. --By Richard Stengel

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