The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning

by Iain McGilchrist

I am constantly reminded, as I go about life in the modern Western world, of a story by Yuri Tynyanov, called Lieutenant Kizhe. Published in 1927, the story concerns an error of transcription in an official list of the Imperial army, whereby the word poruchiki, lieutenants, gets conflated with a subsequent syllable zhe, seeming to refer to a certain poruchik Kizhe, a Lieutenant Kizhe – who never existed. Despite this apparent drawback, Lieutenant Kizhe plays a starring role in subsequent military reports, rises through the ranks, where he never gets into trouble and is known for his dependability, marries, fathers a child, is decorated for bravery, and finally finds himself promoted by the Tsar to the rank of General. Mysteriously, when the Tsar demands to meet this human paragon, he cannot be found. The Tsar, in despair, mutters ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’, and accords him a state funeral.