I have distracted myself today by finishing David Lodge's most recent novel, "deaf sentence." It is moving and witty. The protagonist is a retired linguistic professor going deaf. Lodge sets forth the issues (p. 13):"Deafness is comic, as blindness is tragic. Take Oedipus, for instance: suppose, instead of putting out his eyes, he had punctured his eardrums. It would have been more logical actually, since it was through his ears that he learned the dreadful truth about his past, but it wouldn't have the same cathartic effect.".... our hero goes on to reflect on "Damn your ears!".... and "'There's more in this than meets the ear'" is something Inspector Clousea might say, not Poirot."Blind or deaf? Which shall it be?