Odd Type Writers

by Celia Blue Johnson

  Apparently Wharton’s family wasn’t enthusiastic about her literary aspirations. The author wrote about their negative reaction to her writing in her autobiography, A Backward Glance. And yet several biographers have observed Wharton’s tendency to mythologize her life story. In one instance, Wharton stated that she was forbidden to read fiction. However, her claim is contradicted by the fact that Wharton’s family members, including her father, gave her novels as gifts. It does seem that there was at least a degree of resistance against Wharton’s writing in her home. She vividly recalled showing a short story to her mother, Lucretia. In the opening scene of the story, a character refers to her messy drawing room. Lucretia offered no praise in response. She simply stated, “Drawing rooms are always tidy.” Wharton’s mother may not have approved of literary ambition, but in Bahlmann the young writer found a true advocate.

  When Wharton married Teddy in 1885, Bahlmann came with her. She served as secretary in the new household, transcribing Wharton’s prose along with other duties. In May 1890, Wharton dashed off an enthusiastic letter to Bahlmann. She wrote, “A few days ago I sent to Scribner’s a little story—my first attempt at publishing prose—&to my surprise it has been accepted. Isn’t this a delightful beginning?” The story, “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” marked the start of Wharton’s career as a fiction writer (she had successfully sold poems in the past). Bahlmann stuck with Wharton throughout her career, helping type a number of works, including The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome. She stayed with Wharton in many different homes around the world, from New York and Massachusetts to London and France. Their working relationship ended two decades after Bahlmann first took on the role of secretary. At that juncture, Bahlmann’s declining health prevented her from continuing. Three more women served as Wharton’s literary secretaries: Dolly Herbert (briefly), Jeanne Duprat, and Jeanne Friderích.

  Wharton contended that originality was “attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer’s own.” That long look for Wharton was not a passive act. She developed her own method to reshape the object in her view. Nestled in the comfort of a bed, Wharton constructed her prose—writing, rewriting, cutting, pasting—and building a world of fiction along the way.

  Bright-Eyed

  Many great writers, like Edith Wharton, composed their masterpieces as the sun was rising. Ray Bradbury stated, “I start [writing] whenever my subconscious gives a helluva yell and tells me to get out of the way.” Though he was subject to creative whims, Bradbury still made sure that he sat down to work by 9 a.m. every morning.

  Famous authors who worked early in the morning or late at night (see pages 7 and 61) tend to share one thing in common. Philip Roth recalled an observation from Joyce Carol Oates about authors and their work schedules. Oates noted that when writers ask one another about their regimens, they really want to know, “Is he as crazy as I am?” Roth added, “I don’t need that question answered.” But an offbeat schedule isn’t necessarily a crazy choice. Many authors need to wrap themselves up in their work, and the best time to do this is when most other people are sleeping. These authors can concentrate more fully during off-hours, without those myriad of distractions that storm into one’s life during the day.

  For some writers, mornings are the only practical time to write. As a young mother, Toni Morrison wrote before her children woke up. “Writing before dawn began as a necessity,” she noted. But later, when she was no longer restricted to certain hours by a day job or her parental duties, Morrison found that mornings still suited her best. “I’m not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down,” she observed.

  For Morrison, an essential element of her writing process is witnessing the evolution of night into day. Every morning, before she writes, she drinks a cup of coffee while watching the sun rise. She observed, “I realized that for me this ritual comprises my preparation to enter a space that I can only call nonsecular.”

  Katherine Anne Porter also preferred to compose in the morning, particularly because it was such a peaceful time. While discussing her early work hours, Porter noted, “I don’t want to speak to anybody or see anybody. Perfect silence.”

  For Wallace Stegner, it was essential to divide his days between a morning of writing and everything else in the afternoon. By allocating a full morning to writing, Stegner had enough time to let his fiction balloon into a reality. He wrote, “I know no way to become convinced, and stay convinced, of the reality and worthiness of a novel but to go out every morning to the place where writing is done, and put your seat on the seat of the chair.”

  For one reason or another, many authors have found creative solace in the morning. From early birds to late risers, here’s a roundup of when these writers punched in to work:

  4:00 a.m.: Sylvia Plath

  5:00 a.m.: Jack London, Toni Morrison, Katherine Anne Porter

  5:30 a.m.: Anthony Trollope, Kurt Vonnegut

  6:00 a.m.: W. H. Auden, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Victor Hugo, Vladimir Nabokov, Edith Wharton

  7:00 a.m.: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  8:00 a.m.: Flannery O’Connor, Wallace Stegner

  9:00 a.m.: Ray Bradbury, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Mann, Gabriel García Márquez, Leo Tolstoy, Gore Vidal, Virginia Woolf

  9:30 a.m.: Carson McCullers

  10:00 a.m.: W. Somerset Maugham

  The Cork Shield

  MARCEL PROUST

  1871–1922

  I never knew how many hours he slept, or even if he slept at all. It was all between him and the four walls of his room.

  —Céleste Albaret, Marcel Proust’s housekeeper

  In September 1914, Marcel Proust told his housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, that they would not be embarking on another vacation. They had just returned to Paris after spending time in Cabourg, a resort town on France’s northern coast. The author spoke of his literary efforts in light of World War I, which had recently begun. “The soldiers do their duty, and since I can’t fight as they do, my duty is to write my book, do my work. I haven’t the time for anything else,” he declared. Albaret observed that this was a turning point, “when he deliberately entered into his life as a partial recluse.” Partial is a key word in Albaret’s description. Though Proust is often depicted as a writer who never left his home, he did go out on occasion. However, he did choose more often than not to isolate himself in his bedroom. He wrote at night and slept during the day, hours that reinforced his seclusion from the rest of the world.

  In Search of Lost Time (originally translated as Remembrance of Things Past) is the multivolume novel that Proust felt obligated to write. He’d begun working on the first installment, Swann’s Way, in 1909, and it was finally published in 1913. Even at this point, Proust had developed a reputation of being a literary hermit. In an interview that took place not long after the publication of the first book, he described the creative benefits of his reclusive lifestyle. He said, “Darkness, silence, and solitude, by throwing their heavy cloaks over my shoulders, have forced me to recreate all the light, all the music and the joys of nature and society in myself.”

  The space into which Proust retreated was located on the bustling Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. He lived on the second floor of number 102 from 1906 until 1918. Proust had moved into the apartment after his beloved mother’s death. He couldn’t bear to continue living in the same place where both his parents died. The apartment had belonged to Proust’s uncle. The family connection appealed to the sentimental author. However, it couldn’t have been worse for Proust’s health and work routine. Proust had suffered a severe asthma attack when he was nine years old. Because of his condition, he tried to avoid dust and pollen, which were prevalent on the tree-lined street.

  During the day, pedestrians strode and strolled outside Proust’s window. Automobiles sputtered and carriages clattered over the cobblestone road. All the commotion kicked up noise and dust, which filtered into the apartment building. After many sleepless days, he manag
ed to convert his room into a cocoon, one that would keep out sound, light, and pollutants. Shutters, double-pane windows, and large blue silk curtains all served as layers to protect Proust from irritants entering his bedroom. In fact, they were closed throughout the apartment. Proust only allowed Albaret to open the windows when he was out. Proust even decided to get rid of his telephone to ensure greater solitude. In this sealed-in space, there were no stray rays of light or extra specks of dust to bother the slumbering writer during the day.

  Noise, however, was an entirely different matter. Proust was plagued by the sounds that charged into his room. His friend Anna de Noailles offered him a practical, albeit unusual, solution: cork! She had lined her own bedroom walls in cork to help dampen outside noise, and found that it worked well. So he followed her advice. In 1910, he had his bedroom walls and ceiling covered in sheets of cork. However, he didn’t have the panels covered in wallpaper, as de Noailles had, and the layer of cork turned black over time.

  Occasionally Proust went out to visit friends or eat dinner at the Hôtel Ritz, but he spent most nights nestled in his bedroom. Around the room sat a collection of writing tools and resources and family memorabilia, which ranged from his mother’s grand piano and cabinets to photographs and smaller items. His bed was tucked in the corner. Proust would lie back on the mattress, with layers of sweaters wrapped around his shoulders, and write. Stocks of pens, ink, and notebooks were stored on the three tables by his side. Proust used simple wooden pens with interchangeable metal nibs. His pages rested on his knees and were illuminated by the low glow from a bedside lamp (a chandelier overhead was rarely used). And, from night to morning, while the busy city rested, Proust’s pen whirred across the page.

  Albaret described this nighttime regimen, the hours of which she also adopted, as an “upside-down life.” She lived in Proust’s home for a decade, following his schedule, keeping the apartment in order. She delivered croissants, prepared fresh coffee (never letting him drink a cold cup), tidied the scattered pages on his bed, and tended to his every need.

  Proust would write, rewrite, and rewrite again. Every time he reread his work, he thought of something to change or add. He explained to Albaret, “I want my work to be a sort of cathedral in literature. That is why it is never finished. Even when the construction is completed there is always some decoration to add, or a stain-glass window or a capital or another chapel to be opened up, with a little statue in the corner.” Always meticulous with details, he would sometimes embark on research trips to study particular people or things up close. The smallest nuances, such as the construction of a garment or the posture of an acquaintance, were of great significance to Proust. Consequently, he was constantly adding new material to his expansive novel. Revisions spilled down the margins of his drafts. When he ran out of room, a piece of paper marked with new text was pasted onto the manuscript. Albaret had come up with this clever process in order to ensure that the changes were input correctly.

  In 1919, Proust was suddenly forced to move out of his treasured apartment on Boulevard Haussmann. His aunt, who owned the building, sold it without informing her nephew first. According to Albaret, Proust had the cork lining removed from his bedroom and placed in storage, presumably to be used again down the line. However, other biographers note that the sheets were sold to a bottle cork facility.

  Proust found a new apartment at 44 rue Hamelin in Paris. He lived there, on the fifth floor, for the final years of his life. Unfortunately, Proust passed away before he could correct the final three volumes of In Search of Lost Time, but they were published posthumously. The entire tome was more than three thousand pages long. It was the product of thousands of nights of work. Alberet observed, “The miracle with M. Proust was his will power. And his will power was all directed towards his work.”

  Flea Circus

  COLETTE

  1873–1954

  Shall I ever marvel enough at animals?

  —Colette, from her novel Break of Day

  In 1926, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette bought a vacation home in Saint-Tropez, an idyllic town on the French Riviera. She spent many summers at La Treille Muscate, the name of which was inspired by an old muscat grapevine in the garden. Colette’s friend the painter André Dunoyer de Segonzac also had a home in Saint-Tropez. He often visited La Treille Muscate. While he was there, he observed Colette as she prepared for work. He later described a strange habit that would often precede Colette’s writing.

  Colette would study the fur of her French bulldog, Souci, with a discerning eye. Then she’d pluck a flea from Souci’s back and would continue the hunt until she was ready to write. Dunoyer de Segonzac described this grooming ritual as a method of procrastination. Like a reluctant swimmer, Colette performed little tasks before diving into the papers on her desk. In addition to relieving Souci of her fleas, Colette would cozy up with a pug on the divan. She would also swat a number of flies. Only then was the author ready to sit down to work.

  The shift from stalling to writing was always abrupt, according to Dunoyer de Segonzac. Colette would suddenly be moved to write. Then she would plant herself at a desk that faced the corner of her room. There she sat for hours at a time. Though the pages flew, Colette moved very little while she wrote. Inevitably, she grew cold. Her third husband, Maurice Goudeket, recalled, “She put rug after rug on her knees and shawl after shawl on her back.” After particularly long periods of writing, Colette looked “like a cocoon” with all of her layers.

  In an article for the New York Times, Diane Ackerman observed of Colette’s flea-picking habit, “It’s not hard to imagine how the methodical stroking and probing into fur might have focused such a voluptuary’s mind.” Ackerman wrote that Colette practiced the prewriting treatment on her cats (there’s no mention of the dogs). Certainly, in Saint-Tropez there were plenty of cats to groom. Colette had ten feline pets, not counting the strays that came to visit. In fact, cats and dogs had been curling up by her side since childhood.

  Colette’s mother, Sido, adored animals. On occasion Sido even brought a hunting dog to church, much to the chagrin of the local priest. Colette grew up in a manor in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Burgundy. Under Sido’s watch, generations of cats and dogs were born in their home. Litters of kittens and pups played and snoozed in their downstairs living room. And when Colette walked to school, the family’s bulldog, Toutouque, trotted along beside her.

  At twenty Colette married Henry Gauthier-Villars, and he whisked her off to Paris. Gauthier-Villars, better known by his pen name, Henry Willy, was far from an ideal husband. He was an unabashed cheat, who went as far as bringing women home, even when Colette was there. Willy also exploited unknown authors, paying them unfairly small sums to ghostwrite his books. He was always on the lookout for new material to bring in more money. He was not above adding his wife to the roster of ghostwriters. He asked Colette to write a novelization of her experiences as a schoolgirl. She complied, filling up several exercise books, but Willy rejected the novel after a cursory glance.

  However, a couple of years later, after a second read, Willy changed his mind. He asked Colette to incorporate a few scandalous relationships into the story, and she reluctantly obeyed. Then he sold the novel, Claudine at School, to a publisher under his name. Colette was merely known as the inspiration for the book. Claudine at School was a hit, and Willy urged Colette to pen more books starring the same protagonist. To ensure the pages mounted, Willy routinely locked his wife inside a room to write for four-hour stretches.

  Colette felt trapped in her awful marriage. She was lonely and depressed. Two of her most steadfast companions during this difficult time were a dog and a cat. Colette wrote, “I had a [French] bulldog, Toby-Chien, who lived in a turmoil or a swoon of emotion, and a long, luxurious, subtle angora cat, Kiki-la-Doucette.” When Colette traveled to a country house, where she lived alone for the second part of each year, Toby and Kiki came with her. And when her marriage finally fell apart and she moved into a new apartmen
t, thirty-one-year-old Colette brought the animals along. “It was there that I faced the first hours of a new life, between my dog and my cat,” she recalled.

  Bit by bit, Colette established herself as an independent woman. She found success as an actress, had affairs with men and women, and began to sell fiction and nonfiction under her own name, first as Colette Willy and then simply as Colette. Gigi, published in 1944, was her most famous novel.

  Animals were always close to Colette, whether they were at her heels or on her lap, and both on and off the page. Cats and dogs served as protagonists in many of her stories. In Colette’s The Cat, a man’s affection for his kitty creates a rift in his marriage. The story may have resounded with Henry de Jouvenel, Colette’s second husband. De Jouvenel felt like he was intruding when he stumbled upon his wife when she was alone with her pets. He proclaimed, “One of these days you’ll retire to a jungle.” Colette tossed the idea up in the air, like a mischievous kitten with a ball of yarn. She wrote, “I keep toying with the agreeable picture of the future this prophecy offers me.”

  Paws Between the Pages

  Colette is one of many famous writers who not only adored but were also inspired by their pets. In the canine realm, John Steinbeck wrote about driving around the country with his poodle in Travels with Charley. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem about her cocker spaniel called “To Flush, My Dog.” She described her relationship with Flush in a letter to a friend, writing, “He&I are inseparable companions, and I have vowed him my perpetual society in exchange for his devotion.” Viriginia Woolf also wrote a novel, Flush, about the poetess and her dog.

  During the evening, Emily Brontë often sat and read beside Keeper, the family dog. Keeper was a large, ferocious-looking animal. When incited, he would erupt in loud, deep barks. He was an intimidating dog, but Brontë was not afraid of him. In one instance, when Keeper brawled with another dog, she broke up the fight. Her secret weapon in this instance was pepper, which she tossed onto both dogs’ noses. According to Ellen Nussey, a biographer and friend of the family, Brontë’s treatment of Keeper was sometimes abusive. Nussey recalled that, to punish the dog, Brontë once hit his eyes repeatedly until they were swollen. And yet, Nussey observed, “She never showed regard to any human creature; all her love was reserved for animals.”