Selected Letters of William Styron

by William Styron

  I had lunch with Walter Baxter today, and you may tell Ted that he’s really a most likeable chap, rather nervous, quite tall and much older in appearance than his picture, with slightly graying hair and a small limp, both of which were a result of the war.†w I don’t think he’s queer, at least there’s not a hint of the fag in his manner, and my total impression was extremely favorable. I hope he does sell, because I really think his book is quite fine.

  I wish you’d do the following for me sometime soon: write to the Director of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress and ask him if there’s any way I can get ahold of a copy they have of “The Southampton Insurrection” by William S. Drewry (Washington, D.C., 1900). It’s the only full account I know of the Nat Turner rebellion, and I’d like to read it.†x The reason I mentioned the MS Division director is because he’s a friend of Mr. Chambers and he wrote me once asking for the MS of LDID.†y I forgot his name but Hiram can tell you, and I think that perhaps this fellow—Mears or something like that, I think it is—could get the book, while perhaps it couldn’t be gotten through ordinary channels. Also, I’d like one book which might describe life and customs in Virginia in 1830–31. If this involves too much research or trouble on your part, let me know, but I think it can be done pretty easily. I’m really pretty desperate to get started on something and I want to do the Turner thing, in spite of what Hiram says. I’d appreciate it if you could get these two books for me and mail them over before say, sometime in June. I’ll have a Paris address by then.

  The weekend I’m temporarily staying at the Cavendish Hotel on Jermyn street, which is draughty and unbelievably cold, a great sordid hulk of a building whose only claim to actual eminence is that it is run by an old hag, still living but totally immobile in a wheelchair; the ex-mistress of Edward VII, who gave it to her as propitiation or pay; or perhaps both.

  Love

  —Bill

  TO ROBERT LOOMIS

  March 31, 1952 London, England

  Dear Bob

  Just a short note in reply to your nice letter of the 25th, in which you encouraged me to get over my initial disappointment about England. I guess I sounded more than intentionally gloomy; actually I’m having an awfully good time over here, or as good as the austerity will permit. I suppose you + John got my letter (or card, rather) from Cornwall; that was sent at the tail-end of a really first-rate trip through parts of England with this actor-fellow I met, Brian Forbes, in a new Austin. We were in Cambridge first, then Lincolnshire looking at really magnificent castles + cathedrals. Stayed with a well-to-do farmer and his family who live in the Fen Country (like Holland, dikes [not the Village brand] and canals) on a little river which is the loveliest I’ve ever seen. They were very gentil and most hospitable.†z Then down to Cornwall by way of the moors, where we stayed at an absolutely insane vicarage with the vicar and his wife who looks like Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie (she asked me, “Do they have many flowers in America?” and stoutly maintained that Stalin was a “Jew-boy” and couldn’t be over 40), and with their 90-year-old aunt, deaf as a post, who is in favor of Taft. But they were all almost pathetically nice (one has to strain to avoid sounding patronizing about the British these days) and put out some wonderful food and showed us the Cornish coast, which is rocky and bleak and absolutely marvelous, putting either Maine or Point Lobos to shame. On the way back we stopped at Daphne du Maurier’s, a friend of Brian’s; she seems very nice, would still, I think, be good for a fair-to-middling roll in the hay, and lives in a house that is precisely twice as big as S. Klein’s On the Square, which, among other things, makes all her talk to me about being impoverished something of a bore, to say the least. Back in London I almost came down with something, but propped up my hypochondria and went to see Mr. Baxter, who looked down at me in mercy, and seems all in all a most sensitive, excellent fellow, not a bit a fag, and an extremely interesting talker, in a shy, nervous way. Friday, I’ve been invited to Hamish Hamilton’s to meet T.S. Eliot’s roommate, John Hayward, but I think I’ll be out of England by then; besides, I’ve already seen the Bard himself, in the Piccadilly subway, of all places! I think Calder Willingham,†A who’s here briefly, and I will take off for Denmark on Friday; why, exactly, I don’t know, except that I’ll probably never go to Denmark if I don’t go now.

  I was sorry to hear about your father, but certainly hope he’s better now. However, if it’ll put you at ease, my father had something of the same thing and is now back at work; they do miracles these days.

  How’s Bishop’s book doing; well, I hope. Haven’t gotten Mandel’s proofs yet, but I expect them any day.†B Best to John + keep me informed. Hamilton will forward any mail. Ever yours, Bill

  P.S.: LDID seems to be doing fine, with three lead reviews so far which don’t say it’s the greatest thing since Tolstoy, but that it’s got “something.”

  TO ERNEST LEHMAN†C

  April 20, 1952†D Paris, France

  Dear Mr. Lehmann,

  Thank you very much for your letter, which I received a few days after my arrival in Paris. I’m sorry to say that I don’t have any short pieces for you at the moment, but I’d be proud to have you consider one for your program, and I’ll certainly send you something as soon as I work up enough energy and will-power to write again. Actually at the moment I’m planning another novel, but I expect to do some short pieces to fill the gaps and I’m flattered to think that I may be able to keep you in mind. The party was great fun and I enjoyed meeting you, along with all the other nice people.

  Sincerely,

  Wm Styron

  1. What do you believe to be Joseph Conrad’s permanent place and rank in English letters? When Conrad died, some critics were uncertain of his final position and Virginia Woolf, in particular, doubted whether any of his later novels would survive. On the publication of a new edition of his collected writings, Mr. Richard Curle wrote in “Time and Tide” that Conrad’s works now rank among the great classics of the English novel. Which of these views in your opinion, is correct?

  Both, in a way. I think that Conrad’s earlier great works—Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, etc.—do rate with the finest novels written in English (certainly a work like Heart of Darkness is one of the few supreme masterpieces in English prose fiction), but I must agree with Mrs. Woolf in her feeling that much of his later work was thin, that when away from the sea Conrad seemed to be on uncertain ground, that his treatment of sex and society reflected in the main unfelt experience.

  2. Do you detect in Conrad’s work any oddity, exoticism and strangeness (against the background of the English literary tradition, of course) and if so, do you attribute it to his Polish origin?

  No.

  3. Has Conrad had any influence on American literature?

  Among the comparatively few American writers for whom the forging of a prose style—an individual prose style, that is, in which words sing and weep and celebrate, and are not merely bloodless ciphers—has been a central factor in their writing, Conrad has been, I think, one of the important influences. If I’m not mistaken, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Wolfe have all declared their debt to Conrad.

  4. Do you feel that you owe him anything in your development as a writer?

  Yes. What writer, what young man is there who has read Youth or Heart of Darkness who has not come away feeling that this is English prose as it should be written, and who—when the lazy desire to go slack or to shun his true emotions sneaks up—has not remembered Conrad’s own dark struggle, his faithfulness, and his unremitting honesty—and has then not given his best.

  William Styron

  TO WILLIAM C. STYRON, SR.

  May 1, 1952 Paris, France

  Dear Pop,

  May-Day in Paris is the day when everything is closed—buses, subways, stores, even the police, and the only people who transact business (outside of the bars) are the vendors of lily-of-the-valley, which seems to have some sort of May Day symbolic significance.†E It’s a perfect day
, then, to write you a letter and tell you briefly what I’ve been doing since Denmark. I arrived here a couple of weeks ago, after having taken the night train from Copenhagen—a twenty-two hour trip made longer than it ordinarily would have to be because of the number of island channels in Denmark that the train has to traverse—by railroad ferry. The route goes through Germany and Belgium and since most of it’s at night I didn’t see a whole lot, though I did get a pretty good twilight look at both Hamburg and Bremen. From where I sat both cities looked rich and thriving, but I gather that both are still pretty well smashed up behind view of the railroad tracks.

  Paris is just about all they say it is, a beautiful, incomparable place, made more lovely by the springtime. I must say that the atmosphere here, however, is treacherous—so lulling and lazy that one is content to sit for hours and hours drinking a beer in a café, and to do nothing more, no work, just sit. My French is still pretty sketchy (I should have applied myself more at Davidson and Duke) but already is showing improvement, and I no longer am afraid as I was at first to go into a “Tabac” and order a pack of cigarettes. Through friends in New York and London I’ve met a lot of very nice and interesting people and so my days and nights are well-filled. Through one of these people, a young writer named Peter Matthiessen†F from Connecticut, I got a very large, sunny, comfortable hotel room in a hotel called the Liberia in Montparnasse. It costs only 10,000 francs a month (less than $40) and I’ve contracted to stay there until around the middle of June, after which time I think I will have had my share of Paris and will head on somewhere else. I also plan to buy this Mr. Matthiessen’s 3-year old Fiat car for $500, and this will solve my transportation problems during my Rome stay, although nice as the car is, it doesn’t sound nearly as jazzy as the new Pontiac you described, which indeed must be a beauty.

  I’ve finally pretty much decided what to write next—a novel based on Nat Turner’s rebellion. The subject fascinates me, and I think I could make a real character out of old Nat. It’ll probably take a bit of research, though, and I’ve written to people in the U.S.—among them Prof. Saunders Redding (whom I saw Christmas, you remember) of Hampton Institute—asking them to pass on any reference material they might have. Perhaps you know of a book or something on Nat Turner and would be willing to get it sent to me somehow. Actually, I’d be extremely interested in anything on life around the Southside–Caroline Border country of Virginia in the 1820–1850 period. If you can get your hands on something on that order without too much trouble I’d appreciate your letting me know. I don’t know but whether I’m plunging into something over my depth, but I’m fascinated anyway.†G

  I hope everything is going well. Best to all and keep your wandering boy posted.

  Bill Jr.

  The food here, as in Denmark, is magnificent, but I’m provincial enough to still miss Southern fried chicken.

  TO WILLIAM BLACKBURN AND ASHBEL BRICE

  May 9, 1952 Paris, France

  I got both of your letters on the same day, so hope you will pardon my making this a communal job.

  Dear Doctor and Brice—

  I have just had a long and involved conversation with my chambermaid regarding the relative prices for postage stamps, for telephone calls, for telegrams, and for messages par pneumatique, and as a result I am heavily exhausted. It was a fairly interesting conversation, and I got the information that I was asking for, but to tell you the truth what I don’t know about the French language would fill the Encyclopædia Britannica and a talk with a Frenchman leaves me limp and defeated. Get an American and a Frog together—both nations being lousy linguists and both thinking their language is the only one—and the result is usually the sheerest chaos. I wish I’d studied under Walton, instead of having squeezed through with a “D.” Anyway, in order not to give the wrong impression, I want to say that I’m enjoying Paris a lot and have found that springtime in this city is pretty much what everyone always said it is. A balmy sky, sunlight, pretty girls, and perpetual lolling about in the cafes. To a melancholic neurotic like myself, saddled as I am with the burden of Calvin and Knox, this has a strange effect, i.e., it’s too goddamn enjoyable to be true.†H The unwritten motto here is obviously live and let live, toujours gai, and it’s all definitely hard on a man with a conscience. Not that I’m doing any great soul-searching at the moment, but I must say that it’s difficult to sit in one’s room and work when so much tempts from the outside.

  The contrast with England is striking, to say the least. One learns in Europe the truth of the adage about traveling on one’s stomach. I think that if any one thing in England serves to leave a final bad impression it’s the unbelievably repellent food; whereas here it’s next to impossible to get anything but a superb meal, and for practically nothing—par exemple, last night’s repast was an hors d’oeuvres of snails beautifully served up with garlic sauce, a beautifully juicy steak with potatoes and salad, dessert and coffee, and a beautifully amiable check—$1.10. It’s better than the Little Acorn, even.†I

  I fled England a week after my trip to Cornwall and Lincolnshire. I found London both depressing and expensive, but loved the week’s journey in the country. The Cornish coast itself is worth a trip to England. I don’t know how I did it but I missed going to Oxford and it’s the main thing I regret about my entire stay. I did see the best of the wonderful cathedrals though—the Cambridge chapel, Ely, Lincoln, and Salisbury. My favorite is still Ely, which I think is generally ignored because it’s on such flat land that it has no commanding approach. But it’s so marvelously lofty inside, and the octagonal tower is a gem. I stayed back in London for a week before going to Denmark, and the high point of that week—if you can call it a high point—was a cocktail party which John Lehmann gave for Calder Willingham. The English have a very incestuous literary set and everyone was there—Rosalind Lehmann (John’s sister), Philip Toynbee, Peter Quennell, Alan Pryce-Jones, Henry Green, and William Samson, the last so drunk that he had to be poured home in a taxi. I myself got too high to make much sense of the whole affair but I must say that the literary chit-chat floods high at such London soirées and that the proportion of fairies per capita is somewhat higher than on Park Avenue at Charles Role’s, if that’s possible. Incidentally, I got what by British standards are excellent reviews and yesterday learned that the book, hideous jacket and all, is going into a second edition—meaning that I’ve sold at least 5,000 copies. In substance the reviews were as confused as the American ones—no one comes alive except Loftis, only the soliloquy is any good, everyone comes alive but after all it’s so depressing, etc. etc.

  Denmark was fine but fairly dull and after a week I was ready to leave. The Danish girls are très amiable, the food wonderful and the only really unfortunate part of my sojourn there was that Calder, who is otherwise a most affable person, bounced a bad check on me to the tune of $50, the bastard. I came down on the night train from Copenhagen, via Hamburg and Bremen, but didn’t see much. Then Paris bloomed for me. What a town. I got a wonderful big sunny room at a hotel called the Liberia (makes me feel like one of Andrew Johnson’s displaced niggers) for roughly $25 a month, and sort of let the concierge know that I’ll be here for a couple of months. It’s right around the corner from Le Café Dôme, in Montparnasse, where one is supposed to be impressed by the fact that it’s the same café where Hemingway used to hang out. Not too far away are the cafes of St. Germain-des-Prés, the Flore and the Deux Magots made chic by Sartre, and I suppose that there you will find, at literally any hour of the day, the greatest floor show on earth … French, American, Arab, Scandinavian, Chinese, masculine, feminine, neuter, and in all shapes and sizes. It makes the San Remo or Marja look as staid as Schrafft’s after a Wednesday matinee. I’ve met some excellent people on my own—so far all American, since I have no way to communicate with the French. Everyone over here is writing a novel and one of them, with whom I’ve struck up a friendship, is a nice fellow named Peter Matthiessen, who is bright and witty, knows Paris well, and w
on the Atlantic Monthly “First” contest last year. I also met Sam Goldwyn, Jr., who is a nice guy, and received from him a strange invitation to drive down to Italy with him, but I had to decline on the ground that his set and mine are not likely to see eye to eye.†J Through a couple of people in New York I’m supposed to look up Irwin Shaw†K and Alice B. Toklas,†L but I don’t know if I will because, as interesting as it might be to meet them, I am having a perfectly contented time on this side of the river, and I’ve heard that Shaw is something of a jerk. Oh yes, finally I saw Truman Capote in the Café Flore and he was obviously perfectly furious that no one recognized him.†M This about covers everything to date and I’ll write more soon. As it is, life just drifts along, even though I get nostalgic for Durum at times—Bill

  P.S. I’m going to buy a Fiat for $500

  TO ELIZABETH MCKEE

  May 14, 1952 Paris, France

  Dear Lizzie,

  Thank you for the letter re Nat Turner and so on. I think I told you that I have written Saunders Redding for information but I haven’t heard from him as yet. Here is what I wish you would do, though, first try to get hold of the Drewry book somehow. Maybe Columbia has it in its library, or perhaps you can call up one of those outfits that advertise in the Times Book Review and say they can locate any book. I’m willing to pay anything reasonable for a copy, or the loan of one, and I’ll let you, with your instinctive feeling for reasonableness, figure out just how much seems to be reasonable. The other two books I wish you’d get for me are the Aptheker book on Negro Slave Revolts which I’d like to read even though it’s not exclusively Nat Turner, and the book by Ulrich B. Phillips.†N Charge them both to my account. In the meantime I am going to write to the Virginia State Library and see if they don’t have a copy of the Drewry book. No, on the other hand, maybe it would be better if you wrote to the Va. library in Richmond about the Drewry book, simply to avoid any possibility of duplication. I hope this doesn’t sound like too much work for you, but I really am anxious to start reading up on my next project. I’m getting more and more worked up over the thing and the way I look at it is—Hiram’s caution to the contrary—that a person should write about what excites him the most, and not about what will necessarily and neatly pigeonhole him into a certain métier.†O I don’t want to be known as the J.P. Marquand of Virginia or the Scott Fitzgerald of Lost Generation II, but simply as a writer who is versatile enough to tackle anything.†P