Butterfly in the Typewriter

by Cory MacLauchlin

  In the essay Toole argues that Lyly, a playwright of the late sixteenth century, remarkably depicted women as empowered, educated, relatively independent, and often the equal to male characters. Lyly also brought the convention of euphuism—an ornate, witty style of writing—into English literature through his two novels, which Toole argues influenced both the high society for whom he wrote and other playwrights at the time, including Shakespeare. Toole may have taken interest in Lyly as a personality as well. “He seems always to have been determined to maintain his reputation as a clever figure . . . who would impress courtly circles with his understanding and extremely timely interpretations of the contemporary scene.” The same description could be aptly applied to Toole.

  The essay on Lyly as a culmination of Toole’s work at Tulane also accents his interest in the role of women in society. In his cartoons, he depicts mostly women, either frumpy or sultry. In the margins of his class notes, he sketched faces and figures of women, studies of the female form. And in his honor’s essay, he focuses on women during the Elizabethan era as seen through the eyes of a male writer. These contemplations may have been a reflection of his own ponderings of women in his life. At home, his mother was the dominant personality, and while she contended that she never pried in her son’s business, others remember that she was quite overbearing. While attending Tulane, Toole brought a young woman home on one occasion. His mother deemed that she had a “hoity toity” way of talking. Would another woman ever be welcomed into the Toole home? Or must they remain as unreal as Marilyn Monroe? Toole offers no personal musings on this subject. But his query into the nature of woman throughout his work at Tulane, from his cartoons to his honor’s essay, surely signifies something more than an intellectual interest. These female characters mark the beginning of an inquiry in which, years later near the end of his life, he would contemplate the role and the meaning of a mother.

  That is not to say that his exploration of the female sex was confined to pen and paper. He connected with several women at Tulane. While working at Carnival and Hullabaloo, Toole was reacquainted with Emilie “Russ” Dietrich, a childhood friend who had lived next door to the Tooles when they lived on Webster Street. She was an aspiring writer whose “Bacchanalia” was featured in Carnival. On Mardi Gras day in 1957, Toole asked Dietrich to dance while she waited for her date to pick her up. She mused years later, “It would be easy to fall in love with a man that could dance like John Kennedy Toole.” Their brief dance was not the end of their relationship. They would reconnect several years later in New York City.

  On another occasion, he escorted Marcia Suthon to one of the final church services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, before it was destroyed to make way for a ramp onto the Crescent City Connection, the bridge that spans the Mississippi River, connecting downtown to Algiers Point. It was a historic moment, one of the unfortunate compromises that New Orleans made as it attempted to step toward modernity. On the winter evening of the last service in 1958, Toole and Suthon saw Jane Gwynn, another Fortier alumna and the same girl who used to ride with Toole up and down the elevator eating petits fours in Cornelia Sansum’s house. After the service, they went to the Napoleon House in the French Quarter for some drinks. They shared an evening of laughter, reminiscing over their high school days.

  And according to a biographical article on Toole by Dalt Wonk, the most enduring relationship he had with a woman began at Tulane when he started dating Ruth Lafranz who also worked on Carnival and Hullabaloo. They had first met on a blind date. Mmahat recalls the couple coming to meetings of the Newman Club. Eventually they started going out regularly, to the movies or to dances at the Roosevelt Hotel. They enjoyed sipping “tall drinks at the Napoleon House, where they laughed about the unrelenting 1812 Overture on the record player.” She majored in journalism, and Toole took four journalism classes in his junior year. As the chapter president of Theta Mu, Lafranz sent him an invitation to join the honorary journalism fraternity. While it would be far more fitting than his Greek venture into Delta Tau Delta, Toole still did not join, but their relationship would continue long after graduation.

  While Toole was no socialite, by all accounts he was great fun to be with. He danced well, from the waltz to the Jitterbug. And he made people laugh with his impersonations of professors, fellow students, and anyone who struck his fancy. But as a gentleman, he took care not to impersonate people in his company. His friends during this time recognized that he saw the world in a most unique way. He delivered his observations as hilarious one-man skits, teasing out the absurdities in everyday life, bringing his friends to tears with laughter.

  Above all, Toole proved to be an exceptional student at Tulane, from his first day to his last. And his reputation as a scholar supposedly extended past the bounds of the university. His friend Cary Laird reported that, one day, as the two friends contemplated life after graduation, Toole told him the agent of Yul Brynner had asked him to serve as a personal tutor to the Brynner’s children as the family traveled about the country. Of course, in 1956 Brynner famously played Ramses in The Ten Commandments. And in 1958 he starred as Jean Lafitte in The Buccaneer , a remake of the Cecile B. DeMille film that premiered in New Orleans a few months after Toole was born. The Brynner film also made its world premiere in New Orleans, and considering Toole’s interest in the movies and his ancestral connection to the pirate Lafitte, he likely attended. Upon hearing of the remarkable offer made to Toole, Laird believed that his friend was telling the truth. But had this offer actually been made, Thelma Toole would have surely gloated, as it would be another validation of her son’s talents. Thelma never publicly mentioned such an opportunity offered to her son, or perhaps he had kept it from her. Toole was likely trying to impress Laird. It would be one of many incidents to come in which Toole exaggerated in order to impress a friend, even through his friends rarely doubted his talent. Perhaps Toole needed to reassure himself that he was on some grand path toward greatness.

  In his final semester, Toole lived up to his reputation as an exceptional scholar. On one of his papers, his professor, Dr. Fogle, commented, “You have done an excellent job, I think; if you were a graduate student I would still give you perhaps an A- on this paper.” He was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and a faculty member nominated him for a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship. He had secured the key to his future in graduate school.

  He probably could have stayed at Tulane to get his master’s degree, but Toole felt it was time to move on. At the time, job prospects after graduating from an Ivy League school were much brighter than what Tulane would be able to offer. The fellowship would help him attend a school that he could not otherwise afford. According to Thelma, he wanted to attend Harvard, but he was not accepted. So once again, the electric lights and the energy of New York City beckoned. In late March he opened a letter welcoming him to Columbia University. Luckily, he would not be alone in the city as Ruth Lafranz was also heading to Columbia for her master’s in journalism.

  After graduation from Tulane, he secured a summer job. The fellowship was generous, but he knew the expense of New York would be challenging. He was hired at the Haspel Brothers, the company that made seersuckers famous. He worked at the factory, located on the east side of the city. Toole was accustomed to the low wages of temporary jobs, and working at the factory was certainly better than selling hot dogs at football games. Such jobs were the pragmatic means to an end—a little more money in his pocket so he could reach his goal of one day becoming a writer, or a professor, or both. Best of all, the factory and its array of characters made for ripe storytelling material. While his friend Laird never envied the conditions in which Toole labored, he loved it when Toole would tell him about the people and the absurd conflicts unfolding at the factory. Toole had found his model for Levy Pants, the first place of employment for Ignatius in Confederacy. Although, unlike Ignatius who negotiated a sixty-dollar-per-week salary, Toole’s payroll stub suggests he made $34.10 after taxes. I
t was a rate closer to that of the character Miss Trixie, the aged office worker with rheumy eyes.

  Fortunately, his summer before leaving for New York was not all work. Toole visited the Gulf Coast, piling into a convertible with friends, heading east out of the swampy environs of New Orleans to enjoy a day at the beach. The Mississippi coast has long served as a retreat for summer-worn New Orleanians, who long to wade in the water, feel the cool breeze, and watch as those ancient-looking pelicans gracefully fly in low formation across the horizon. But in 1958, viewing the common scenes of the gulf, Toole must have reeled with the excitement of his future prospects. He would trade beignets for bagels, the streetcar for the subway, and the slow, easy pace of his sultry town on the Mississippi River for the bustling thoroughfares of New York City. In several pictures taken at the beach during this summer, Toole shows off his “brawny physique,” as his mother had described. His body had filled out from his freshman year. He stands triumphant, ready to take on the world.

  Chapter 5

  Columbia University

  New York is today’s Noah’s Ark.

  —John Kennedy Toole

  The Manhattan skyline emerges out of the Hudson and East rivers, an American symbol of human ambition. Businessmen, restaurateurs, artists, all manner of disciplines come to New York, hoping to carve a legacy out of this labyrinth; and the city, unforgiving, demands their best. Toole’s successes in New Orleans served as stepping-stones to this moment. Far removed from the quaint temper of Tulane, he entered another kind of world at Columbia—a mammoth institution that drew people from every walk of life, students from more than sixty-three nations, and a star-studded faculty from the forefront of knowledge. To a young scholar from the South, Columbia must have seemed a place of limitless possibilities. Here, Toole pursued his dream vision of New York, the place where he would cast a mold for himself far from the comforts and burdens of home. His previous visits to the Big Apple had offered him an introduction to the city, but he understood graduate school in New York would be quite different from a weekend taking in Broadway musicals.

  Distanced from the tourist centers of Manhattan, Columbia is situated in Morningside Heights between the Upper West Side and Harlem. Originally named King’s College, the school was established in 1754 by a charter from King George II and located in lower Manhattan. It was renamed Columbia out of patriotic fervor that followed the Revolutionary War, but one can still sense its regal distinction while walking through its current campus. The columned, neoclassical buildings surround green lawns, where students stroll from class to class, from genius lecture to genius lecture. And during Toole’s time at Columbia, when the graduate student searched for “overtly social occasions,” the Graduate Student’s Guide suggested visiting “the Graduate Student Lounge . . . about tea-time” where one would find the knowledgeable Mrs. Edgar Grim Miller “presiding over the students and staff members gathered there.” With the crown emblem and lion mascot, the faculty and students sat upon their thrones as urbane kings of an urban jungle. In this royal sanctuary, a world apart from the frenzy of Times Square or the bohemian quarters of Greenwich Village, Toole could quietly study in the libraries or ponder literature while sitting along the Hudson in Riverside Park. And yet, the endless diversions of the metropolis were at most a subway ride away. For a young man at the age of twenty, it offered the best of both worlds, serene and exhilarating.

  But for all its opportunities, Columbia offered no escape from the sobering, financial reality of living and studying in Manhattan. Even with the good fortune of a fellowship, the imposition of money determined Toole’s course from day one. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship covered tuition and awarded him fourteen hundred dollars for the entire year, from which he had to pay for room and board, books, and supplies. But it lasted only for the fall and spring semesters. In two semesters it was possible to complete the degree, which required ten courses, writing a thesis, and passing two comprehensive exams. But according to the student guide such an achievement was “unusual.” Most master of arts candidates completed the degree requirements over three semesters, usually finishing in the summer. If Toole followed the typical track, he would need money to pay for a summer session. Put into perspective, the student guide presented financial figures for a student with a university loan, savings from a summer job, and income from a part-time job on campus, which still left the student seven hundred dollars short. These funds would “have to be filled from ‘outside’ sources: [such as] help from family or sponsors, savings, other loans.” Toole had no outside sources, certainly no substantial help from his family; they simply could not afford it. It was clear, he had to accomplish the unusual. He had to graduate in two semesters, after which, if approved, he could continue on to the PhD program at Columbia.

  With his deadline established, he began his life as a graduate student. He moved into Furnald Hall, room 1008. It was sparsely furnished with two beds, a sink, and an alcove at the far end, offering enough space for a desk or a chair, positioned under the bay windows. The top floor room offered a view over Broadway. Out of the windows he could see the bell towers of the Union Theological Seminary and Broadway Presbyterian Church, the soaring gothic tower of Riverside Church, and the new high-rise dorms under construction at Barnard College. Ten floors down, the wood-paneled lounge of Furnald Hall with its grand marble fireplace and huge chandelier offered students a spacious escape from the confines of their small rooms. Crown emblems embossed on the coffered ceiling subtly reminded students of their privileged place.

  Unpacked and settled in his room, Toole set his sights on the work ahead. He had lectures to attend, much reading to do, and a thesis to write. In the brisk autumn air, he headed to class. His short walk across the South Lawn to Philosophy Hall soon became commonplace. But each day he passed the buildings and statues that ever so clearly evidenced his elevation from Tulane. Upon exiting Furnald, he passed the Graduate School of Journalism, founded by Joseph Pulitzer and where the famed Pulitzer Prize annually originates. To the right, on the south end of the lawn, Toole could see the Butler Library, the giant columns upholding the names of poets and philosophers Homer, Plato, and Socrates. On the north end of the lawn, he passed the iconic Alma Mater statue, sitting upon her throne on the steps of the Low Library with an open book in her lap, her arms outstretched, welcoming all her chosen ones. Finally, approaching Philosophy Hall, he passed an original cast of Rodin’s The Thinker, the timeless statue prompting contemplation. Renowned academics, poets, and writers had made a similar trek to arrive at those same oak doors. He walked in the footsteps of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Joseph Heller, J. D. Salinger, and Upton Sinclair. Here it was that great thinkers came to study and teach, as they had for decades. Inside, professors sat in their offices, the doors slightly ajar, as they worked on their latest projects. The faint clacking of typewriters echoed into the wood-paneled corridors. Lecture rooms filled with students quietly chatting, awaiting professors. Taking his seat, Toole set his course for something greater than what New Orleans could offer him.

  Over the next nine months, he spent much of his time in Philosophy Hall, taking five graduate courses each semester, almost all of which reflected his declared focus on British Literature. His professors for these courses were among the luminaries of Columbia. In their own way they contributed to his development as a scholar, teacher, and writer.

  He enrolled in an eighteenth-century British Literature class that was taught by the department chair, Marjorie Nicolson, a “short tank of a woman” often seen “drawing on a cigarette with her thin lips.” She declared her independence through her fierce dedication to academic rigor. But never a tyrant, she tailored her questions so as to challenge students, not demoralize them. Students affectionately called her Miss Nicki behind her back.

  He also took two courses with the lively William Nelson, another ranking official listed as the department representative in the Graduate Student’s Guide. Robert Parker, who studied extensively under
Nelson, remembers him as an underrated scholar and gentleman. In the seminar on British poet Edmund Spencer, Nelson would often read passages of poetry. He maintained that when read aloud, Spencer’s The Faerie Queen becomes one of the great joys in literature, despite its intentional archaic language and reputation for difficulty. Nelson’s lectures became a kind of literary theater, which may have demonstrated to Toole a way to blend both performance and teaching to create memorable classroom moments. And any young scholar harboring aspirations of a writer in the mid-twentieth century would benefit from William Tindall’s Contemporary British Literature course. Under Tindall’s guidance, Toole leapt into the world of James Joyce, reading Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses. Tindall encouraged students to discard the confines of historical context and read a work of literature in its present-day significance, an approach that differed from Toole’s undergraduate instruction. But such a challenge may have provided him an opportunity to appreciate Joyce in a new light. As an author steeped in the place of his birth, Joyce used his city, Dublin, to parallel the roots of Western literature in Ulysses. And yet, Tindall argued, one need not understand those roots to appreciate the work. Similarly, in Confederacy, Toole would compose a reflection of New Orleans, while connecting the work to the long line of his literary predecessors, from Chaucer to Dickens, and yet he would achieve an accessibility open to anyone with a sense of humor.

  By far the most important professor he met at Columbia was John Wieler who taught a course on sixteenth-century literature, the area of Toole’s particular interest. Wieler was a graduate of the PhD program at Columbia and must have been teaching there as a part-time faculty member. By 1959 he was already acting chairman at Hunter College, an all-girls school located on the east side of Manhattan. Wieler would prove integral in Toole’s professional life, essentially opening the door to his transition from student to professor. The two would spend an academic year getting to know each other, a year in which Wieler became very impressed by Toole.