Striking it poor with great fiction

There’s been lots of talk about shrinking author advances lately, with the once-common $10,000 advances for mid-list writers being replaced by sums that are half, or even a fourth of that amount. Author royalties above and beyond the advance can still add up, but trickling in as they do twice a year for a pretty limited period before bookstores return the unsold copies to be pulped by the publisher, they’re hardly a sure-fire way to get rich quick.

But you’re not alone, discouraged writer. One of the most-heralded debut short story collections of the last century, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time , was given an advance of only $200 in 1925. In today’s money, that comes to just under $2,600. And the print run? A whopping 1,335 copies. If He was lucky enough to get, say 25% in royalties (most would kill for that today), and every book sold, he was looking at another $8,600 in today’s money. (The book was priced at $2.00 a copy)

No wonder he had to keep slaving away as a foreign correspondent while penning his fiction.

Conan the Literarian

I’ve "Quixoted" you to death this week, so today, a “did you know” celebrity fun-fact for a change of pace.

Fact #1: Conan O’Brien is in Atlanta shooting sketches for a series of Atlanta-based shows to be aired during Final Four week (The Final Four is in Atlanta this year).

Fact #2: The company I work for sponsors Conan’s show, and by the fortuitous whim of some corporate sponsorship genius, he was scheduled to drop by for a townhall meeting Wednesday.

Fact #3: I was among the lucky attendees at said townhall (lightning fast email responses pay dividends)

Fact #4: Conan is hilarious. Some of you may not like that fact, but it’s true.

Fact#5, revealed at the townhall, also known as the Celebrity Fun-Fact: While at Harvard Mr. O’Brien authored a thesis titled “Literary Progeria in the Works of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.” Here are a couple excerpts:

“The American South has undergone such a period of self-examination in the early and mid-20th century known as the Southern Literary Renaissance. During the Renaissance, historians, fiction writers, and sociologists began to search for a sense of regional character by sorting through the stories, ideals, legalisms and codes of the Southern experience. The search invariably forced these intellectuals to decide which visions of the Old South to keep, which to abandon, and which to re-write. The answers have varied widely but the essential question has remained the same: How should the South's notion of what it was determine its new identity? The purpose of this thesis is not to find the answer but to examine the power and prevalence of the question.

“W.J. Cash argues that the South is a child, indulging itself with comfortable myths of innocence, while C. Van Woodward maintains the South is a pre-maturely aged region, stripped of its childhood legends by a series of bitter, awakening defeats. Although they disagree, both men associate the South's old myths with the metaphor of childhood. This image seems appropriate because children need to forge a sense of self and they rely heavily on myths for spiritual sustenance. In their years of rapid growth children thirst for beliefs and ideals as a foundation for their newly-forming identity.… “I have found that several Southern Renaissance writers have articulated their regional sense of contradiction through what I have termed literary progeria. Progeria is an often fatal disease that strikes children and ages them pre-maturely. In the works of several Southern writers the child protagonist becomes "old" long before his time because he is tormented by the same anxiety over myth which troubles Cash and Woodward. In an effort to construct an identity the child is drawn to past myths and builds the foundation of his character on archaic beliefs. The result is that this child caries the vast experience of these myths as burden; he or she becomes an "old child" who tries unsuccessfully to reconcile his elderly identity with the modern world. I have found variations of the "old child" who tries unsuccessfully (sic) to reconcile his elderly identity with the modern world. I have found variations of the "old child" symbol in Katherine Anne Porter's _Pale Horse, Pale Rider _ as well as in Caron McCuller's _The Heart is a Lonely Hunter_ and _A Member of the Wedding_, but these authors do not explore the symbol extensively enough to establish its characteristics and thematic significance. Both William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor do develop the "old child" symbol extensively, however, and although they differ in their specific fictional concerns it is clear that the image emanates from similar regional instinct. Each author places the "old child" in the center of generational argument over the value of past myths and the child, unable to reconcile opposing views, represents experience and thus an anguished state of conflicting loyalties. The extreme generational attitudes towards myth resemble the same extremes Cash and Woodward delineate in their argument over the South's relation to the past. The myth Faulkner's children turn to is the myth of the Old South and his "old children" suffer from a spiritual progeria. O'Connor adds a second layer of significance to the symbol by incorporating the myth of Christian redemption and this increased complexity produces in her children both a spiritual _and_ a physical progeria which borders on the freakish.”

Mapping Don Quixote

I’m a bit of a map freak. I could look at maps all day long. And as you’ve probably noticed by now, placing the fiction I read into its real-world, geographical context is something I really. find. interesting.

But Don Quixote presents its readers with a real quandary. You can find a few modern maps that purport to track parts of the journey of Quixote and his squire, and you can find some travel pages that will tell you “These are the very windmills that inspired Cervantes’ classic,” but let’s be honest. This thing’s over four hundred years old. And even the few maps that were drawn in the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries don’t generally agree on all the landmarks (here is a great resource to skim through.)

But of those maps that show the full view of all three “sallies,” or journeys, covered in the book, there are two that match up sort of closely. This one, published in the first edition of Don Quixote for the Royal Academy of Spain in 1780, shows the one-way journeys (or round-trip journeys that assume returns along the same paths). By the way, this one can be blown up huge if you click through on the image:

This second one, from 1798, shows a more meandering loop for each of the sallies, but generally covers the same ground:

But both maps are zoomed in pretty closely, so it’s hard to see exactly where in Spain the action is unfolding. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are the same two routes, superimposed on the Iberian Peninsula. Green marks the first sally. Red marks the second. And blue marks the third. Do with these what you will.

Fan-Fiction Revisited

We’ve posted about “literary” fan fiction before- where fans take a classic book and continue or add to the story using their own ideas and imagination.

But every once in a while a classic tale  can serve as the launching pad for a work that becomes a classic in its own right. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea  jumps off the shoulders of Jane Eyre , J.M. Coetzee re-imagines Robinson Cruso  in his book Foe , while Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead  fleshes out the lives (or imminent deaths) of two bit-characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet .

But these classics-begotten-by-classics generally reach back in time quite a ways. You don’t often see a serious author riff off of the work of a contemporary (And no, Fifty Shades  and Twilight  don’t count.) But it turns out Shakespeare, of all people, wasn’t above it.

The first English translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote  hit England’s shores in 1612. In it, you find the side-story of a ruined and ragged youth named Cardenio. A year later, in 1613, a play by the name of “The History of Cardenio,” attributed to Shakespeare, but now lost, made its London debut.

Blatant opportunism? Or flattering fan-fic?  Sadly, we’ll never know.

Number 2

Lest you think yesterday’s post was just an excuse to engage in a little literary bathroom humor, we are adding some additional color on the matter today (naturally!)

As our long-time readers already know, we don’t need an excuse to delve into sophomoric topics- we do that all the time. But many of you may not have realized that yesterday’s passage from Don Quixote touches on an important Spanish cultural tradition. Yes, we’re serious. See this article, for example.

Now, Sancho wasn’t crapping in a crèche like your typical Caganer, but there’s no denying the Spanish affinity for dropping a deuce into all sorts of situations- both profound and profane. This is a nation that celebrates the birth of Christ with a sewer snake and a people whose greatest insult is “I (obscenity) in the milk of the whore that bore you.” So, why shouldn’t their rope cutting aficion spread through its greatest literature?

Well, it should. And it does. We should embrace it.

The Less Said the Better

A fantastic passage from the Quixote. In pitch darkness, DQ and Sancho are stopped in their tracks by some ominous sounds that they will later identify as fulling hammers. Sancho secretly hobbles his master's horse to keep him from investigating, and stands next to him holding the saddle, too afraid to move:

At this moment it seems that either because of the cold of the morning, which was approaching, or because Sancho had eaten something laxative for supper, or because it was in the natural order of things—which is the most credible—he felt the urge and desire to do what no one else could do for him, but his heart was so overwhelmed by fear that he did not dare to move a nail paring away from his master. But not doing what he desired to do was  not possible, either, and so what he did as a compromise was to free his right hand, which was clutching the back of the saddle, and with it, cunningly and without making a sound, he loosened the slip knot that was the only thing holding up his breeches, and when he did this they came down and settled around his ankles like leg irons. After this he lifted his shirt the best he could and stuck out both buttocks, which were not very small. Having done this—which he thought was all he had to do to escape that terrible difficulty and anguish—he was overcome by an even greater distress, which was that it seemed to him he could not relieve himself without making some noise and sound, and he began to clench his teeth and hunch his shoulders, holding his breath as much as he could, but despite all his efforts, he was so unfortunate that he finally made a little noise quite different from the one that had caused him so much fear. Don Quixote heard it and said: 

“What Sound is that, Sancho?” 

“I don’t know, Senor,” he responded. “It must be something new; adventures and misadventures never begin for no reason.” 

He tried his luck again, and things went so smoothly that with no more noise or disturbance than the last time, he found himself rid of the burden that had caused him so much grief. But since Don Quixote had a sense of smell as acute as his hearing, and Sancho was joined so closely to him, and the vapors rose up almost in a straight line, some unavoidably reached his nostrils, and as soon as they did he came to the assistance of his nostrils and squeezed them closed between, and in a somewhat nasal voice, he said: 

“It seems to me, Sancho, that you are very frightened.” 

“Yes, I am,” responded Sancho, “but what makes your grace see that now more than ever?” 

“Because you smell now more than ever, and not of amber,” responded Don Quixote. 

“That might be,” said Sancho, “but it’s not my fault, it’s your graces, for choosing the most ungodly times to put me through the strangest paces.” 

“Take three or four of them back, friend,” said Don Quixote without removing his fingers from his nose, “and from now on be more mindful of your person and of what you owe to mine; engaging in so much conversation with you has caused this lack of respect.” 

“I’ll wager,” replied Sancho, “that your grace thinks I’ve done something with my person I shouldn’t have.” 

“The less said the better, Sancho my friend,” responded Don Quixote. 

 -- from Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes

“Done something with my person I shouldn’t have?” 
“Rid of the burden that had caused him so much grief?” 
“The urge and desire to do what no one else could do for him”… 

There are some classic euphamisms in there. It would be interesting to compare the various translations.

Author Look-Alikes: Vol. 11

Young Peter Orlovsky looks like he could have lit “the world on FAH-EE-UH” years before the idea struck Fun’s lead vocalist (Nate Ruess.)

Playwright Tennessee Williams isn’t a bad match for Clark Gable, plus a few pounds and a receding hairline.

And how about Ivan Turgenev? Give the man a shave and a haircut and he could have played Mr. Matuschek or the Wizard of Oz as well as Frank Morgan.

Another writer-to-writer doppelganger: I give you a young Thomas Mann and Australia’s only Nobel Laureate, Patrick White.

And for the fans of Mad Men (and tortoiseshell specs), here’s Truman Capote and Lane Pryce (Jared Harris). 

The Return of an American Classic

No, we’re not talking about the return of the Twinkie, though that’s great news, too. We’re talking about Literary Death Match, the series of bookish bloodsport title bouts that we began hosting last year to great acclaim and not a little controversy (see here, here & here.)

We haven’t been able to say why we halted the matches until now, but we’re proud to announce  this morning that a Federal Judge has thrown out the case brought by the North American Broadcasters Association on behalf of our intrepid ringside reporter, Kelly Wallace. Kelly was never a party to these vexatious proceedings, and she joins me and the rest of our production staff in celebrating this welcome victory.

Our first match will pick up where we left off, with dramatic works by Fitzgerald and Hemingway duking it out for Best Play by a Lost Generation Novelist. Look for it sometime in the next few weeks. Tickets will go fast!

Haiku-ption #13

It’s been too long. My haiku is below. Throw your own in the comments!

Single-filed menace

Flannel hazmat suits of white

On relentless march

Another Month in the Can

Time to heave another month into the Shelf Actualization archives. Above are the authors we covered this month, and below are the five most popular posts from the last 30-ish days:

• What do Topper Harley and William Shakespeare have in common?
• Review: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
• Review: Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
• Scratching the Surface
• If you love words, set them free

And, as always, the suspicious search terms that brought many of you here:

• New Yorker cartoons monet  >>  We talked Monet here
• Book club harrison Bergeron  >>  Book Club? No. Short Story Club? Yes.
• Amateur in closet  >>  The post where I came out
• Horse downhill   >>  From the pen of William Faulkner
• In defense of catcher in the rye  >>  Someone had to do it
• How to write like Kerouac  >>  The step-by-step guide
• Short pants and knee socks  >>  Nabokov, hanging out at HQ
• Taylor Schilling  >>  One of our Oscar Week movie posts
• Her quicksilver changes Didion  >>  Why I disliked Blue Nights
• Breathtaking prose  >>  Examined in one of our earliest posts

Thanks for coming by. Hope you keep coming back!