The Top of Provence

While researching and drafting my novel, I took three separate trips to southern France. There are a few sites I have made a point to visit on each trip, mostly because of their connection to Van Gogh, but also because I find them unmatchably serene, visits worth making for their own sake. One of these is the "Pont Van Gogh" (which I blogged about last month); another is St. Paul's Hospital in Saint-Remy, where Van Gogh lived for over a year following the onset of his epileptic attacks. A third location is the Abbaye de Montmajour, located a couple miles north of Arles. The abbey, long abandoned even in Van Gogh's time, is mentioned in various biographies I've read and occasionally too his letters, but it really came to my attention during a guided walking tour I took around Arles in the summer of 2005. At the top of one street, the guide pointed to an impressive structure off in the distance and explained that Van Gogh often hiked up there to paint. I knew I had to go, and so I did a few days later, and it turned out to be one the highlights of the trip.

The abbey, a mammoth structure, is a tourist spot but an enormously quiet one. Visitors come, but in modest twos and threes, and the occasional loner (like me), with intervals between them. The place never feels overrun and for the most part people stay silent, even when outside. For how old it is, the abbey, which dates from the early medieval era, is well preserved and has an interesting history. It's worth the trip just to linger in its huge stone halls and read about the uses of each room. Too, there always seems to be an art or photo exhibition going on.

But impressive as it is, the inside is not why I go to Abbaye de Montmajour or why I stay. In fact, each time I surge through the interior, head to the upper floor, and out a doorway to reach the "courtyard" (for lack of a better term). From there, one enjoys gorgeous views of Arles in the distance, and, closer in, the area known as La Crau, featuring long fertile fields that Van Gogh painted repeatedly (see first photo above). People linger out here, leaning over the stone walls, taking in the scenery. If they speak, they speak at a low murmur. And then they stroll on. Except not me. In an effort to blend my experinece with Vincent's, I've always brought along a sketch pad and pencils. I find a comfortable if stony place to sit and start drawing. It's not that I'm a artist. It's not that I make good drawings. I just want the experience of rendering the place in pictures rather than words. I want that physical sensation. Occasionally, I get a curious stare, but almost without fail people leave me alone, as if this were the most natural thing in the world to do. The courtyard has different levels and you can gradually move to higher spots for different vantage points. The abbey also features a soaring stone tower, built for defense not religious purposes in the late middle ages. A circular stone staircase takes you to the top, from which you can enjoy the views of Arles and La Crau from a much higher altitude as well as catch glimpses Fontvieille and Tarascon, far in the distance and at different points on the compass. Anyone with a fear of heights might find this part of the visit a bit too thrilling (there's a thin opening where the floor of the tower top meets the wall, and you can see all the way down), but in my opinion if you go to the abbey you have to go up the tower.

When I visit the Abbaye de Montmajour I find that a couple hours just melt away like nothing. You wonder where the time went. I leave satisfied but also wistful: wishing I could stay longer, eager for my next visit back. I imagine that's exactly how Vincent felt.

The Wonder of French game shows

Over here I don't watch them much anymore, but during my stay last May in Arles I found myself gravitating to French game shows. It was something to do during my lunch and dinner breaks from writing. Not only were they fun but they proved an easy way to keep up on my French and gain a little "cultural insight" into contemporary France. My favorite show was a French version of Family Feud (Une famille en or)--I am being completely serious here--which featured a host way cooler than Richard Dawson and also some notable twists. For instance, instead of one member of the pair being led off stage during the big money round (if you've ever seen F.F. you probably remember this), that person would be kept on stage but given dark glasses and headphones through which loud dance music was piped. Then, while their partner answered questions, the person was required to dance for the camera. As you can imagine, some of these people were just not funky enough to carry it off. (But that was kind of the point.) A surprising number carried it off perfectly well. My favorite question asked on the show was "What is the most annoying thing about Celine Deon?" A few of the survey responses, i.e. the ones I can remember: her nose, her family, her accent (something about being from Quebec, I guess), and her voice.

While French Family Feud was a lunchtime routine, I often scheduled my dinners around French Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (Qui Veut Gagner des Millions?) Mainly because I was able to follow it better than anything else that was on. The format was more or less identical to the American version. I have to say, however, that I'd always feel a lot better about our oft maligned system of education when I watched the French version. Maybe it had something to do with the segment of the French population that aspires to appear on game shows, but so many times the contestants seemed to miss atrociously easy questions. And when the contestant had to "phone a friend," the friend--supposedly selected for his or her knowledge--proved useless about 90% of the time. This amazed me more than anything. Who were these "friends"? (Before I get too haughty maybe I should remember my own experience decades ago of appearing on a quiz show for high school students in Washington, DC and realize that you can never underestimate the power of brain freeze in front of a rolling camera.) Btw, in case you're wondering: No, my French isn't that great. But with the questions being posted on screen--reading a foreign language is so much easier than listening to it--and with a French-English dictionary beside me, I usually caught the gist of what was going on.

Another game show I looked at from time to time was not an American import but a homegrown product. The name of it, I hate to say, escapes me. But I remember its raucous studio audience and how they frequently broke out into dancing. The host, a very lively, Hollywoodish guy, despite some weird birth or burn mark on the side of his nose, liked to run into the crowd and engage in ad hoc, tongue-in-cheek interviewing. The format for the questions varied from round to round but in the middle of the show, the competition paused to allow for what, in a loose translation (I couldn't find the actual word in my dictionary), was a "naughty" question. Loud red hearts would flare on the screen and the audience would "woo woo" while the contestant let himself or herself be interrogated about some apparently personal matter. All in good fun, of course. It was about this time, however, I would ask myself why in the world I was still watching. I'd click off the tube and head up the stairs to my bedroom to work.

I felt rather embarrassed to admit this game show "habit" in my daily emails home; at least until, while on a train to Marseilles, I read an article in The Times of London in which the writer, an Englishwoman who teaches French, recommended game shows as an especially useful way to learn the language. Because one hears and sees the words simultaneously. She herself once appeared on a French game show and won big. I clucked to myself, enjoying this eminent justification. "So," I said, "I guess I need to do more Family Feud when I get back to Arles."

My French retreat, Part Two

I thought I should write today about how I organized my hours during my writing retreat in Arles. It was the first time in years, maybe decades, when I had complete control over my schedule from sunup to sundown, and that, I must admit, felt like a real gift. I think my natural waking time is somewhere around six a.m. This sounds early for most people, I realize, but when I'm engaged in the busyness of a semester's teaching/parenting/etc. I find I have to set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. in order to actully get writing done. (No, I am neither kidding nor exaggerating.) In Arles, I found myself waking on my own between 5:30 and 6:00 inside of pleasantly cool mornings. I'm a newspaper addict--a habit I am both proud of and regret--but in France I found myself pleasantly exiled from the morning paper. Instead of a newspaper with my morning pot of coffee I read real books (I brought a stack of English language novels with me), priming both my body and mind for the work ahead. Every once in a while, I'd finish up a journal entry from the night before. I suppose I ate something, but it was usually light. The coffee was the main thing. I'd then work for 2-3 hours, kind of a moderate, getting-into-the-swing-of-it-session. After, mid-morning at this point, I would slip into running clothes and take my ritual exercise. There's nothing like running to clear your head, and to get to know a place better. This was certainly as true in Arles as anywhere.

I'd lunch on good bread (often I go down to the bakery as soon as I returned from the run) and cheese and Perrier and apples while I indulged my ancient fondness for game shows, French style. (I'll have to cover that in another post.) After lunch I carried out a long afternoon writing session, usually about four hours, occasionally longer. As you can imagine, by the time I finished this session my mind was more or less shot. So that meant it was a perfect time to go to the grocery store or take a swim--once the weather starting warming a bit--or just fix an early dinner. If I had reason to go into Arles for something, I would let myself wander, enjoying the slowed down feel of the place on a weekday early evening, when typically the tourists were gone and it was only locals around: lounging on benches at the public park, wandering through some half-hearted window shopping, skateboarding at the Place de la Republique, a big central square outside the Cathedral de Saint Trophime. One day I saw a bicycle race start from the square. There was as excited and energized a feel to the place as at the start of any marathon race in the U.S.

As I mentioned in my last post, I took some day trips for Van Gogh research during my retreat, two or three a week. On those days, I would make sure to carry out my full morning writing session and do my run. The trips were usually to sites no more than an hour away and I always could be back by mid-afternoon. On returning, I'd fixed myself another pot of coffee and screw my butt to my writing chair for a couple hours, just to make sure I didn't waste any working time. I knew darn well the clock was ticking, always ticking, on my retreat, and I was determined to get my money's worth.

With dinner--the house came with a very serviceable kitchen--I'd allow myself a couple beers or glasses of wine. I am not ashamed to say I took advantage of the great prices on French wine at the Geant store, where I bought almost everything I ate or drank during my stay. I think anyone who has really worked all day at a writers retreat, or at any mental work, can appreciate the special bliss of a couple well-earned drinks with dinner. I'm not and never have been a smoker but I'd guess that only the "first cigarette in the morning" bliss that smokers recall can rival beer after hard mental work as a pure soul and body pleasure. After dinner, I'd sometimes write in my journal. Or I'd read. Or I'd email my wife with the day's news. (Sometimes, she'd just be getting up while I was heading to bed.) I usually skimmed through French tv, a never ending fascination, mainly to see which American shows they liked enough to show (with dubbed French, of course) and to try to figure why those shows. I probably conked out around 10:30.

It was a serviceable and successful schedule and I kept to it, more or less, seven days a week. (All right, so maybe I lounged a bit more on Sundays.) I don't know if it sounds to you like I made it too easy or too hard on myself, whether I allowed myself enough opportunity to simply see Provence, but I'd say that I pushed myself exactly as hard as I should have--and, besides, I got to see Provence every single morning of my stay when I went out for my run. When my family arrived at the end of the month, I put down writing work and enjoyed the place as thoroughly and normally as any visitor does. At the point I was ready, I was so ready, to see them again; and because I'd worked so hard I didn't feel the least guilt in soaking up the south of France for another fortnight. We did a lot of great things as a family, but looking back the really glorious and unique time was those three, nose-to-the-grindstone weeks.

(Above: My writing desk in Arles. In order to give my knees room, and not kill my back from leaning over, I had to prop up the thing on old books I borrowed from the homeowner's shelves. I hope I didn't ruin them. I took this picture shortly before I pulled away the books and "broke down" the desk in anticipation of my family's arrival. I spent as much time at that desk as anywhere in the house. I was feeling nostalgic by the time I started setting it in order.)

My French retreat, Part One

Lots of writers take retreats, stays of weeks or even months at various artists colonies around the country, usually--especially for writer/teachers--during the summer. The higher profile retreat locations are very competitive; many offer scholarships or at least partial financial assistance. For better or worse, I've always kept an arm's length away from the world of writers retreats, preferring to simply work at home during summer breaks, saving myself the expense and trouble of the travel, and enabling me to take care of / stay connected with my two sons while my wife carries out her summer duties as director of the Great Bear Writing Project. I kinda sorta understood the idea and the utility of the artist colony but was not exactly driven to participate in one. That all changed last summer.

Before last summer, I'd twice visited the south of France to conduct research for my Van Gogh novel, trips of a week or two that left me wishing I could stay longer. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, to come here for a month or two and just work on my novel? About a year ago, it occurred to me that there was nothing really keeping me from doing just that. The spring semester at UCA, where I teach, ends in early May, and my sons are in school until late May / early June. Why not spend a May in the south of France, writing about Van Gogh? Well, why not? My wife graciously agreed to the plan. (It didn't hurt that we decided she would bring the boys over at the end of the month, so everyone got to enjoy Provence.) And so that was that. I already knew of a place where I could stay (see my earlier post about Mas Ballot), and I had reason to expect I could get research funds from the university to cover the costs of my travel and stay, albeit not the family's.

Well, it wasn't as smooth as all that. There certainly were bumps in the planning road. (One big bump: No funds of any kind proved to be forthcoming.) But the long and short of it was that last May I ended up spending a few days in Paris and then almost three weeks in Arles--by myself, slaving away on the novel. I have to say, I never enjoyed slavery so much. Before I went, friends warned me of the dangers of trying to get write in a beautiful location. "It always sounds like a good idea," they would say, chuckling. "But then . . ." No, I said, if I'm spending this much money to just be there, I'm going to get serious work done.

And I'm proud to say I stuck to my word. Sure, I took plenty of day trips--or rather half-day trips--to different locations around "Roman France": Saint-Rémy, Fontvielle, Tarascon, Salon, Montpellier, the ruins at Glanum, the Abbaye de Montmajour. (Driving roads that look like the one pictured above.) I took ready advantage of the two bakeries and the spectacular rustic scenery within easy walking or driving distance of my house. Afternoons I took swims in the pool. Mornings I jogged the country roads. I watched my fair share of French tv and probably spent more time than I should have discovering what could be had at the local grocery store. But I think I got more writing work done during those three weeks in Arles than during any three week period in my life. Before I went, I told everyone (I guess to sound more practical) that I was doing another research trip for the novel, but really what I was up to was a self-financed writer's retreat to the south of France. My advice to anyone considering a similar idea? Get on the next plane!

(Next post: What exactly I did there.)

Turning houses (and hotels) around

Several years ago, I wrote a short story in which a wife follows her husband to the site of what she thinks will be an adulterous liaison. At the last moment the wife changes her mind and decides not to confront her husband. She turns around, leaves the hotel parking lot, and heads back the other way toward home. For convenience more than anything else I set the story in a part of southern Maryland that I knew fairly well. In fact, the hotel where I decided the liaison would take place actually exists on Maryland Highway 301, near LaPlata. However, the scene as I imagined it only worked logistically if the hotel stood on the right side of the highway as one drove south, as the wife character did. For the sake of my story, the wife had to take a right hand turn into the hotel from 301, but go back in the opposite direction--northward--when heading home. Problem: the hotel in question doesn't sit on the right side of Highway 301 as you head south. It sits on the left side. In fact, there is no hotel on right side of that stretch of highway. So, I asked myself, what should I do? I actually did worry about this, especially if some squirrelly grandma southern Maryland reader got his or her paws on my story, but finally I decided that verisimilitude was a lot less important to the story than that my scene be allowed to play out as I imagined it. So what did I do? Simple: I moved the hotel to the other side of the highway. Problem solved! Whether or not this would satisfy the famously scrupulous fact checkers at The Atlantic I have no idea, but since the story did not appear in The Atlantic but a different literary journal, who cares.

I ran into a similar situation last May when I took a third visit to the "Pont Van Gogh" outside Arles. (See previous posts.) Staring again at the house sitting just behind the little drawbridge --a drawbridge identical to the one portrayed in Van Gogh's The Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing and other paintings--I realized for the first time that I was looking at the back of the house. Wait a minute?! (Checking the above picture, it's probably perfectly apparent to you that what you are looking at the back of a house. What I can say? I can be awfully slow at times.) There are two small canals in the area and they run parallel to each other. The drawbridge in question spans one, the front of the house in question faces the other. This would not be a problem except that in my novel Van Gogh walks out from Arles to the drawbridge and while enjoying the view of the homey little edifice, he spots the bridgemaster coming out of his house via the front door. This, as it turned out, would be physically impossible as Van Gogh would not even be able to see the man's front door. So, again, I had to ask myself: What do I do? I could have the man come out the back, but this seemed unlikely and would also be increasingly awkward, as the scene also features the bridgemaster's wife and one of his daughters coming out of, and going into, the house. Also, since on my third visit to Pont Van Gogh I finally circumnavigated the house and rendered some very particular drawings of its front, I decided that the front of the house was a piece of scenery I really wanted in my novel. So in the end I had three choices: 1) Ditch the scene; 2) move the drawbridge to the other canal; or 3) turn the house around, so its front faced the bridge. Of these three options, #3 seemed the least drastic, the easiest, and the one that best allowed my scene to do the work it needed to do. In fiction writing classes we talk about staying true to what the story needs rather than what a reader or the author wants, we talk about a hierarchy that puts the story at top, the reader second, and the author last. Sometimes "giving the story what it needs" can be as broad as completely changing the plot, adding a character or characters, or moving the action to a whole other part of the world. On the other hand, sometimes it simply means turning a house around. I'm not sure if such a move would be sanctioned by the Guardians of Purity in creative nonfiction writing, but to me a little move like this is exactly what the freedom--and the responsibility--of fiction writing means. Giving your story what it needs. And it's also why I declare, and will keeping declaring until I am out of breath, that my Van Gogh book is a novel not a biography. That single word designates something crucial, not just about what happens inside the book but about my entire method of composition.

That said, it's certainly true that we writers of historical fiction research our subjects thoroughly in order to render accurate pictures of past peoples, costumes, and geographies. Other posts on this blog have detailed just such efforts. And later ones likely will too. So when, in the making of historical fiction, is it okay to depart knowingly from strict factuality? How much leeway do we give ourselves, and why? Anyone care to comment? Advise?

The Langlois bridge?--Part One

One of the interesting if also offputting aspects of traveling around Arles is the amount of Van Gogh related siteseeing. In the summer months especially, individuals, walking tours, and even tour buses hurry from place to place inside and outside the city, looking for the exact spot where Van Gogh painted this or that painting, catching amused sneers from the natives who--probably rightly--are sure there are lots better ways to spend a day in southern France. I have to admit that in conducting research for my novel I too have been just such an individual and even a member of such tour groups. One of the first places I sought out when I arrived in Arles for the first time in 2005 was the "Langlois bridge,"designated clearly on all the tourist maps as the place where Van Gogh created his first important Arles painting. In fact, nowadays it's also referred to as the "Pont Van Gogh" (the Van Gogh bridge).

The bridge is outside of the city, a ten minute drive at most. It's a curious combination of bustling tourist spot and hushed artistic retreat. It sits peacefully on a thin canal with little in the way of modernity nearby, except for the paved road that drops you off there. A modest stretch of roadside gravel exists for parking. It's a homely but enormously quiet, even reverent, spot, with this small and antiquated and inoperative bridge sitting in a permanently raised position, a dilapidated house beside it, and a nearby cover of trees that once passed through puts you out on a foot-worn path that runs alongside the canal. You can walk as far as you want northward or southward, with nary an interruption or distraction. When I visit the bridge I immediately want to stay. I want to sit. I want to absorb. Each time I go, I stay longer. Not just photographing, but sketching and journaling, soaking in the quiet, the greenery. I know I'm not alone in this feeling. Usually I see at least one other person there--always alone--lounging on a stretch of earth, with book or picnic basket or sketchbook in hand. You should not be surprised, however, if while you visit a enormous coach pulls up for ten minutes to let out a gaggle of Japanese tourists, who take a flurry of pictures and then get back on in search of the next Van Gogh destination. The tourists come and go in a cycle. The place takes them in, absorbs them, and then sends them on their way. You stay, getting the longer, richer experience; and quickly you stop noticing them.

The place has a feeling of genineness and subdued beauty that has in fact little to do with Van Gogh and his painting, though that it is his painting that brings all the visitors. You see, this bridge, proudly proclaimed on the nearby sign as subject of Van Gogh's Langlois Bridge, actually isn't. If you read a little deeper into Arles information you find out that a string of fourteen or so identical small bridges once spanned the canal. At some point in the 20th century they were removed for being useless vestiges of an outworn technology. And, sad but true, one of the bridges removed was the actual bridge Van Gogh painted. In the name of historical preservation, however, a single bridge was left standing. Since this bridge is identical to Van Gogh's bridge it is proudly (and self-servingly) proclaimed by the tourist industry as his bridge, which in some sense it is. For the working novelist trying to soak up atmosphere, it's certainly accurate enough. And a pleasant place to vist. Things get even murkier though. Later in my 2005 visit I was told by a tour guide in Arles--a white-haired American woman who moved between a kind of noisy and nasal, northern accented English to a fluid, deeper-toned French within which you couldn't hear a trace of the American midwest--that everyone had the name of the bridge wrong. It's true name in Van Gogh's time was not the "Langlois" bridge but the "L'Anglais," or the "English," bridge, because the man who tended the bridge was known to be an Englishman. I've not heard that story from any other source--and Van Gogh's painting always goes (and always has) by the title The Langlois Bridge--but nevertheless I immediately jumped on the story. It captivated my imagination, and it ended up affecting what happens in the Arles section of my novel. More on that next time.

(Photos: Van Gogh's The Langlois Bridge with Women Washing, and the still extent "L'Anglais" bridge on a peaceful if cloudy day last May.)

Kicking a coin, or the unexpected benefits of a trip

You never know what kind of dividends a research trip can pay. I remember hearing Tracy Chevalier say that while she was working on Girl With a Pearl Earring she only went to Delft one time and that was for a few days. But even so the trip paid off because it was on that trip that she noticed the great star embedded in Markt Square, a physical nuance that turned out to be extremely useful to the plot and structure of her book. Well, on a much lesser scale the trip I made to Arles last summer paid a similar divdend just yesterday, in this case allowing me to enhance the verisimilitude of an action. I was revising the scene in which Paul Gauguin, in October 1888, arrives via train to Arles. I'm not sure why, but I inserted a vagrant character into the scene, a shabbily dressed man lingering on the platform who eventually scuffles with Vincent. The vagrant--if that's what he is--acts strangely and wants to communicate something, but he speaks in a language that is not French, Dutch, English, German, or Spanish. Neither Gauguin nor Van Gogh understands him. Prior to the scuffle, Vincent tries to buy the man's departure, if you will, by giving him a coin. The man, who apparently is not begging for money, reacts with horror, immediately dropping the coin and kicking it. Well, without really thinking about it, I had the kicked coin bounce off the wall of the Arles station house.

However, having arrived and departed from that very station myself last summer--that's the actual platform pictured above--I realized that my original conception of the scene was fundamentally flawed. Gauguin, coming from Brittany, arrived on a southbound train. Southbound trains arrive into Arles on the far track (i.e., the one on the right in the picture). So this vagrant kicked the coin, on a hop mind you, all the way over the tracks to hit the station house on the far side? Uh uh. Again, having been there, I know there is a waiting room beside the far track. So I had my vagrant kick the coin that way. The coin now bounces off the wall of the waiting room, which is perhaps two feet away, rather than the wall of the station house many yards away and across a set of tracks. Much better. A minor detail? Yes. It is. But it could be an extremely distracting detail to any reader who has actually traveled through the Arles station and knows its layout. The very last thing I want to do is take one of my readers out of the story. And as many writers of historical fiction will tell you, the greater number of little details you get right, the more likely it is that your reader will buy into the fictional story you have to tell. So there's one detail--having flown all the way across the ocean to get it--that I'm happy to make right.

Mas Ballot

One of the pleasures of researching and writing a novel, historical or not, is getting to know other places and people. In writing my first novel, set in a Trappist monastery, I developed a relationship with a specific Trappist community in South Carolina. I ended up visiting the monastery four times, and for several Christmas's running sent them a donation. My Van Gogh novel has taken me even farther afield: all the way across the ocean. Since I've started working on this project, I've visited Paris twice and Provence three times. (My longest stay, five weeks, came last summer.) I've walked the streets of Montmartre, shuffled around the Louvre, and strolled the Boulevard Montmartre--where Theo Van Gogh's gallery was located. In Provence, I've spent many hours in the city of Arles and other parts of the Camargue; I've driven out to the Abbaye de Montmajour, where Van Gogh often went to paint for its views of Arles and La Crau; I've taken a day trip to Montpellier, scene of an uncomfortable visit by Van Gogh and Gauguin to the Musée Fabre (see an earlier post); and three times I've visted the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy where Vincent voluntarily committed himself for over a year. These were wonderful, memorable, and extremely useful tours. But the single greatest benefit of my trips to France has been finding and experiencing Mas Ballot.

No, there's no direct Van Gogh connection (although the owner has an abiding interest in Van Gogh's rendering of constellations). Mas Ballot is a beautifully maintained house in the quiet village of Raphele-les-Arles, and it's where I've stayed during each of my three visits to Provence. I happened to find it on the internet five years ago, and boy was I lucky. Not only is the house surberly decorated in French country style--which my wife appreciates--with a sweet back garden, but it's large enough for a family to spread out in it, and it's a comfortable distance from Arles: close enough to drive to quickly, and far enough away that it can act as an oasis of countrified silence. You can sit on the upper balcony at night with a glass of wine and take in a huge sky of stars with only the sounds of an occasional car passing on the road nearby to disturb your communion. My wife and I have enjoyed many many glasses of wine on that balcony as our two sons slept in the bedroom just inside. (In fact, my profile photo--click on the Sidebar--was taken on balcony at Mas Ballot.)

I don't know if Van Gogh ever passed through Raphele-les-Arles, but he was famously a walker, and when I stay at Mas Ballot--whether enjoying the broad night sky, or running the next morning along a country road, passing farm houses and fields of crops--I sense that I am taking in the provencal landscape much as Vincent did, a landscape that has changed remarkably little in the last 100 years. And when I'm overheated from a day of exploring I can always jump in the pool, a luxury--I admit--not available to Vincent.

I love my home in Arkansas and my friends here, but I really can't think of any other place I'd rather be than Mas Ballot, especially in the summer: walking to the bakery, listening to the cicadas, reading and sunning myself on the patio, attempting a watercolor portrait of my sons, cooking up a dinner from the groceries we just bought from the Geant store up the road. Enjoying that glass of wine. I can't know if when I finally finish my novel I will have occasion to experience Mas Ballot, or Provence, again. But I'm certainly hoping so. And I keep trying to improve my French.

An adventure to Montpellier

Sometimes researching a historical novel turns out to be harder even than crossing an ocean and traveling the length of a country. I did all that when I traveled last summer to Paris and then by train down to Arles (where I stayed for a month), but the difficulties didn't end there. Some background: I'm about to start revising a scene in my novel where Van Gogh and Gauguin visit the city of Montpellier, about fifty miles southwest of Arles, and more specifically the Fabre museum. This scene was suggested to me by historical fact. Apparently as a way to break out of a rut, and put aside their increasing differences, the two housemates actually did travel to Montepellier in December, 1888 to visit the Fabre. If the point of the trip was to bring peace to their relationship it didn't work. They fell into a disagreements about various artists and not long after the trip had a kind of blow up at an Arles cafe. At least Gauguin said so. Too, this was not long before Vincent's big and infamous breakdown, the one where he cut off his ear.

Given its apparent importance to the history of the Yellow House meltdown, I knew I wanted to write about the trip to the Fabre. And I wanted to do it while I was staying in Arles. I'd never been to the Fabre before or to Montpellier. But, I figured, I do have a rental car! So off I went one morning after vigorously checking and rechecking Google maps. I thought I knew what I was doing. I got off the highway at the right exit and came to an expected traffic circle (otherwise known as a "roundabout"). At the circle I went in one direction, immediately realized my error, turned around and came back. At the circle again, I took what looked like the only possible correct direction and proceeded. A few minutes later it was clear that the street names and terrain didn't match what I remembered from Google maps. After a few minutes more I was driving dangerously off the beaten track. So I turned around where I could and headed straight back to the original traffic circle. Except coming the other way, the road I was on was a Bus Only lane. Cars could not go in this direction--but it was the only way I knew to get back to that traffic circle! I caught a million strange looks from cars going the other way and expected police sirens at any moment. I imagined some torturesome conversation, trying with my almost non-existent French to explain my actions to an officious, club-toting gendarme.

Finally, as sweaty as I was relieved, I reached the traffic circle and was back on legal territory. I went around the circle again and got off in another direction. This didn't look like it could possibly be the right way, but a sign pointed to "Palavas" and the street I wanted to get on to was called "Avenue de Palavas." Oh, well! Ten minutes later it was blatantly clear that I had left the environs of Montpellier altogether. The drive was a pleasant, even rural one, but lead me to a cute little Mediterranean resort city called Palavas-les-Flots. Not that Palavas! Oh, well, so I turned around again and headed back a fourth time to the d*** traffic circle in Montepellier. When I finally got there I took the only other direction remaining for me, which originally had looked completely wrong. If this one didn't work, I'd just have to give up, drive back to Arles, work on the scene blind, and wonder forever about the veracity of Google maps. What do you know, but a minute later I recognized one street name and then another. I was on the right road! Not long after that I found the Montpellier train station, where I intended to park all along, but when I pulled in I only saw what looked like drop off parking. Just before I pulled in, I thought I'd seen a sign pointing to other parking, but I'd ignored it. Now I would pay for my stubbornness, because I had to find that other parking. Well, easier said then done in a French city you're completely unfamiliar with. I took what turns I had to, crisscrossed my route several times, and a few times almost found myself heading the wrong way on a one way street. But I did at last see a sign for the other train station parking. I pulled in after what felt already like a complete day on the road and took the only parking spot I saw, not even sure I was allowed to park there. Too bad. I wasn't giving up the spot, and I wasn't going out on the road again.

After some hiking around and asking for a map at the tourist office, I did find the Fabre, and going there certainly did help me iron out some details of the scene. (I actually wrote the first draft before I went.) Montepellier is a lovely university town I'd recommend to anyone but even now all I can think of is how hard it was just to get there. Gauguin and Van Gogh had it easy. All they did was hop a train. I had the option too. I just didn't take it.

(Above: The Fabre Museum on a sunny day last May.)

That darn Gauguin

Well, Monsieur Gauguin has arrived on the scene, and things--as they did in real life--suddenly have gotten very interesting. For those who don't know: At the request of Vincent's brother Theo and of Vincent himself, Gauguin (after considerable dawdling) moved to Arles in October, 1888 to share Vincent's "Yellow House." The two were housemates, in short. And it didn't turn out well. Gauguin is quite the case. And to get it out there: I don't treat him too well in the book. I worry a teensy weensy little bit that I'm being unfair to him, but I don't really worry that much because: a) he's an excellent foil to the more sympathetic Van Gogh, and b) I don't actually think I'm being unfair. Don't get me wrong, one can't simply say that Van Gogh was the saint and Gauguin the devil in their relationship. That's an obsessively Vincent-centric way to look at things, and, besides, it's true that in different quarters Gauguin spoke generously of both Vincent and his paintings. It's also true that Vincent was likely a piece of work to live with, if only for two months.

On the other hand, I think it's perfectly fair to say that Gauguin was always, his entire adult life, concerned with only one thing: Paul Gauguin. This is true to his relationships with people both inside and outside of the art world. He was concerned with establishing a reputation for himself and "making it," even if this meant resorting to personal manipulation, abject dishonesty, and character assasination. After all, this is same man who, upon hearing of Vincent's death, wrote to an artist friend that perhaps "[they] could use this to [their] advantage." This is the man who in his autobiography, Avante et Aprés (follow the link for a relevant snippet), told a story of being attacked by a crazed, knife wielding Van Gogh, a story that today is almost universally regarded as a self-serving fairytale. In the same book, Gauguin presented himself as the master and tutor of Van Gogh during their time together in Arles. Gauguin took credit for the stylistic breakthroughs that allowed Vincent to paint pictures such as Sunflowers. (See above.) The entire Sunflowers series was completed before Gauguin ever moved to Arles! And the pictures that Van Gogh painted under Gauguin's direct influence are generally considered to be among his least successful. That's certainly my opinion, and that's the case I make in my novel.

But, again, both for the sake of the novel and for the sake of fairness, I'm trying to make Gauguin a bit more rounded character than simply a mustached bad guy. After all, given the praise (call it hero worship) that Van Gogh lavished on Gauguin when trying to convince him to move to Arles, given that Van Gogh told Gauguin he would be the "abbot" of their new "Studio of the South," Gauguin can be forgiven for feeling in a superior position to Van Gogh. And likely he was miffed, so soon after Van Gogh's death, to see the meteoric rise of Vincent's reputation, so strong and so fast that it surpassed Gauguin's own reputation. I can see the man thinking Wait a minute. This is Vincent Van Gogh we're talking about. So far I'm loving the contest between the two men. Lots of fascinating psychological currents to play with, not only the ones I discussed in my last entry, but a whole bevy of others too. I can see, as I write, how the blowup between these two odd, complicated, and driven men was inevitable.

Ooh la la

Well, things are getting sticky, in more ways than one. I'm trying to suggest the build up of a lot of nervous tension, in both good and bad ways, during Vincent's summer of 1888. In my mind, and as I'm hoping to present it in the novel, it's the time of his ultimate breakthrough artistically. He gets to a place he never got to before and never did again. But at the same time, his personal life gets more and more tricky. I'm blatantly fictionalizing an involuntary (and not quite consumated) "relationship" between him and a young girl who is infatuated with him. I'm using the figure from his famous "Mousmé" painting as one of my points of inspiration. At the same time--and this is very true to life--he was that summer becoming more and more adamant on the question of Gauguin moving to Arles and moving into his house. His admiration for Gauguin both as an artist and a man was tremendous, a kind of hero worship, and some critics have even suggested that his adoration bordered on the homoerotic. If you read Van Gogh's letters there is something to that notion, but it is only a notion. You have to be careful. 19th century male culture was not as hamstrung in regard to expressing affection as 21st century male culture is. I've heard it said, and I believe it, that the necessary political and social assertion by homosexual men of their rights and their simple existence has made straight men terrified to show affection for one another, for fear of being misunderstood. Such fear did not exist in the 19th century. That said, the possibly homoerotic nature of his admiration for Gauguin is something I am playing with while at the same time developing this odd, unwanted "affair" with the girl (the ficitonalized daughter of a man who did actually exist in real life, although we know nothing about him).

Am I building beneficials tensions into my book? Getting my character into hotter and hotter water, as good novels are supposed to? Or am I forcing into the Arles section ahistorical material that really shouldn't be there? I'm not sure yet. Maybe the answer is both. All I can say for sure is that as I looked over one scene with the girl I really had to tone things down. I don't know what I was doing in that earlier draft. It came close to porn. I think my wife, when she finally gets to read the draft of the whole novel, is not going to believe that this scene has been significantly cut. But it has!

A mixed up day

It's been a weird, mixed, and mixed up writing day. A transitional one. Got thrown off my pace this morning, in a good way, by a call from my mother. She'd ordered my novel Burnt Norway off of Lulu.com and was calling to say how much she liked it. I hear what you're thinking . . . of course his mother is going to like it. But she's an extremely literate person and a hecka of a smart reviewer of fiction. Her praise was intelligent and true to the nature of the book. In short, her kind words really meant a lot. But it also made me high as a kite for a while, and it took me some time to get back in the writing groove. I did, and actually, finally, worked my way through my (for now) complete revision of the Paris section of the novel. He's done there! He's on his way to Arles! I accomplished this, however, by just flat dropping a very long scene in which Vincent visits the studio of Georges Seurat. That was a hard choice. Not only did this visit actually happen (shortly before he left Paris) and not only is it intriguing to the imagination if you know anything about these two important Neoimpressionists, but I really liked this scene. I'd worked long and hard on it, carrying out multiple revisions and doing an immense amount of fact checking. But, in the end, it wasn't necessary for the book. Not only is the book too long already, but I discovered as I went along that the main focus of the Paris section is Van Gogh's developing, changing relationship with two men: Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. I shouldn't and finally couldn't distract from that. So I cut the Seurat studio scene and instead saved a scene (conveniently shorter) in which Van Gogh and Bernard arrange Vincent's studio on the night before he leaves Paris for good. That scene, in part, showed how the "evil" influence of Gauguin was already upon Bernard, a theme I run with in the Arles section, so the scene makes a nice bridge.

The other mixed up part of my day came after I finished revising the scene I just mentioned. The way my novel is structured is that I go back and forth between scenes in St.- Remy, France (where V. was hospitalized) and scenes from the rest of his life. So, done with the Paris section, I was supposed to jump back to St.-Remy. Lo and behold, I got to my St.-Remy file and found that I was out of scenes! I'd used all of them already. Oh well, I decided, to paraphrase an old Dorito's commercial, I'll just have to write more. Two, as it turns out. One for now and one to insert after the Arles section. The former I kinda sorta finished by the time my writing day ended, the latter I haven't started yet. Both will be short. They simply have to be, given the length of the novel already, and because I think they can work well being short. Actually, having to compose these scenes works out nicely because there are elements of his stay in St.-Remy that I didn't bring in before but now can (albeit briefly) and in that way better nuance the tone of the whole St-Remy experience. That's it for today. Not too many questions to raise, just a report on one of my more scattered but still beneficial writing days.

(Above: The view from out the window of the recreated "Vincent's Room" at St. Paul's hospital in Saint-Rémy, France.)