Cooking in Paris for Stein

A few times in this blog I've recommended various books of historical fiction, ones I've read during this sabbatical semester or earlier: The True History of the Kelly Gang, Ahab's Wife, Mariette in Ecstasy. (And don't miss an even better historical novel by Ron Hansen, one of the best novels I've ever read in any genre--his Hitler's Niece.) I recently finished a book quite different from any of those and perhaps from any I've read before: The Book of Salt by Monique Truong. Truong's first novel, it is a dreamy, fluid, at times almost formless construction that delves into the mind and the past of a Vietnamese man who worked for several years as the personal chef to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. I must admit that it took some time delving into the novel before it completely held me, but Truong's eloquence is irresistable and her pictures of pre-war Paris and of pre-communist Vietnam are intriguing, concrete, believable, and engaging. (Keep an eye out for the appearance of someone who almost certainly is a young Ho Chi Minh.) What you shouldn't anticipate on approaching the book is that it will act as some kind of tell all about Stein and Toklas. Indeed, I venture to guess that more pages in the book are devoted to the protagonist's life before he meets Stein and Toklas than after he does. There's a coolness and even an unexpected lack of curiosity in how he describes the two women; and yet at the same time he seems to know or have intuited some rather intimate details about how they regard and have regarded each other. But, ah hah, this brings me to my last point--the stroke of genius that underlies the book and finally makes sense of nearly every one of Truong's moves. We realize, late in the narrative, that what we are reading was not, in the fictional world of the novel, composed by the chef himself but--similar to The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas--written by Stein from the perspective of her Vietnamese employee. She apparently has, from a distant remove, regarded him as quite the curiosity over the years, enough to compose a book with him as the narrator. The title of Stein's manuscript? Why, of course: The Book of Salt. This explains so much about the book that I cannot even begin to tell in this brief post. It also means that the Book of Salt is not merely a good read, but will make for a great second and third and fourth read as you uncover more and more gems served up (if you'll excuse the pun) with brilliant and subtle acumen by this very talented writer.

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.)

Vincent at art school

Had fun today working with one of my favorite scenes in the book: Van Gogh trying to take a painting class with Fernand Cormon (that's him on the right), a leading academic painter of the day and director of a well known Paris school for the fine arts. Though he did not study with Cormon that long he met a number of notable young talents there, some of whom became lifelong friends and important Neoimpressionists. Some people he met were Emile Bernard (pictured on the left), Louis Anquetin, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and John Peter Russell. My scene includes people who we know were students of Cormon and others who are completely imaginary. The group leads a revolt against Cormon and his rather backward aesthetic rules. Something like this did actually happen, with Bernard being one of the rabblerousers. It led to Cormon closing his school for a time.

It was nice to break out of Vincent's mind and show him interacting with fellow painters. He actually had a habit of making friends and associates in all the different places he lived. He wasn't simply an isolated man, despite his mad genius reputation. But even his friends regarded him as slightly peculiar and occasionally trying. At the same time they could also feel great loyalty toward, and love for, him. My worry for today is that in trying to fit Vincent's whole life into one novel I am necessarily sacrificing parts of that life, one being his ability to make friends and professional associates. (He did not seem shy about meeting other artists.) I do show his friendship with Anthon Van Rappard. I also will develop his friendships with Bernard and Signac and Gauguin. But I'm coming out of the Nuenen section in which he was more isolated than in other parts of his life, and out of the Antwerp section in which I've mostly highlighted his epistolary argument with Theo over whether or not he should move to Paris. Not a lot about friends in those parts, even if in real life he did have some. I don't want this book to become too interior even recognizing the profoundly interior nature of Van Gogh and of painting itself. As with any novel, stuff has to happen. And then more stuff. Basic rule.