Van Gogh the Lefty?

For several decades now, the fact that the different hemispheres of the brain control different functions and influence different abilities has been popularized in western media. Especially commented upon is the fact that human "handedness" is influenced by which brain hemisphere is dominant in an individual, and with an inverse relationship, i.e., left-handed people are right brain dominant and right-handed people are left-brain dominant. The left brain, we are told, controls functions such as language--both spoken and written--computational ability, and reasoning. The 4 Rs, if you will. (Schools, it is often noted, are designed to teach and promote left brain activities.) The right side of the brain controls one's intuitions and emotions, one's musical ability, one's visual and spatial abilities, and one's creative and inventive potential. Ever since these ideas were popularized, there has been book after book celebrating the unique qualities of the presumably right brain dominant left-handers among us. And since I'm one of them, I've been given several such books over the years: from my parents, from my friends, and from my wife. The latest, called A Left-Handed History of the World, might be the most ambitious in its argument. After a short introductory chapter in which it lays out general tendencies of left-handed people, Left-Handed History goes on to profile 25 different and very prominent individuals, all left-handed, implicitly and explicitly arguing that it's left handers who have repeatedly made and remade the world. (Some of those profiled: Ramses the Great, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Beethoven, Napolean, Isaac Newton, Queen Victoria, Ghandi, Marie Curie, and Paul McCartney.) Given that only 7-10 percent of the population is left-handed, the profound influence of left-handers on history, the book asserts, is all the more startling. (Btw, if one counts Ronald Reagan, who naturally wrote with his left-hand but was made to switch to his right at any early age--typical of that time--4 of the last 5 presidents have been lefties.)

Brain scientists will tell you that it's not merely a matter of Lefty=This and Righty=That. We all use both brain hemispheres. It's a matter of when and how much. We can get into those sticky issues on another post or another blog. On this blog, and for this post, I want to talk about Van Gogh. Early in my composing of Yellow, I decided to show him as a left-hander. Partly the choice was intuitive, partly projection, and partly because I had in some remote corner of my brain a faux-memory of seeing him listed among history's famous left-handers. Don't get me wrong. It's not like this is a major theme in the novel or anything that I'm pushing in every scene. But I do point out in a few scenes that Van Gogh is drawing or painting or writing with his left-hand. In one scene I even reference the "left-handed scratch" that is his handwriting. The latter reference is admittedly a matter of me identifying with my protagonist--or vice-versa--because unless I am terribly careful my handwriting instantly descends into "left-handed scratch." (This is especially true, and especially problematic, during the white-hot rush of a first draft, which I still insist on doing by pen in a notebook.)

But my choice of making Van Gogh a left-hander wasn't and isn't simply a matter of trying to insert myself into my novel. It also made real sense to me, based on what I knew about him, and about the theories of handedness. It also wasn't a choice that I deliberated about ahead of time. The idea just occurred to me one day as I was composing a scene and so I went with it. It seemed to work. And if it allowed me to better identify and empathize with my protagonist, to see him from the inside, that's all to the good. Besides, whether Van Gogh was or wasn't left-handed, he certainly showed--and shows in my novel--a number of the characteristic traits. Visual acuity, first of all, demonstrated not only in his numerous paintings and drawings but his copious letters, filled with exacting descriptions of pictures and landscapes. His stubborness and his well-chronicled tendency to emotional spasms, whether that meant anger or romantic infatuation, also fits. Also related is the fact that Van Gogh never put his best foot forward verbally as he did through other means. By most accounts, he was a clumsy and naturally awkward speaker. He had a great deal of fire as a human being and as an artist--he made and kept (and lost) some close friends, along with his brilliant paintings--but smooth and orderly did not by any means characterize his speaking style. Left-Handed History goes out of its way to point out that left-handers are fundamentally distrustful of the world's organization and its institutions--perhaps because it was not designed by them or for them--and they can react in two different ways: They become agitators, openly working to overthrow the status quo, or they retreat deep inside themselves, intellectually and philosophically removing themselves from what they regard as a deeply flawed structure. It's safe to say that Van Gogh did both. Perhaps more than any other neo-impressionist, he was determined to evolve modern art, not just sell paintings. He worked doggedly to that end. But he also was a strikingly interior person, tending to withdraw for long stretches from the society around him, in order to go his own way, to follow his own drummer. I'll repeat: He made friends, even close friends, everywhere he lived. Like everyone, he needed human contact, human conversation. But funadmentally the man was a loner.

Last but not least is what Left-Handed History calls Lateral Thinking, the "ability to make unorthodox connections." Apparently, this explains why some left-handers become ingenious and original military strategists (e.g. Alexander), and why others became brilliant, quirky political maneuverers (e.g., Bill Clinton). A talent for strategy-making certainly defined Van Gogh's life. This, more than anything, struck me as I read about him and wrote about him. He almost always had a plan, sometimes quickly evolving and radically changing plans, for how to accomplish his desired ends. This was true when he wanted to become a lay preacher, and it was certainly true when he decided to become an artist. He knew where he wanted to go and was always confident that he knew exactly how to get there. Demonstrating the daring to act on a strategy was never a problem for him. Convincing others that he was right, however, always was.

What sells?

I have a friend who's written a brilliant book that, through the lense of fiction, examines the strange, complex, and disturbing social compound that is the current Middle East. The book began as a collection of short stories, one that featured a variety of protagonists, some that are native to the region, many that are not. The point was to show, in some cases expose, the various and confounding strata of human lives and human interactions in this unique and terribly important part of the world. At the advice of an agent, my friend--who for several years lived and worked in Abu Dhabi--turned his collection of stories into a novel. But, staying true to the diverse nature of the stories, the novel very much features an ensemble cast. It is difficult to claim one of its protagonists as the Central Character. Don't get me wrong. My friend put in years of work metamorphosing his story collection into a unified fiction, making sure that the plot lines and characters interweaved and overlapped sufficiently, making sure the structure was tight enough and the final effect singular enough to deserve the designation of novel. It just happens to be a novel with several important characters and several substantial viewpoints.

My friend's book has received serious looks from a number of leading publishing houses. But it has not yet been picked up, despite glowing reviews. Apparently, one reservation is this lack of a single main protagonist. That's just not how most novels go. Well, maybe not most novels, but I'm sure you, reader, can think of a very good novel, one you enjoyed and maybe even treasure, one that might even be regarded as a classic, that involves an ensemble cast. I know other authors whose novels have been written off by editors because they start too slow. As if there aren't dozens of classic novels that refuse to jump out at you with a murder or bomb explosion or car crash on page one, that begin far more humbly than that. As my friend said to me the other day over coffee, "Look at War and Peace. Nothing happens for the first hundred pages!" And what bothers these authors most of all is when the It starts too slowly comment is delivered by someone who has not read the entire book--who, in fact, read only the first ten or twenty pages--and thus has no clue as to whether or not the novel's opening makes sense for the book as a whole. Indeed, maybe that opening is integral to how the book plays out; but the reader never read far enough to judge. I think most novelists, at least the ones I respect, see themselves as writing whole books not writing openings with some extra stuff added on to reach a page goal. Ironically, I have also read articles in which editors complain about manuscripts in which the first 50 or so pages are jam-packed, as if the author felt that he or she had to introduce every major character, each essential plot point, and some sub-plots too, right off the bat. Non-stop action, the editors complain, no room to breathe, everything a jumble; they give me a headache. Well, I think, can you blame the writers for this, when they are constantly preached at that their books must begin fast? I'm sure those authors thought that they were giving you exactly what you wanted.

My point is that there are clearly an understood set of musts in publishing, musts that get stricter every passing year as budgets become more and more tight and publishers become more and more afraid. And, even understanding (I really do) that the bottom line is the bottom line, I can only regard these musts as regrettable. Because every year books that no one could have predicted to do well capture the imagination--and the dollars--of the reading public. Other books that seem to fit all the required musts fall flat on their faces. Every year I read at least a few contemporary novels that simply blow me away, that astound me, that leave me in awe and with terrific hope for the state of literature. (In fact, I've written about a few of these on this blog.) And every year I read novels that leave me cold, leave me bored, leave me dry, books that make me wonder how in the world they got published because they are significantly inferior to some unpublished books I've read. And then I realize: Oh, it's because they fit all the musts.

What sells? Can anyone offer a definitive answer to that question? I doubt it. I can't, except to say that it seems to me that books that finally sell very well do so because they are striking in some unique, idiosyncratic way. Because they are not like everything else out there. And I have to think that the best way to get to such books is to encourage authors to tell their stories in the manner that their stories demand. Even if that means an ensemble cast.

Missing the mistral

Before I'd traveled to Provence I'd heard of course of the mistral, the wickedly strong wind that comes up suddenly and then blows and blows and blows for days on end. I was a little skeptical. How was this possible? And this happens routinely, like getting a heavy rain shower in Arkansas in May? In fact, yes. It's such an ordinary part of life in Provence that no one thinks to say much about it. Van Gogh's only reference to the mistral is when he noted in one of his letters that he was so determined to finish a painting that once he drove the legs of his easel into the ground, strapped the canvas in place, and kept on painting in spite of the wind. I recreate this scene in my novel. I couldn't not do so, after having traveled to the same territory and experienced the same wind. But after living through a mistral or three, it's awfully hard to imagine Van Gogh could have completed that painting, at least to his satisfaction. (He doesn't in my novel.) The mistral blows so hard that once, riding on a bike, I had to get off and push the thing, because simple pedalling became too hard and too slow. I was almost literally going nowhere. On my trip last May I set off on a morning run in the face of a (unusually brief, as it turned out) mistral and could barely move forward against the force of the wind. (It lessened a bit when I turned onto a side road.) My wife has recounted stories of visiting the Arles craft market during a mistral and see all sorts of boxes and items cartwheeling away from vendors' tables.

Having done our French tours always in late spring or summer, we haven't faced the numbing bitterness of a winter mistral. I can only imagine how dispiriting it must be for residents to wait those out. Summer mistrals are a mixed blessing. One hand it knocks the top off the southern heat. (Although compared to summers in Arkansas or Louisiana, I've always found the supposedly scorching temperatures of the south of France way overstated.) It's also fascinating to watch the landscape of this rural, agricultural region sway in the wind for days. And for my wife there is no more special pleasure to be had in France than to lie in the comfort and security of our bed and listen to the mistral howl outside.

On our first trip to Provence, in 2005, we stayed for two weeks and faced one mistral in the middle of the trip. It lasted three or four days at full strength and then quickly leaked away. We woke up one morning, and it was over. On our second trip--a quick stopover not quite one week long near the end of my wife's research trip to England in 2006--the mistral met us the second we stepped off the plane in Nimes. In London, we had been watching the weather reports from Provence and realized a mistral had begun. Given that it was drizzly and terribly cool in London, this at the end of May, a mistral seemed a small price to pay for some Provencal sunshine. Once we'd arrived, however, I began to become impatient for the mistral to pass. We would only be there for a week, after all. It lingered, however, for at least four days, holding back the summery heat that I was actually looking forward to. But when it cleared we had a blessedly warm couple days before returning to England. On my last trip, a year ago, there was only the single, brief mistral (i.e., it lasted a couple days) though I spent five full weeks, and my family two, in the country. That's either a lucky or unlucky development, depending on how you look at it. Most would count it as lucky, I think. But I know that by the time we left, my wife was missing the mistral.

metahistorical classics

I blogged a couple months ago about the great joy and utility I take in audible.com. In the last month or so the value of the downloadable audio book has only made itself more evident to me as I've listened to two Wallace Stegner titles: Angle of Repose (1971) and The Spectator Bird (1976). Not only are these long-recognized modern classics, but they also can be read as historical novels--valuable ones for any writer of historical fiction to study. One could even call them metahistorical novels in that embedded in the structure of both is the very act of looking backward, an act carried out not simply by the author but by characters in the storylines themselves. Thus each book becomes not just an exploration of the past but a meditation on what that effort means. In the former novel--which earned Stegner a Pulitzer prize--Lyman Ward, a middle-aged and disabled historian, reviews letters written by his modestly famous grandmother, a Victorian era easterner who followed her engineer husband to the west. There she settled and lived a rather difficult life as a mother, wife, painter, and writer. Ward intends to write a history of his grandmother but the intense personal nature of the letters quickly leads him to write something quite different than conventional history. Instead, he writes a "history of a marriage," and in a style that is indistinguishable from that of a novel. What first annoyed me, but finally interested me is Ward's habit of pulling away from the story of his grandmother's life to discuss his own far more mundane and modern one. While at first I was impatient with these sections, eager to get back to the grandmother, I realized what Stegner--through his narrator Ward--was up to: drawing a comparison between the sexually liberated, socially chaotic early 1970s, and the seemingly more staid Victorian era. What the reader is delighted to discover is that while differences abound, fundamental similarities abide, similarities that speak to human nature, family personality, and the unavoidable chains of history.

The Spectator Bird is a less ambitious but just as engaging book. After all, it won Stegner a National Book Award. Like Angle of Repose, the book cannot help but be a study of aging--its narrator is 69 and feels it--but is even more significantly an examination of history itself. The narrator, Joe Allston, a retired literary agent, is writing an account of his life. The project is his wife's idea and not one he's too excited about. In looking over his files in preparation for starting the project Allston finds something that interests and even scares him: a journal he wrote during a trip to Denmark in 1954, shortly after his only son died. When his wife realizes that he kept a journal during that trip she is amazed and even bothered; she immediately insists he read it aloud to her. The book, similar to Angle, moves back and forth between Allston's journal-bound account of the Denmark trip and the present day life of Allston and his wife in California. Not surprisingly, Allston's account of the trip sounds more like a brilliantly composed fictionalization by someone who very much knows what he is doing than the everyday journalizing of a non-writer on vacation. But that's a mannerism I'm willing to allow Stegner because I am so drawn into Allston's story. I won't give away what happens on the trip, but I can tell you that, like Angle, Stegner expertly begins drawing his two narrative lines--the past and present--together. Once again, history, for Stegner's characters and for his readers, becomes less something to be studied objectively than a force we cannot deny or escape. In Stegner's hands, history is something that must be confronted and wrestled to a compromise.

If you like historical fiction, or simply well written realistic fiction, I emphatically recommend both titles. Read them, listen to them, whatever is easier for you. Just do it soon. I must admit that it took a while for both to capture me. But capture me they did--and how. I may have found one of my new favorite (historical) writers.

The Next Big Step

My Van Gogh novel has entered a vital new stage in its progress. Yesterday I sent off my first query letter to an agent, a person with whom I've had various email conversations over the years in regards to different writing projects of mine. His agency is the natural one for me to approach first. And if his agency requests to see the entire manuscript, it will be the only agency looking at Yellow for a while. (Actually, that agency is quite conscientious about not holding manuscripts too long.) Most agents, if they have asked to see your entire book, want an exclusive look, which I understand. But if you're sending out anything short of that--a query letter or email, a synopsis, the first ten pages, a few chapters--authors should, and do, feel free to contact as many agents as they like.

In any case, this new development means something significant for my novel and for this blog. Instead of working at the privacy of my desk every morning trying to make the book just a little bit better, I've officially--at least for now--declared myself done and am essentially releasing Yellow to the world. The work is no longer about editing and revising but about mailing, emailing, hoping, waiting, photocopying, developing requested synopses, mailing again, waiting, mailing more, waiting, getting depressed, getting hopeful, mailing, waiting, emailing, photocopying, waiting, developing a longer (or shorter) synopsis, mailing, emailing, waiting, photocopying, mailing, waiting. You get the idea. Makes me think of that Tom Petty line: "The waiting is the hardest part." Well, maybe. But it's also the most hopeful part. Finding an agent--hopefully the right agent--for your book can be a short process or a long one. Sometimes, it can be an interminable process. At this point, as I start out on my efforts on behalf of Yellow, I really have no idea how long it will take.

But I do know that moving into the agent hunt phase means there will be fewer day to day thoughts and insights that I'll be driven to share on this blog. (Funny how this should happen so soon after celebrating my 100th post.) After all, how many times can I say to the world "I sent out a query letter today!" without sounding uselessly boring? Certainly if any issue regarding historical fiction or how I put together my own book is on my mind, or if I care to comment about a historical novel I've read, or I have some great news about Yellow, I will be back in this space sharing my thoughts. But I figure my posts will drop to maybe one a week, and some weeks not even that. I'm in a different phase now. Let's hope it's a good one. Thanks to anyone and everyone who has kept up so far. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Burnt Norway at BEA

While throughout the world--and in our household--writers busily bang away at their books, in New York an annual Big Event in the pubishing world occurs this week. Formerly known as the ABA (American Booksellers Association) convention, Book Expo America begins tomorrow at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. The Expo runs through Thursday. While the basic point of the Expo is to allow publishers to show off their current and forthcoming titles, the Expo also includes some fascinating and entertaining speakers. Barbra Streisand delivers the keynote on Tuesday evening--will the singer deliver a high "note"? (yuck yuck)--while Wednesday's Children's Book & Authors Breakfast features Cory Doctorow and Richard Peck and will be mc'd by none other than Sarah Ferguson. That's right, that Sarah Ferguson--the Dutchess of York, who has penned numerous children's books of her own (and who, as I write this, is getting some rather embarrassing personal publicity). Thursday's Adult Book & Author Breakfast will be mc'd by Jon Stewart (yes, that Jon Stewart) and will feature Condoleeza Rice and John Grisham, among others. Finally, Thursday's Adult Book & Author Luncheon will be mc'd by comedian/actor/forthcoming zombie novelist Patton Oswalt and will feature sci-fi legend William Gibson.

All I can say is that I wish I were there. Because my book is! Not Yellow, but my earlier novel Burnt Norway. That's right. Burnt Norway will be present at the Expo in the flesh and featured, along with hundreds of other titles, in the Expo catalogue. I'm excited for it and curious to see what difference, if any, this makes for the book. But having paid to enter the Expo, I'd really like to hear Jon Stewart! Oh well. In any case, if you live in the New York area and are interested in book publishing (or Barbra Streisand) I suggest you drop by the Expo. Say hi to my book. It will be having all the fun while back in Arkansas I keep hard at work on its big brother Yellow.

A simple fact?!--uncovered!

As you can tell if you've been following this blog, writing a historical novel is at least half an effort in fact finding, even if one is not being completely religious to the facts. I certainly want my novel to be as true to the facts as possible, unless those facts start to impinge on something [that I think is] necessary about plot or character. I've done a heck of a lot of fact finding since this project began and I'm still at it. One little piece of information that for the longest time I was unable to uncover was the precise location of the 8th--and last--Impressionist exhibit, held in Paris in 1886. One scene in my novel shows Vincent attending this exhibit and being moved by it. But in trying to write the scene one of the very first things I had to nail down was the where to place it. Where is Vincent when he is observing these pictures? Hard to draw the scene without knowing this, or at least deciding on it. After scanning a number of books and web sites and not finding the location precisely identified, I just decided to make a choice. The exhibit--as portrayed in my book--would be held at a private home rented for the occasion. Why a private home rather than a gallery or museum? Because the Impressionists were historically the "out" group in the Paris art world. They organized exhibits in the first place because the Salon turned down their works. All right, they responded, so we'll set up our own exhibit. That independent spirit would carry them, I figured, right up to the end. I really had no idea if my decision was at all accurate, but I needed to write the scene.

It's only now, as I put the finishing touches on what will be the first publically available draft of Yellow that I've came across my decision again and confronted it. What if a private home was a ludicrous idea, way off base? What if some very informed art historian found the idea laughable and called me out on it? But what to do if I can't find this seemingly simple piece of information? It then occurred to me that I ought to at least find the locations of the earlier and more celebrated Impressionist exhibits, when the group was still holding pretty well together. Where those exhibits were located could and should guide my decision as to where the 8th exhibit might have been held. Don't know why I didn't think of this before. In any case, I seemed to hit pay dirt almost immediately. One very informative article gave me the precise location of every single Impressionist exhibit--except for the last one! Errr. (Why was this so apparently unimporant?) But, it was heartening to learn that except for the 2nd Impressionist exhibit in 1876 (held at the gallery of the famous art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel) the exhibits were held in apartments or studios, not galleries--and never museums. So my instinct was correct. Should I just go ahead with the setting as I'd already determined it? Not so fast, I decided. Better check one more time. And what do you know, there it was. An article on all-art.org gave me (just a half hour ago) exactly what I'd been needing all along. The 8th exhibit was held on the second floor of the Maison Doree restaurant at the corner of Rue Lafitte and Boulevard des Italiens. Where was this article when I first started researching? Where was it yesterday? I can't tell you. And why a restaurant? I don't know. Did the restaurant simply not serve on its second floor during the month long exhibit? Apparently. (Although the hours of the exhibit were from 10-6. Did they try to do dinner up there, amongst all the artwork?) I suppose it's a sign that the group was dissolving that they couldn't find a more conventional space. After all, this last exhibit is most famous today for two reasons: 1) It's where Seurat unveiled his mammoth and controversial Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte; and 2) almost every leading, well-known Impressionist decided not to exhibit. So those who did get into the exhibit were relative no-names and up-and-comers. They would have to take what space they could get. Conveniently, these were exactly the people Vincent needed to get to know and learn from. (Update: After doing more research I may have to contradict one of my last suppositions. The Maison Doree was quite a well-regarded restaurant at the time, serving an upper crust crowd. Perhaps the exhibit organizers regarded it as a superb location!)

As I head back to my manuscript, with precise and accurate information finally in hand, I am reminded of a lesson I so often drawn from Van Gogh's life and experiences, something writers of historical novels needed to tell themselves again and again and again: Don't quit. For the sake of my scene, I'm glad I didn't.