Selected Letters of William Styron (31 page)

My work is fitful. I’m writing a novelette and a short story simultaneously, which sounds good and creative, but my enthusiasm for both of the things waxes and wanes so erratically that they don’t proceed very fast. I wrote an article on the European radio for
Harper’s
, which they reluctantly accepted and with the proviso that they be allowed to cut it down by half and rewrite it completely. This is not good for the ego, nor for the bank account, since they’re paying only $150, but as Irwin once said, no magazine is happy unless they can remove the gonads from a writer’s work. Sometimes I feel that I should go into the advertising business, so that my talent for pace and surface savvy may be experienced untrammeled. Tell Guinzburg if you see him that I thank him for sending me
Augie March
and that I think this Bellow fellow could stand a bit more surface savvy. It’s been a long time since a book has bored me so, though Peter wrote me that it was the greatest thing since
Crime and Punishment
, and so maybe I’ve just lost all my literary feeling. Incidentally, when you see the Matthiessens next, tell them that I’ll be writing them soon, so that we can work out places for our pre-Xmas get-together well in advance.

I hope that by now you’ve found your daemon. Max Geismar tried to send me one by parcel post, but I told him mine was hanging around and showed up now and then.
^§g
An American, Baltimore fellow, and his wife have moved into the big apartment above us. He has a wonderful electric
train which I play with and Rose spends most of each day making paper dolls for their little girl. So you can see how my literary desires have succumbed completely to an infantile regression. Hope we can straighten our common ailments out by talking them over over a beer in some low Village dive.

Irwin and Marian are, I think, still in St. Jean but I have not heard from them in some time. I got a note from Annie Brierre, my
Nouvelles Littéraires
friend in Paris, who admires your book immensely and said you had given her an interview for her sheet. Have you seen it? Also heard from George Plimpton, who is hot for the Hemingway issue, as am I, in spite of all my early proclamations. I’m a two-faced, commercial bastard and am on the verge of selling out to Selznick. Looking forward to seeing you, as is Rose.

Bill

T
O
N
ORMAN
M
AILER

November 15, 1953 Ravello, Italy

Dear Norman:

I don’t know why it is, but you could write to me until you were blue in the face, describing in monstrous, frightening detail the ordeal of being in New York again after a period abroad, and it still wouldn’t sink in. As for me, I sense exactly the feelings you described to me in your last letter—the depression, the cocktail parties, the yak yak yak, and all the rest—and though I know I’ll be similarly afflicted after precisely 10 days in N.Y.C. I nonetheless, like you did in Mexico, feel that I
have
to get back. So I’m packing my bags, my trophies and medals and souvenirs, and am due to arrive in the North River on December 22
^nd
. God alone knows why. It’s cheap here, and beautiful, and I’m leading the good contented life. My writing, while it isn’t of the quality to make the shade of Tolstoy bite his nails in envy, is nevertheless proceeding apace, and I should be satisfied. But no. That old compulsion takes me back to soot and subways and pale rheumy faces, psychoanalytic chatter and hangovers and discontent, indigestion and “literary competition.” I can see it all coming with wonderful clarity and yet I’m coming, and if you can tell me why I’ll give you a gold-plated
typewriter for Xmas. I suppose, though, that in the end it’s just that simple fact that New York, of all places on earth, is the most totally fascinating and “complete,” and with the place, you’ve got to come back and get booster shots periodically, even if it hurts. That, coupled with the plain truth that one—at least I—can’t remain expatriate forever. Then, too, in spite of everything, in spite of my immense love for this country, being here too long gets finally to be like eating 20 chocolate sundaes in a row; it begins to cloy, and a drowsy stillness numbs my senses, and I want to get shut of Italy completely for a while, at least—and get back to a place riotous with 100% Anglo-Saxon neurotic symptoms and the high excitement of puritanical moral conflict.
^§h
Where the traffic is regulated, the milk is tested for TB, and all those amenities which make this life worthwhile.

One thing honestly I’ll never regret leaving though, is the American Academy—a place which regrettably occupied more of my time than it should have; an archaeologist’s haven, full of gravediggers and bone-pickers and the morbid students of dead alphabets, and a place which a writer should avoid at any cost.

I had another letter the other day from Lew Allen; I agree with you—he’s one fine boy.
^§i
He’s so damned honest and self-effacing and genuine. I don’t know if he can write or not but I certainly wish him well. I don’t know what the precise connection is, but when I think of a guy like him and then of that talentless, self-promoting, spineless slob you mentioned, Gore Vidal, I want to go on a book-burning pogrom. I haven’t read that piece in
New World Writing
yet, but I can imagine; I wouldn’t think, however, that it’s very important in the scheme of things.

I’m really very glad that Calder has made such a splash on Broadway. I would have sent him congratulations and a request for two seats on the aisle except that my last letter to him of many months ago in which I mentioned the money he owed me was so pointedly ignored that I felt
another letter would embarrass both of us. According to Lew, Calder’s touched everybody in N.Y. for money except Barney Baruch,
^§j
only it’s too bad that with Calder his perpetual debts have the effect of estranging him with some people. Lew says that without these debts he wouldn’t be the writer he is, though that’s a statement which may be taken in two distinct opposite ways. Anyway, I wish him the best, including a Mercedes-Benz, and if you see him I wish you’d congratulate him for me, as a fellow creditor.

Speaking of Broadway, have you ever had the notion of writing a play? I know that when Lillian Hellman was in Rome (she came to our wedding reception) she said that she had worked for a while on a dramatization of
Naked
, but I wonder if you yourself have thought of the idea.
^§k
There’s a saying that prose writers are notoriously bad playwrights, but there’s certainly no rule, and I’d certainly love to try my hand at the thing. My trouble, though, is that I know hardly anything about the theatre or the art of playwriting and I wouldn’t even know how to start. What I’d like to do at first would be to collaborate with someone who knew some of the fundamentals, and then maybe go it alone afterwards for other plays. Or does collaboration bisect one’s “unity”—one’s vanity? Anyway, the whole thing interests me. I’ve been reading Ibsen for the first time, and Shakespeare again—and one of my projects when I get back this winter is to see as many plays as possible.
^§l

I hope to see you around Christmas time, when I hope you’ll have that first draft polished off. Rose and I will probably stay in N.Y. for two or three days when we first get back and then go to Baltimore and Virginia for a week or so and come back around New Year’s. Do you have a telephone number? If so, I’ll give you a ring; if not, I’ll probably see you at Vance’s—I think I remember him writing something about a party Christmas Eve, which sounds like as good a place as any to get on the greased slide.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing you on my return to purgatory, as is Rose who, incidentally, bought a copy of the Weybright edition of
Naked
in Rome and read it a few weeks ago and wants me to convey to you the fact that she thinks it’s the very best since the war, and even better than that, Gore Vidal notwithstanding.

All the best,

Bill      

T
O
G
EORGE
P
LIMPTON

December 1, 1953 Ravello, Italy

Dear George:

Herewith the interview, revised and expanded.
^§m
I think that in the future it might be a good idea for you to get a tape-recorder for these darn things, because it’s a bitch of a job for the interviewee to edit his own words. Now you will note that I did not completely eliminate all the first part; as a matter of fact I retained the bulk of it, but made quite a few changes and emendations. I think it’s better now, certainly printable. Besides all the additions, you will notice I made a few eliminations. I cut out a few of the cuss-words, which were all too abundant. I cut out the cracks against little Truman and Anthony West, who God knows deserves them, but they seemed a little in poor taste.
^§n
I also tempered my criticism of Faulkner. I have tried to keep the tone impersonal and conversational throughout, and I think that I’ve succeeded.

You will notice, too, that I’ve taken your suggestion and have added quite a bit toward the end. I hope you will find the questions—some of which are yours—and answers suitable; at least the piece is considerably lengthened, and I’ve gotten off my chest a few things I’ve wanted to say.
One important thing is that I think you must somehow invent a little atmosphere to surround the piece. It’s mighty bare without any stage directions, and I think if you place the thing right where the original interview started, in the Café Select, or some equivalent, it will provide a suitably bibulous background.

You are of course at liberty to edit any of this, by excision, but I hope you won’t find it necessary to put new words in my mouth, important ones, anyway. I am enclosing a sheet of MS from
Long March
, I really want you to return it, though, when you’re finished with it, to the New York address which I’ll give below. I’m also enclosing a pretty photo for Billy. Please tell him to make my hair a little flatter on top and to give me a tie. I look like a muskrat trader.

I wish you’d acknowledge this by the quickest means possible; fast airmail should do it. The reason is I’m packing up my traps and lines and setting sail with Rose on Dec. 13
^th
from Naples, back to the land of Borden’s milk and Arrow shirts. Why I still don’t know—I’ll probably be in Paris again by March—but the spaghetti is beginning to pall, much as I love it here, and Italy is getting chilly. Marquand and the Matthiessens, however, have promised to be on the dock to ease our arrival, to take us to Voisin, and to help us with the native tongue. My address in New York, since we’ll probably be sleeping under the New York Central tracks, is c/o my agent, Elizabeth McKee, 30 E. 60th.

Best regards to Billy and Jane, and hope to hear from you about this soon.

All the best,

Bill      

P.S. I changed the question “Do you feel yourself in competition with other writers?” to “Do you feel yourself to be, etc.” Since the first question is fairly pornographic.

The Styrons left Naples for New York on December 22, 1953
.

T
O
R
OBERT AND
C
LAIRE
W
HITE

March 15, 1954 231 East 76
^th
Street, New York, NY

Caro Roberto + Clara Bianco,

It was very fine to hear from you all, and your letter somehow stirred me out of my lethargy; this is the
second
letter of any kind that I’ve written to anyone since our return to the land of the free and the home of the brave. We were both sad and happy to hear about your staying over for another year—sad because we won’t be seeing you this summer, but of course very happy that the gods looked down and shelled out the dough for another year of sunny profit on the Gianicolo. Actually, maybe we’ll see you sooner than you imagine, for we are already fed up enough with the U.S.A. to be planning to come to Italy again in the spring of ’55 and live for the rest of our natural born lives in Ravello. Ravello—which we saw in that movie last night—“Beat the Devil,” which Truman wrote and we saw being filmed down there; it’s a dreadful movie, really, but we wouldn’t have missed it for anything, because even though they completely ignore most of the scenery there are a lot of shots of the crotille of the Congalone where we lived, and old Humphrey Bogart coming down the stairs and smooching with Jennifer Jones in front of our door and there was even a shot of Saverio—the portiere of the Palumbo, whom we liked so much—lugging one of Bogart’s suitcases. God, we got homesick.

Actually, we don’t have it too bad, for benighted New Yorkers. We have a nice apartment on 76
^th
Street, which we’ve painted up pretty, and have hung Bobby’s “Vespa” sketch on one wall, and Anne Wigglesworth’s nude on another wall. It makes quite an impression on the visitors. I have bought the largest hi-fidelity record player in New York and
piles
of records and so we have music and whiskey all the time at night and get weepy and sentimental listening to Mozart and looking at Bobby’s Vespa and wish the hell we were back in Italy where we belong. Incidentally, I am not in bed with funny books and peanut butter sandwiches, though I’ll have to admit that when I got off the
Independence
I was so nervous and upset that I was in bed for 1 day with what my fine doctor diagnosed as post-Ravello despondency. The symptoms were watering eyes, heart palpitation and a desire to jump out of the window. I’m now healthy again, though, and resigned to my destiny and all the symptoms have
disappeared—except for the same thing Bobby has, buzzing in the ears, which my doctor informed me is harmless, being generally an affliction of sculptors and writers and other jittery nuts. He says it almost never means anything like a brain tumor, though of course that’s what I was sure I had.

I have begun Novel No. 2, which will be laid in Ravello and Rome mainly, with maybe a side-glimpse at Paris and New York.
^§o
It’s going to be about two young guys who were friends—a good guy and a perfect bastard, and it ends up with the good guy pushing the perfect bastard off the drop at the Villa Cimbrone. Also the bastard ropes one of the local girls in Scala (the girl whom the guy who is good is in love with). It is very complicated and very tragic and I will work on it for probably ten years and it will sell exactly 726 copies. We know a girl in this same apartment building, upstairs, and that’s where I do my writing, because she works during the day. That’s where I’m writing this. I have a wonderful view of a clothesline and a row of garbage cans, and I have written so far on the novel about 4,000 words, all crap.