Thomas Sullivan

Frank T. Wydra

While most who frequent the Gonquin table are of the literary ilk, today natty Noel Coward occupies the chair facing the gallery where his posturing can be best appreciated by hoi polloi. Characteristically, upon his entry–stage left–he asks Al, the Gonquin’s owner, for a chair cushion.

Papa stage whispers into Bram’s ear, “The old boy must have had a raucous night.”

Bram smirks, but we all know the pillow is to make the little man look taller.

Noel eyeing the exchange says, “My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that, as with so many here, my mind has not wandered enough.”

Just then, there is a delighted gasp from the gallery as a woman, strikingly outfitted in a blue, pinstripe pantsuit, waves to us.

Noel, similarly outfitted, greets her by saying, “Edna, how delightful to see you. And in that costume, you look almost like a man.”

Edna Ferber, who appears not to have noticed the actor-playwright before he spoke, replies with a playful malice in her voice, “Well by God, Noel, so do you.”

“Oh, delightful,” Noel says clapping his hands, “You did that so well, as if you had practiced. You know, wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.”

“Well, thank you,” Edna says. “And your plays, are people still doing them?”

She has speared him, but he takes pains to hide it. “They go as well as your books.”

“Congratulations, then. My books are all still in print. But then, living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles and causes you to bump into people not going your way.”

Mary, who has been lurking while the cats clawed, says, “What an interesting notion? It seems people are always talking about the latest book published. But I wonder whether once popular books are still read.”

Edgar says, “Mine are. They are taught in all the literature courses.”

Mary wrinkles her nose. “”No, that’s not what I meant. We around the table here have a body of work that seems destined to persist because of the academics. What I’m wondering is whether books of the popular culture are read voluntarily, out of the classroom–say, ten or thirty years, after they were popular–by the average reader? Books such as Costain’s SILVER CHALICE or Yerby’s FOXES OF HARROW? What becomes of such books? Do they disappear from the collective conscience? Is there a graveyard where they are buried?”

Papa says, “These young readers lust after new titles and have no appetite for books with age on them.”

Bram seems to agree. “It’s no wonder, the writing is not what is once was. The Times list is populated with poorly written tomes where plot trumps character.”

I furiously finger my BlackBerry, connecting to amazon.com.

Noel says, “People are wrong when they say writing is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what’s wrong with it.”

Bram raises a brow at what seems an affront, but before he can rebut, Edna says, “I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice–they all make fine fuel. Infuse that into a book and it will be read for generations.”

Al is hovering and Noel signals him for a refill on the single malt, laughing, “I am not a heavy drinker. I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.”

I say, “Costain’s SILVER CHALICE is still in print, but Yerby’s work is only available from the used book stores.”

Noel lifts his chin to better look down his nose at my BlackBerry. “I’m over-educated in the things I shouldn’t have known at all, but what is that thing you are using?” I pass it to him.

Edgar says, “It’s the critics. Popular writing is driven by critics. They wax words and a writer slides onto some list.”

“Not so,” Noel says, looking up from the gadget, “Criticism and Bolshevism have one thing in common. They both seek to pull down that which they could never build. I have always been very fond of them. I think it is so frightfully clever of them to read book after book and in the end glean so little from the effort.” He hands the BlackBerry back to me, as if dismissing it along with the critics.

Papa says, “With all respect, Edna, it is not simply the writing. Many of the best selling authors are quite skilled, as are those who receive literary awards such as the Pulitzer. Yet I suspect their work is discarded with the rest.”

I start a search for the New York Times best seller archives.

Bram says, “There are, I think, exceptions. In my case, DRACULA was very popular, but several of my lesser known works such as LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM and LADY OF THE SHROUD still remain in print. Publishers would not waste the ink unless there was a market.”

Edgar says, “It is not a fair comparison. All of us are touted by the academics. They distort the market by forcing impressionable minds to read our works.”

Edna, laughing, says, “Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little. Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight. Take Noel, here, they wrote him off after the war, but he persevered and made a new life for himself on this side of the pond.”

Noel playing to the gallery rolls his eyes. “Well, in the first place, nobody of parti
cular importance wrote me off. And in the second place, I didn’t notice it.”

Mary says, “I suspect there is much truth in what Edna says. It’s not the critics or the academics who keep books alive. People like to read good writing, writing infused with emotion, and say what you will, good writing abounds. Books like Ken Robert’s LYDIA BAILEY, Mailer’s NAKED AND THE DEAD, Wouk’s MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR, Drury’s ADVISE AND CONSENT, all written a half century or more ago. All best sellers on the Times list. All books certainly not taught in the classroom, but each a compelling story written by a master storyteller. Certainly, Noel, these are works you remember.”

“But of course. I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.”

There is a chortle from the gallery. Noel bows.

Googling the titles, I say, “Sometimes technology is better than memory. All of the books Mary mentioned are still in print. And, so is HIS FAMILY, by Poole, the first fiction to receive a Pulitzer back in 1918.

“Well, then,” Edgar says. “Blood money.” Edgar has never liked it that literary prizes were not available in his time. “But, be that as it may, it seems to make Bram’s point. In today’s literary marketplace, who would publish were there no buyers? And why would reprints be bought if not to read?”

“Extraordinary how potent cheap writing is,” Noel quips.

All of the authors eye him, but it is Edna who says, “A closed mind is a dying mind. Need a lift to the cemetery?”

“As I see it,” Al says, “Achieve literary success and you—or your estate—will be guaranteed reprints, for publishers like sure things.”

“But” says Papa, “it is the mid-list writer who fades into oblivion. The Fitzgeralds, who without a stroke of fortune, write and achieve little fame in their lifetime.

“Often they are very good writers,” Bram agrees.

“Still,” Edna says, “Life can’t ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death–fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous constant. Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. But amusing? Never.”

Noel, as if making a speech to the gallery, says, “I’m an enormously talented man, and there’s no use pretending that I’m not. But there is also work. Work is much more fun than fun. Work hard, do the best you can, don’t ever lose faith in yourself and take no notice of what other people say about you. Do that and it will not matter if you are reprinted and read by later generations.”

Edgar’s eyes narrow. “Said by a man who will surely be forgotten.”

Mary says, “Except by mad dogs and Englishmen.”

Bram says, “Who go out in the noonday sun.”

Papa sips his daiquiri and smiles, as if dreaming of Sloppy Joe’s in Key West.

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Note: Most of Ferber’s and Coward’s observations are quotes from things she or he have said or written, and, as usual, seasoned to the taste of this writer.”

frank.writestuff@gmail.com

Friday, May 13, 2007

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