Selected Letters of William Styron (30 page)

All this probably doesn’t interest you in the least, but what it narrows down to is this, if it’ll give you any comfort—that is, if you need any comfort. What I mean is that I think that any writer who ever lived, who was any good at all, has had long long periods of precisely the same sort of strain and struggle that both you and I are going through; I only comfort myself (and God knows it seems like forlorn comfort at times) that it seems to be true that often such periods of doubt and thrashing around eventually produce the best work. They often eventually produce the best work because it is during such periods of struggle (when one is long unpublished or goes through long periods of tortured sterility) that a writer really suffers. A lot of crap has been written about suffering, and the value of it, and in about two seconds I’ll shut up, but every now and then, even in the midst of my most dried-up, sterile depressions, I have a crazy confused
moment of joy in the knowledge that anything good I ever did seemed at one time or another impossible of attaining, that it was a hard struggle in getting it out, that it seemed at times to be crushed under the weight of my doubts about it, but if it happened to be good at all it was because of the doubts, and perhaps a little suffering. End of quotation.

Well, now that I’ve deluded myself a little more, I’m free to tell you that no doubt Rose and I will be coming back to the U.S. sometime early this December. At first when I got over here I hated Europe with a passion, but now I’ve gotten to like it right well, and I can’t say that I’m actually panting to get with the New York psychiatric set again. Funny thing, over here you
never
hear the words “psychotic,” “trauma,” “frustration,” and this time I think I’m going to get as fed up as you with that city. But as much as I like Italy, I can’t be an expatriate forever (I will have been over nearly two years) so I’ll have to come back to the States and since most everyone I know is in N.Y. I’ll probably settle down there, at least for a few months. Will you be up around there in the winter? If so, we with our healthy, manly, robust attitude toward life could probably together take some of the curse off all the horrible cocktail Freudian chit chat. I’ve not changed much, except I’m thinner and have three new suits. I’ve started in on another novelette, based on that naval prison I was at in N.Y., but don’t know how far I’ll go on it before coming back to the U.S. If it’s anything like my present mood toward literature (real
boredom
, sometimes) it’ll no doubt go down the drain, like everything else.

Give my best to Gwen and your folks, and let me hear from you. Hope you have luck with the novel and sell more copies than Jim Jones. So far as I know, I’ll be here until around December 1
^st
, so this will be my address.

All the best.

Bill      

T
O
N
ORMAN
M
AILER

August 25, 1953 Ravello, Italy

Dear Norman:

From time to time this summer I’ve thought of sending you picturesque postcards from this place, with select views of our “gorgeous panorama” (it is gorgeous, in spite of the advertising) but someone (Vance?) wrote that you had taken off so I held off until I got your address. It’s good to hear that you’re in Mexico, and I hope that by now you’re finding it more “congenial,” and I
certainly
hope that you’re not degenerating—which you said you might do. Did you ever read Lowry’s
Under the Volcano
, by the way? (There’s a nice study of soul-sickness against a tropical background.) I say that it’s good to hear that you’re in Mexico only because if you’re like me a change of scene—especially a change from the New York scene—is mighty therapeutic. Now that I’ve made this big tour of Europe I feel that I’ll hardly even be able to stay rooted in one spot—especially an American spot—for any great length of time. That’s the way I feel now anyway; and already I’m pretty much dreading having to go back to New York, which we plan to do early in December.

Yet I think there’s something sick, too, in being what they call an “exile”—if not sick, then unnatural—and I say this because I think that anyone at all sensitively attuned to his surroundings (the “ah-tist”) just can’t jump feet first into an entirely new culture without suffering all sorts of traumas. Suffering, indeed, so much—from a sense of alienation and isolation and strangeness—that his opposite—that is a suave, bearded gent who becomes more French than the French, more Italian than the Italians—becomes, for me at least, an immediate object of suspicion, in his greasy and painless adaptability. Perhaps I’m just jealous of these other birds—for, after all, I find it hard to get along with strangers, “the people,” even in the dear old U.S.A.—but I can’t help but think that some sort of personal—not moral—integrity is lost when one immerses one’s self so totally and swiftly into an alien way of life. I no doubt sound like one of those British Colonials you mentioned, and I don’t mean to at all. Perhaps I only realize that in some subliminal way I’m really an “exile” at heart, and so I’m self-consciously withdrawn and [unknown] of from life over here only as a means of self-preservation. At any rate, it’s something of a problem with me, and along these lines I certainly know what you mean
by contrasts of wealth and poverty. I suspect that this part of Italy is not so poor as most of Mexico, but it’s plenty poor nevertheless. We live in a fantastic sort of duplex apartment which is part of a made-over 11
^th
century palace. Past our windows all day long go these terrible emaciated women—already in their twenties looking old and dried out—laboring ferociously under great piles of brush which they use to bed down the cattle. What we pay in rent for two months, which at $200 is pitifully cheap for what our accommodations are, is about what these girls are worth as work-horses for an entire year. What can you do? Give them your money? Write a novel titled “The Brush Bearers” (becomes a tremendous bestseller in the States, M-G-M contract etc, etc.)? No, frankly, in spite of the relative lack of certain tensions here in this palace, there are particular sprung-up European pretensions which I’ve acquired that will make me welcome in a way the new tensions of N.Y.C.

My book came out in France recently and the other day someone sent me a review from “L’Observateur,” a line of which might interest you: “Ce qu’il nous montre vaut tout un mal américain: celui de la ‘frustration’: le mot qui revient aussi souvent chez Styron que chez Norman Mailer, Paul Bowles et quantité d’autres.”
^§c
What interests me most about this is not so much the frustration angle but that our frustration should be considered in the same league with old Paul-baby’s. But the French have a queer way of equating all things American; they have a terrible hate on now for Americans, partly justified I should certainly think, but really about
8
⁄
10
is pure deathly insecurity. They find it intolerable that along with our Coca-Colas and moneymaking movies and Chevrolets we should also be winning Nobel Prizes. Considering the chaos there as of this moment, it’s hard not to dislike the French as much as they do us; but obviously something much deeper + tragic is at work, and maybe in another 50 years, if we’re here, we’ll judge them and ourselves in an entirely different light.

It was interesting to get an inside view of the Jones story. I remember meeting him that night (we went out with you and Clift to a bar) at Vance’s and he did strike me as someone worth knowing better, but unfortunately
my impressions of that night remain febrile and somewhat clouded by alcohol.
^§d
I’m glad you like him so well, because (and I don’t mean this facetiously) his, quote, mercurial career so far impresses me as one which, unless it keeps roaring forever mercurially forward, will be mighty unfortunate, and he’ll need a pile of cushioning well-wishers and friends. I don’t mean this meanly at all, because there was enough in his book which excited me and which I so honestly admired that I would like to see him repeat over and over again and do better.

As for my literary struggles, I’ve finally cracked—just barely cracked—the beginnings of a novella or short novel or something, and I’m at least far enough out of the darkness so that I’m regaining my appetite. I have begun to love my predilection for psychosomatic colds, and am no longer dangerously suicidal. For some reason until just recently I had no idea of the despair of a life of creation; maybe it means I’m a real live artist. Anyway, it’s true for me that writing and writing is the only way to ward off the mental—what they call in Virginia—hootenanies, and a million fears. It’s a negative way of doing things, but maybe a lot of so-called art is simply the positive product of interior and negative horrors. Meantime, I hope that novel is roaring on golden wings. Remember Flaubert—“talent is a long patience”—if you and I and the rest could get a hammer-lock on patience I think we’d be a lot better off.
^§e
Anyway, best to you and Adele.
^§f
Will you be in N.Y. this winter? Write me here; we’ll be here until around December 1
^st
.

As ever,

Bill

T
O
G
EORGE
P
LIMPTON

September 18, 1953 Ravello, Italy

Dear George:

Last night I did something which I only do once or twice in a generation: I stayed up all night with a bottle of Schenley’s and watched the dawn. That sort of thing is a perverse, masochistic business and at around 9 A.M. I was entertaining the idea of writing two or three novels before I went to bed, but oblivion closed in an hour later, and I just woke up. It is now almost sunset. This is mainly by way of saying that if this letter doesn’t have a Chesterfieldian elegance + grace you will at least have been apprised of the reason.

My main reason for writing this letter is one-fold, I have been forced down certain channels of contemplation by a recent communiqué from John (“The Second Happiest Day”) Phillips, to use current journalese. Primarily, I was interested in his remarks about a Hemingway issue of
PR
; and I think at this point and without further ado I can shoulder my burden as advisory editor of the snappiest little mag on the Rive Gauche and say that I think it’s a great idea. Peter and THG apparently (according to Marquand) are not so enthusiastic about the proposition; as for me I think that if you really have enough interesting, fresh material in the offing (it
must
be interesting, fresh, original, and there must be quite a bit of it) then it might be one of the literary
coups
of all time. As Marquand said, print the word Hemingway in neon all over each page and both covers. Anything goes. I must admit that such an issue would slightly compromise my Ringing Assertion in the first preface about printing new talent; but this thing, if it’s at all as good as Marquand makes out, sounds too good to be missed and will put PR in the same league with
transition
,
Broom
,
Time
,
Fortune
, and other top-notchers. Anyway, you have my full support if that means anything, and I hope you’ll get snapping soon and also let me know how things develop.

Rose and I are having a lovely time down here with our Gorgeous Panorama, rosé wine, flies and other items. We extend to you a cordial invitation to join us anytime this autumn; as you may have heard from Peter, Ravello really is delicious and it would be a great pleasure to have you here if you can manage a short vacation (you can fly from Paris to Naples). Meanwhile I’m writing a long novelette which, when it’s finished, should
have some of the pace of
Death in Venice
and a little of
The Red Badge of Courage
surface savvy. Thanks, incidentally, for the nice remarks in the U.S. Lives PR. It renews my faith in American literature. Also, thank Mr. Mathieu, if you see him, for sending me the issue. Let me hear from you when you get the chance.

Best—

Bill

P.S. The No. 3 PR is easily the best yet. Like movies, it seems to be getting better and better.

T
O
J
OHN
P. M
ARQUAND
, J
R
.

November 11, 1953 Ravello, Italy

Dear old Jack baby:

I am long overdue answering your last letter from Paris, which was enjoyed and appreciated by Rose and me, but I hope you will realize that the torpor is due to that
acedia
, that sin of sloth which was the bane and affliction of the medieval monks, and which has from time to time seized all great artists, especially Baudelaire (this is some bullshit I picked up from a recent issue of the
Partisan Review
, which Rose’s mother providentially airmailed to me, and which has allowed my great prose efforts to come to a screeching halt). Anyway, a recent letter from the Matthiessens has informed me that you’ve taken up residence on their end of the island, which confuses me about your present address and your present activities. I hope you haven’t altogether deserted the City, because Rose and I are coming there soon and hope to see your bright-eyed, puffy, dissolute face again.

We are arriving on the
Independence
on Dec. 22d and there has been some loose talk among ourselves and the Matthiessens about an extravagant dinner that night at Pavillon or Voisin or some other crazy place. I hope of all things that you’ve been apprised of this scheme, because you’re expected to be on hand. Anyway, you can bet your boots that, although anticipating seeing all those friendly faces again, I am beginning to get distinct nervous twitches about coming back, and in fact am still unable
to dig up any reasons as to
why
I’m coming back, unless it’s to re-establish my roots or some such crap like that that writers are supposed to do. The Italians have gone temporarily insane and are marching about in mobs smashing Austins and other English cars during this Trieste crisis; but I still love Italy, our wonderful house here still costs only $60 a month, fall + winter, and most of the time I am utterly unable to figure out a reason for returning, unless it’s to get psychoanalyzed. As to your question, where are we going to live in New York, since mainly Rose has never spent any time in New York, except for brief visits, and it’s something that everyone should do for at least one winter and it will be fun for me to show her around all the smoky joints and more fun for her. Meanwhile, we are holding on to this place, and no doubt we’ll beat a rapid retreat here next summer, + expect you for a prolonged visit.