March 3rd, 2008
Daphne: Writers writing about writers
A couple of weeks ago, during a wine-fuelled gathering for ANTM, a group of friends got to talking about Wide Sargasso Sea, and how it works as a prequel to Jane Eyre. Jumping sideways a little, we moved on to Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and there were mixed views on Sally Beauman’s 2001 sequel Rebecca’s Tale. If sequels and prequels can vary in quality, so too can books starring real-life literary characters. So I’m not sure what to make of the publication of Justine Picardie’s new book Daphne, a novel based on the writer’s life. From what I’ve read of the structure and outline, it sounds not unlike The Hours by Michael Cunningham.
Transposing a real life person into a novel can be done well though. Julian Barnes did it successfully with Arthur and George, Colum Toibin’s excellent take on Henry James in The Master and Pat Barker’s breath-taking Regeneration trilogy which features war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. One I haven’t enjoyed? Beryl Bainbridge’s According to Queenie (about Dr. Samuel Johnson) was tedious.
Picardie says that she took a specific event in Du Maurier’s life - her husband’s mental breakdown from excessive drinking and the strain of hiding an affair from her - as the starting point for her book. In an extensive article in the Telegraph, Picardie quotes a letter of Du Maurier’s to a friend, where she blames herself for his unhappiness, citing her own infidelities, “my muddled troubles, and writing, and a fear of facing reality.”
In response, Picardie says:
“But what was the reality that du Maurier feared facing? This is a question I have attempted to address in my novel - and the choice of fiction to explore the mysteries of her past is in part an acknowledgment that one can never know the entire truth of another’s life.”
If you can “never know the entire truth of another’s life”, perhaps attempting to fictionalise it is fair game for writers? I’m not sure though. How would those long-dead writers feel about becoming a character in a book? Martin Amis was able to take a swipe at himself when a moaning, arrogant author of the same name appeared as a character in his novel Money, but he instigated this. It was his own idea and control lies with him, even if the character isn’t a likeable one. Who’ll be incorporated into the novels of future?
That said, I’ll certainly read Picardie’s book - extract here - even if the UK Independent’s mixed take on it is indicative of the wider critical response. It’s also no surprise to hear that the book has been optioned by the same producer of The Hours, Notes on a Scandal and Iris.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Colm MCCANN?????
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Tóibín! Tóibín! I can’t still be fuzzy and hungover from the Awards, surely?
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Yes you are - you’ve given Wilfred Owen a sex change!
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Now that was one thing I DID change and put the old version back up when I changed Toibin. Ah it’s all falling asunder around here…
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Re authors as characters. Much as loved Colum Toibin’s book, I felt really sorry for David Lodge who, around the same time, wrote a very worthy account of James’s life. Toibin’s book was the one everyone talked about and Lodge’s efforts were overlooked. Pity that. I really liked it.
Wasn’t there a book where Dorothy Parker was a character?
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Aine, I didn’t read Lodge’s book but I remember reading a piece he wrote for The Guardian about when it dawned on him that Toibin and himself were writing a book about the same author. Will try and find it online. I think there was a third novel about Henry James out around the same time, but can’t remember who wrote it.
I only remember the film Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (with Jennifer Jason Leigh), but I think that was more of a mini biopic rather than someone using her life as a place to tell a fictional story.
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Aine, here you go:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1779180,00.html
March 4th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis does the whole Martin Amis thing to the nth by having the character called Bret Easton Ellis as a meglomaniacal writer. On a completely different note, The Hours, which features Virgina Woolf and Speciman Days, which features Walt Whitman as a character, both by Michael Cunningham, are two of my favourite books ever.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Claire, how could I forget Lunar Park? I loved that book and I didn’t really enjoy Ellis’s other stuff. Wonder why he chose BEE the character to be heterosexual and married. Come to think of it, his excesses in the book are a lot like John Self’s in Money.
I actually have a copy of Specimen Days and have never read it. Must get on it.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Just a quick agreement re Beryl Bainbridge’s According to Queenie- its a book that caused me much pain through sheer boredom until ( i think it may have been you yourself) pointed out that i didn’t actually have to finish it. Thank you!