Thursday, March 11, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
_______________________________________________________________________
The Case Against Henry James, pt I – Virginia Woolf
(Note: In a previous edition of The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective), some of Vladimir Nabokov’s cutting remarks towards Henry James were presented. During the course of my literary detecting I have found that several writers share Nabokov’s less-than-flattering views of James, and from time to time some of these observations will be shared with you. It should be noted that the opinions expressed below should not be seen to reflect those of Jonathanames.com)
On October 22, 1915, Virginia Woolf wrote to Lytton Strachey:
“I should think I had read 600 books since we met. Please tell me what merit you find in Henry James. I have disabused Leonard of him; but we have his works here, and I read them, and can’t find anything but faintly tinged rose water, urbane and sleek, but vulgar, and as pale as Walter Lamb. Is there really any sense in it? I admit I can’t be bothered to snuff out his meaning when it’s very obscure.” (Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann eds. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Volume Two 1912-1922. New York and London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 67)
And in a letter written eight years earlier, Woolf wrote to a friend with this insulting portrait of “The Master”:
“Well then, we went and had tea with Henry James today[...]and Henry James fixed me with his staring blank eye-it is like a childs marble-and said “My dear Virginia, they tell me- they tell me - they tell me-that you- as indeed being your fathers daughter nay your grandfathers grandchild – the descendant I may say of a century - of a century – of quill pens and ink - ink - ink - pots, yes, yes, yes, they tell me – ahm m m-that you, that you, that you write in short.” This went on in the public street, while we all waited, as farmers wait for the hen to lay the egg - do they?- nervous, polite, and now on this foot now on that. I felt like a condemned person, who sees the knife drop and stick and drop again. Never did any woman hate ‘writing’ as much as I do. But when I am old and famous I shall discourse like Henry James. We had to stop periodically to let him shake himself free of the thing; he made phrases over the bread and butter ‘rude and rapid’ it was, and told us all the scandal of Rye. “Mr Jones has eloped, I regret to say, to Tasmania; leaving 12 little Jones, and a possible 13th to Mrs Jones; most regrettable, most unfortunate, and yet wholly an action to which one has no private key of ones own so to speak.” (Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann eds. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Volume One 1888-1912. New York and London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 306)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
_______________________________________________________________________
The Case Against Henry James, pt I – Virginia Woolf
(Note: In a previous edition of The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective), some of Vladimir Nabokov’s cutting remarks towards Henry James were presented. During the course of my literary detecting I have found that several writers share Nabokov’s less-than-flattering views of James, and from time to time some of these observations will be shared with you. It should be noted that the opinions expressed below should not be seen to reflect those of Jonathanames.com)
On October 22, 1915, Virginia Woolf wrote to Lytton Strachey:
“I should think I had read 600 books since we met. Please tell me what merit you find in Henry James. I have disabused Leonard of him; but we have his works here, and I read them, and can’t find anything but faintly tinged rose water, urbane and sleek, but vulgar, and as pale as Walter Lamb. Is there really any sense in it? I admit I can’t be bothered to snuff out his meaning when it’s very obscure.” (Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann eds. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Volume Two 1912-1922. New York and London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 67)
And in a letter written eight years earlier, Woolf wrote to a friend with this insulting portrait of “The Master”:
“Well then, we went and had tea with Henry James today[...]and Henry James fixed me with his staring blank eye-it is like a childs marble-and said “My dear Virginia, they tell me- they tell me - they tell me-that you- as indeed being your fathers daughter nay your grandfathers grandchild – the descendant I may say of a century - of a century – of quill pens and ink - ink - ink - pots, yes, yes, yes, they tell me – ahm m m-that you, that you, that you write in short.” This went on in the public street, while we all waited, as farmers wait for the hen to lay the egg - do they?- nervous, polite, and now on this foot now on that. I felt like a condemned person, who sees the knife drop and stick and drop again. Never did any woman hate ‘writing’ as much as I do. But when I am old and famous I shall discourse like Henry James. We had to stop periodically to let him shake himself free of the thing; he made phrases over the bread and butter ‘rude and rapid’ it was, and told us all the scandal of Rye. “Mr Jones has eloped, I regret to say, to Tasmania; leaving 12 little Jones, and a possible 13th to Mrs Jones; most regrettable, most unfortunate, and yet wholly an action to which one has no private key of ones own so to speak.” (Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann eds. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Volume One 1888-1912. New York and London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 306)
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
The Eyes of Edith Wharton
Comment: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
I was wondering if you’d considered [Henry] James' friendship with Edith Wharton at all in your investigations? It's been awhile since I read much about it, but I remember the dynamic of their friendship (at once tight and fraught, and at some points hurtful to both) would play interestingly against the backdrop of, um, Henry James' testicles. They were, I know, at least once competing for the attention of the same man, who ended up being Wharton's lover for many years. And they were often competitive professionally. And I thought Wharton had based one of her ghost stories (maybe "The Eyes"?) on Henry James (when she was mad at him), which has a pretty ripe but impotent homoerotic subtext. - CAAF
Response: I responded to CAAF that I knew that James and Wharton were friends, but not much more than that. I asked if she was sure that ‘The Eyes’ was the story with the character based on James, and she replied with this tantalizing evidence:
“here is a description from one of the first pages, of a character name Culwin who I remember as having been based on James:
'Among his contemporaries there lingered a vague tradition of his having, at a remote period, and in a romantic clime, been wounded in a duel ...'
And later one of the young men in the coterie that surrounds Culwin exclaims that he for one believes the duel happened. The nature of the injury sustained remains mysterious.”
When I read ‘The Eyes’ what seemed to me the biggest tip-off that Culwin and James are one and the same, was this description of Culwin:
“But he had been, then and always, essentially a spectator, a humorous detached observer of the immense muddled variety of life, slipping out of his seat now and then for a brief dip into convivialities at the back of the house, but never, as far as one knew, showing the least desire to jump on stage and do a “turn.””(Wharton, Edith. ‘The Eyes’. Rtp. in Collected Stories: 1891-1910. USA, The Library of America: 2001. p. 810)
Most of the story is devoted to Culwin’s account of how he comes to have episodes where he sees horrible, spooky, disembodied eyes staring at him. Each visit is preceded by Culwin agreeing to take on a responsibility he doesn’t really want, in order to make someone happy. The eyes cease their glaring when he finally severs these ties.
One of the more amusing aspects of the story is its depiction of Gilbert Noyes, a no-talent dreamer who wants to make it as a writer. Culwin says of Gilbert:
“His stupidity was a natural grace – it was as beautiful, really, as his eyelashes. And he was so gay, so affectionate, and so happy with me, that telling him the truth would have been about as pleasant as slitting the throat of some gentle animal. At first I used to wonder what had put into that radiant head the detestable delusion that it held a brain. […] The stuff he turned out was deplorable, and I see now that I saw that from the first.” (Ibid., 821)
Later, as Culwin continues to hee and haw over whether he should be honest with Gilbert about his terrible writing, Culwin says:
“But my intuition was like one of those lightning flashes that encircle the whole horizon, and in the same instant I saw what I might be letting myself in for if I didn’t tell him the truth. I said to myself: ‘I shall have him for life’ – and I’d never yet seen any one, man or woman, whom I was quite sure of wanting on those terms.” (Ibid., 823)
While CAAF couldn’t put her finger on the name of the mutual love interest, some minor legwork revealed this sought after gentlemen to be Morton Fullerton. In Edith Wharton and the Unsatisfactory Man, David Holbrook writes:
“Yet Fullerton obviously lacked the stamina for a committed relationship and was also, it would seem, bisexual: he could only sustain his love for a woman for about three years, and he maintained several relationships at once. After a while Edith Wharton obviously radically revised her picture of him. Her deepest friendships actually were with bachelor men like Henry James and Walter Berry, and it could even be argued that some of these men seemed to be homosexual. So, we have to ask ourselves, what kind of a woman has an inclination to form relationships with men who are unable or unlikely to commit themselves to her as man to woman – as evidently, she would like to have had them do? (Holbrook, David. Edith Wharton and the Unsatisfactory Man. London, Vision Press. New York, St. Martin’s Press: 1991. p.8-9)
Have you thought about what kind of a woman would do such a thing? Here’s Holbrook’s answer:
“The answer, I believe, is a woman who has a strong attachment to her father, and who has had traumatic experiences in her introduction to sexual relationships. A woman, we may perhaps add, who has such fantasies of an incestuous relationship with her father that it haunts her all her life, or who was actually abused by her father. She is haunted by a sense that there is something inherently menacing – even filled with horror – in sexual intercourse, and that the sexual experience of passion will inevitably burn itself out” (Ibid., p.9)
Perhaps I’m being a douchebag, but I don’t buy what Holbrook is saying. I’m no Wharton expert, but it seems to me that Holbrook is simplifying things, and not giving Wharton enough credit. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I’m doing to Holbrook by not bothering to read any more of his book than the above two paragraphs. What do you think?
If you want to learn more about Fullerton, I recommend Marion Mainwarring’s Mysteries of Paris: The Quest for Morton Fullerton. I give this endorsement with the caveat that I have only read the introduction; however, the little I’ve read makes me sure that Mainwarring is a real Literary Detective, with a good story to tell.
______________________________________________________________________
The Eyes of Edith Wharton
Comment: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
I was wondering if you’d considered [Henry] James' friendship with Edith Wharton at all in your investigations? It's been awhile since I read much about it, but I remember the dynamic of their friendship (at once tight and fraught, and at some points hurtful to both) would play interestingly against the backdrop of, um, Henry James' testicles. They were, I know, at least once competing for the attention of the same man, who ended up being Wharton's lover for many years. And they were often competitive professionally. And I thought Wharton had based one of her ghost stories (maybe "The Eyes"?) on Henry James (when she was mad at him), which has a pretty ripe but impotent homoerotic subtext. - CAAF
Response: I responded to CAAF that I knew that James and Wharton were friends, but not much more than that. I asked if she was sure that ‘The Eyes’ was the story with the character based on James, and she replied with this tantalizing evidence:
“here is a description from one of the first pages, of a character name Culwin who I remember as having been based on James:
'Among his contemporaries there lingered a vague tradition of his having, at a remote period, and in a romantic clime, been wounded in a duel ...'
And later one of the young men in the coterie that surrounds Culwin exclaims that he for one believes the duel happened. The nature of the injury sustained remains mysterious.”
When I read ‘The Eyes’ what seemed to me the biggest tip-off that Culwin and James are one and the same, was this description of Culwin:
“But he had been, then and always, essentially a spectator, a humorous detached observer of the immense muddled variety of life, slipping out of his seat now and then for a brief dip into convivialities at the back of the house, but never, as far as one knew, showing the least desire to jump on stage and do a “turn.””(Wharton, Edith. ‘The Eyes’. Rtp. in Collected Stories: 1891-1910. USA, The Library of America: 2001. p. 810)
Most of the story is devoted to Culwin’s account of how he comes to have episodes where he sees horrible, spooky, disembodied eyes staring at him. Each visit is preceded by Culwin agreeing to take on a responsibility he doesn’t really want, in order to make someone happy. The eyes cease their glaring when he finally severs these ties.
One of the more amusing aspects of the story is its depiction of Gilbert Noyes, a no-talent dreamer who wants to make it as a writer. Culwin says of Gilbert:
“His stupidity was a natural grace – it was as beautiful, really, as his eyelashes. And he was so gay, so affectionate, and so happy with me, that telling him the truth would have been about as pleasant as slitting the throat of some gentle animal. At first I used to wonder what had put into that radiant head the detestable delusion that it held a brain. […] The stuff he turned out was deplorable, and I see now that I saw that from the first.” (Ibid., 821)
Later, as Culwin continues to hee and haw over whether he should be honest with Gilbert about his terrible writing, Culwin says:
“But my intuition was like one of those lightning flashes that encircle the whole horizon, and in the same instant I saw what I might be letting myself in for if I didn’t tell him the truth. I said to myself: ‘I shall have him for life’ – and I’d never yet seen any one, man or woman, whom I was quite sure of wanting on those terms.” (Ibid., 823)
While CAAF couldn’t put her finger on the name of the mutual love interest, some minor legwork revealed this sought after gentlemen to be Morton Fullerton. In Edith Wharton and the Unsatisfactory Man, David Holbrook writes:
“Yet Fullerton obviously lacked the stamina for a committed relationship and was also, it would seem, bisexual: he could only sustain his love for a woman for about three years, and he maintained several relationships at once. After a while Edith Wharton obviously radically revised her picture of him. Her deepest friendships actually were with bachelor men like Henry James and Walter Berry, and it could even be argued that some of these men seemed to be homosexual. So, we have to ask ourselves, what kind of a woman has an inclination to form relationships with men who are unable or unlikely to commit themselves to her as man to woman – as evidently, she would like to have had them do? (Holbrook, David. Edith Wharton and the Unsatisfactory Man. London, Vision Press. New York, St. Martin’s Press: 1991. p.8-9)
Have you thought about what kind of a woman would do such a thing? Here’s Holbrook’s answer:
“The answer, I believe, is a woman who has a strong attachment to her father, and who has had traumatic experiences in her introduction to sexual relationships. A woman, we may perhaps add, who has such fantasies of an incestuous relationship with her father that it haunts her all her life, or who was actually abused by her father. She is haunted by a sense that there is something inherently menacing – even filled with horror – in sexual intercourse, and that the sexual experience of passion will inevitably burn itself out” (Ibid., p.9)
Perhaps I’m being a douchebag, but I don’t buy what Holbrook is saying. I’m no Wharton expert, but it seems to me that Holbrook is simplifying things, and not giving Wharton enough credit. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I’m doing to Holbrook by not bothering to read any more of his book than the above two paragraphs. What do you think?
If you want to learn more about Fullerton, I recommend Marion Mainwarring’s Mysteries of Paris: The Quest for Morton Fullerton. I give this endorsement with the caveat that I have only read the introduction; however, the little I’ve read makes me sure that Mainwarring is a real Literary Detective, with a good story to tell.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
The Enematic Romantic
(Warning: This edition of The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) contains extreme descriptions of horrible constipation & enemas.)
Question: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
I looked at your literary dick thing, it was interesting. I think Coleridge used to ask visitors to his home to give him enemas because the opium made him constipated. That's all I've got. What about the ladies though? It's all these boys who predictably
went to bed together. - Susan J.
Answer: I’m not sure why, but when I read Susan J.’s email, the vision that was conjured in my mind was of a rather happy affair – Coleridge, high on opium, inviting friends over for tea and to help him with an enema. I’m not sure if this is the picture Susan J. was meaning to depict, but in any event, now that I have concluded my investigation, I am fairly confident that if Coleridge ever did invite a friend over for the purpose of administering an enema, it was not the jolly scene I had envisioned.
In the below, excerpted from Coleridge’s Notebooks, and quoted in Molly Lefebure’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge – A Bondage in Opium, the Christabel author describes a disgusting experience on a boat when he is constipated and has an enema, which forces “the obstruction” in the wrong direction. The situation resolves itself when Coleridge manually removes the “hardened matter”; all of this reduces a nearby seamen to tears:
"Tuesday Night, a dreadful Labor, & fruitless Throes, of costiveness – individuated faeces, and constricted Orifices. Went to bed & dozed & started in great distress – Wednesday Morning, May 9th – a day of Horror – tried the sitting position over hot water in vain / after two long frightful, fruitless struggles, the face convulsed, & sweat streaming from me like Rain, the Captn. Proposed to send for the Commadore’s Surgeon . . . but by Calm & one thing or other it was late evening before he could speak to him. The Surgeon instantly came, went back for Pipe & Syringe & returned & with extreme difficulty & the exertion of his utmost strength injected the latter. Good God! What a sensation when the obstruction suddenly shot up! – I remained still three-quarters of an hour with hot water in a bottle to my belly (for I was desired to retain it as long as I could) with pain & Sore uneasiness, & indescribable desires – a length went / O what a time! equal in pain to any before / Anguish took away all disgust, & I picked out the hardened matter & after awile was completely relieved. The poor mate who stood by me all this while had the tears running down his face. – A Warning!’ “ (Lefebure, Molly. Samuel Taylor Coleridge – A Bondage of Opium. New York, Stein and Day Publishers: 1974. p. 419)
Coleridge writes further of his agony:
“the dull quasi finger-pressure on the Liver, the endless Flatulence, the frightful constipation when the dead Filth impales the lower gut – to weep & sweat & moan for the paturience of an excrement” (Ibid., 420)
It is clear then, that this was all somewhat unpleasant for Coleridge. But how was he effected emotionally? In Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Richard Holmes examines the implications of constipation and enemas on Coleridge’s psyche:
“The humiliation of this experience never left Coleridge. He knew it was caused by opium, and he referred to it frequently in his Notebooks, and even in his later letters. From now on he dreaded the enema, as the secret sign and punishment for his addiction. (Holmes, Richard. Coleridge: Darker Reflections. New York, Pantheon Books: 1998. p. 14)
Holmes again suggests that Coleridge associated his illness and its treatment with a feeling of shame:
“Coleridge submitted to twelve enemas, “my dread of antipathy increased every time”, each administered by [Captain] Derkheim in conditions of pain and humiliation. The sense of violation and punishment horrified him, as he later admitted to Southey. “Tho’ the Captain was the strongest man on board – it used to take all the force of his arms, & bring the blood up in his face before he could finish. Once I brought off more than a pint of blood - & three times he clearly saved my Life.” (Ibid., 61-62)
So, it is the opinion of the Literary Dick that Coleridge probably did not invite his friends over to give him enemas, and if he did, it was probably not the party scene I first imagined when I read Susan J.’s email.
Note: In her email, Susan J. expressed her desire for The Literary Dick(as in Private Detective) to address issues related to female writers, and so I am happy to inform Susan J. that tomorrow I will be addressing an Edith Wharton question.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
The Enematic Romantic
(Warning: This edition of The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) contains extreme descriptions of horrible constipation & enemas.)
Question: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
I looked at your literary dick thing, it was interesting. I think Coleridge used to ask visitors to his home to give him enemas because the opium made him constipated. That's all I've got. What about the ladies though? It's all these boys who predictably
went to bed together. - Susan J.
Answer: I’m not sure why, but when I read Susan J.’s email, the vision that was conjured in my mind was of a rather happy affair – Coleridge, high on opium, inviting friends over for tea and to help him with an enema. I’m not sure if this is the picture Susan J. was meaning to depict, but in any event, now that I have concluded my investigation, I am fairly confident that if Coleridge ever did invite a friend over for the purpose of administering an enema, it was not the jolly scene I had envisioned.
In the below, excerpted from Coleridge’s Notebooks, and quoted in Molly Lefebure’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge – A Bondage in Opium, the Christabel author describes a disgusting experience on a boat when he is constipated and has an enema, which forces “the obstruction” in the wrong direction. The situation resolves itself when Coleridge manually removes the “hardened matter”; all of this reduces a nearby seamen to tears:
"Tuesday Night, a dreadful Labor, & fruitless Throes, of costiveness – individuated faeces, and constricted Orifices. Went to bed & dozed & started in great distress – Wednesday Morning, May 9th – a day of Horror – tried the sitting position over hot water in vain / after two long frightful, fruitless struggles, the face convulsed, & sweat streaming from me like Rain, the Captn. Proposed to send for the Commadore’s Surgeon . . . but by Calm & one thing or other it was late evening before he could speak to him. The Surgeon instantly came, went back for Pipe & Syringe & returned & with extreme difficulty & the exertion of his utmost strength injected the latter. Good God! What a sensation when the obstruction suddenly shot up! – I remained still three-quarters of an hour with hot water in a bottle to my belly (for I was desired to retain it as long as I could) with pain & Sore uneasiness, & indescribable desires – a length went / O what a time! equal in pain to any before / Anguish took away all disgust, & I picked out the hardened matter & after awile was completely relieved. The poor mate who stood by me all this while had the tears running down his face. – A Warning!’ “ (Lefebure, Molly. Samuel Taylor Coleridge – A Bondage of Opium. New York, Stein and Day Publishers: 1974. p. 419)
Coleridge writes further of his agony:
“the dull quasi finger-pressure on the Liver, the endless Flatulence, the frightful constipation when the dead Filth impales the lower gut – to weep & sweat & moan for the paturience of an excrement” (Ibid., 420)
It is clear then, that this was all somewhat unpleasant for Coleridge. But how was he effected emotionally? In Coleridge: Darker Reflections, Richard Holmes examines the implications of constipation and enemas on Coleridge’s psyche:
“The humiliation of this experience never left Coleridge. He knew it was caused by opium, and he referred to it frequently in his Notebooks, and even in his later letters. From now on he dreaded the enema, as the secret sign and punishment for his addiction. (Holmes, Richard. Coleridge: Darker Reflections. New York, Pantheon Books: 1998. p. 14)
Holmes again suggests that Coleridge associated his illness and its treatment with a feeling of shame:
“Coleridge submitted to twelve enemas, “my dread of antipathy increased every time”, each administered by [Captain] Derkheim in conditions of pain and humiliation. The sense of violation and punishment horrified him, as he later admitted to Southey. “Tho’ the Captain was the strongest man on board – it used to take all the force of his arms, & bring the blood up in his face before he could finish. Once I brought off more than a pint of blood - & three times he clearly saved my Life.” (Ibid., 61-62)
So, it is the opinion of the Literary Dick that Coleridge probably did not invite his friends over to give him enemas, and if he did, it was probably not the party scene I first imagined when I read Susan J.’s email.
Note: In her email, Susan J. expressed her desire for The Literary Dick(as in Private Detective) to address issues related to female writers, and so I am happy to inform Susan J. that tomorrow I will be addressing an Edith Wharton question.
Monday, March 08, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
Before we get to The Case of Herman Melville’s Sexuality, I’d like to share this email I just received:
Dear Literary Dick (as in private detective),
Someone told me that Mary McCarthy once slept with a man whose member was the exact shape and size of a sharpened lead pencil. This seems physiologically impossible to me, and I have never heard of any evidence one way or the other. Any thoughts on this? In the course of my "research," I did find out that the words "penis" and "pencil" come from the same Latin word. Wild, huh?
Sincerely,
Heather G.
______________________________________________________________________
The Case of Herman Melville’s Sexuality
Question: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
What can you tell me about Melville's sex life? Seems like he liked guys a little too much for his own comfort? – Jordan D.
Answer: According to Laurie Robertson-Lorant’s 1996 biography, Herman Melville was bisexual. Robertson-Lorant writes:
“In successive drafts of this biography, I have struggled to craft a language for talking about Melville’s sexuality without force-fitting him into the Procrustean bed of theory. Gay critics claim Melville as a gay writer, but I feel it is restrictive to reduce Melville’s writings to coy sexual disclosures, or his life to an elaborate lie. Individuals for whom intellect and sensuality form one strong erotic current may form passionate attachments to persons of both sexes that are not necessarily sexual. Although his writings reflect a deep longing for emotional intimacy with other men, Melville does not seem to have been actively homosexual, according to twentieth-century definitions of the term. He lived a very different life from Walt Whitman, Charles Warren Stoddard, or Oscar Wilde. Whereas Whitman openly proclaimed his preference for men and lived with a male lover, refusing to marry despite proposals from women admirers, Melville lived a heterosexual life, as far as we know. After escaping the forced homosexuality of the forecastle and the multiple seductions of the rover’s life in the South Seas, he married and fathered four children." (Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. Melville: A Biography. New York, Clarkson/ Potter/ Publishers: 1996. p.618)
Elsewhere, Robertson-Lorant distinguishes Melville’s handling of sexuality in his art with Whitman’s:
“Whereas his contemporary Walt Whitman would celebrate the phallus openly in his poetry, Melville expressed himself covertly through puns, jokes, and allegories. He embraced transgressive fiction to reclaim sexuality for serious literature, and when his own ambivalence, combined with heavy cultural and familial repressions, doomed his quest to failure, he went underground.” (Ibid., 111)
Robertson-Lorant continues:
“As a sailor, and as a sojourner in the South Seas, Melville undoubtedly experienced sexual behavior unmentionable in Victorian drawing rooms and genteel novels. When his preconceptions and prejudices about sexuality were challenged by these experiences, he explored new definitions of masculinity in his books, and channeled his anxiety into bursts of bawdy and burlesque. In Moby-Dick, the language itself conflated seafaring sex, so puns on semen and seaman, sperm and spermaceti, came naturally to wordsmith Melville[…] In “A Squeeze of the Hand,” Melville daringly transforms a description of whalers “squeezing case” into a vision of men working not in competition with one another, but in cooperative homosocial bliss that completely defies the official sexual ideology:
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this vocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say . . . Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay let us squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
By abbreviating the word spermaceti to sperm, Melville conflates the waxy substance taken from the head of the sperm whale with the image of men dreamily squeezing one another’s hands, which clearly signify their sex organs. […] Melville’s ribald description of sailors squeezing sperm not only subverts the pronouncements of preachers and ministers, it also deconstructs bourgeois ideas of masculinity and dissolves gender boundaries, as Ishmael and his shipmates squeeze sperm until it turns into the milk of human kindness.” (Ibid., 285-286)
So, it is the opinion of The Literary Dick that Herman Melville was bisexual.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
Before we get to The Case of Herman Melville’s Sexuality, I’d like to share this email I just received:
Dear Literary Dick (as in private detective),
Someone told me that Mary McCarthy once slept with a man whose member was the exact shape and size of a sharpened lead pencil. This seems physiologically impossible to me, and I have never heard of any evidence one way or the other. Any thoughts on this? In the course of my "research," I did find out that the words "penis" and "pencil" come from the same Latin word. Wild, huh?
Sincerely,
Heather G.
______________________________________________________________________
The Case of Herman Melville’s Sexuality
Question: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
What can you tell me about Melville's sex life? Seems like he liked guys a little too much for his own comfort? – Jordan D.
Answer: According to Laurie Robertson-Lorant’s 1996 biography, Herman Melville was bisexual. Robertson-Lorant writes:
“In successive drafts of this biography, I have struggled to craft a language for talking about Melville’s sexuality without force-fitting him into the Procrustean bed of theory. Gay critics claim Melville as a gay writer, but I feel it is restrictive to reduce Melville’s writings to coy sexual disclosures, or his life to an elaborate lie. Individuals for whom intellect and sensuality form one strong erotic current may form passionate attachments to persons of both sexes that are not necessarily sexual. Although his writings reflect a deep longing for emotional intimacy with other men, Melville does not seem to have been actively homosexual, according to twentieth-century definitions of the term. He lived a very different life from Walt Whitman, Charles Warren Stoddard, or Oscar Wilde. Whereas Whitman openly proclaimed his preference for men and lived with a male lover, refusing to marry despite proposals from women admirers, Melville lived a heterosexual life, as far as we know. After escaping the forced homosexuality of the forecastle and the multiple seductions of the rover’s life in the South Seas, he married and fathered four children." (Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. Melville: A Biography. New York, Clarkson/ Potter/ Publishers: 1996. p.618)
Elsewhere, Robertson-Lorant distinguishes Melville’s handling of sexuality in his art with Whitman’s:
“Whereas his contemporary Walt Whitman would celebrate the phallus openly in his poetry, Melville expressed himself covertly through puns, jokes, and allegories. He embraced transgressive fiction to reclaim sexuality for serious literature, and when his own ambivalence, combined with heavy cultural and familial repressions, doomed his quest to failure, he went underground.” (Ibid., 111)
Robertson-Lorant continues:
“As a sailor, and as a sojourner in the South Seas, Melville undoubtedly experienced sexual behavior unmentionable in Victorian drawing rooms and genteel novels. When his preconceptions and prejudices about sexuality were challenged by these experiences, he explored new definitions of masculinity in his books, and channeled his anxiety into bursts of bawdy and burlesque. In Moby-Dick, the language itself conflated seafaring sex, so puns on semen and seaman, sperm and spermaceti, came naturally to wordsmith Melville[…] In “A Squeeze of the Hand,” Melville daringly transforms a description of whalers “squeezing case” into a vision of men working not in competition with one another, but in cooperative homosocial bliss that completely defies the official sexual ideology:
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this vocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say . . . Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay let us squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
By abbreviating the word spermaceti to sperm, Melville conflates the waxy substance taken from the head of the sperm whale with the image of men dreamily squeezing one another’s hands, which clearly signify their sex organs. […] Melville’s ribald description of sailors squeezing sperm not only subverts the pronouncements of preachers and ministers, it also deconstructs bourgeois ideas of masculinity and dissolves gender boundaries, as Ishmael and his shipmates squeeze sperm until it turns into the milk of human kindness.” (Ibid., 285-286)
So, it is the opinion of The Literary Dick that Herman Melville was bisexual.
Sunday, March 07, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
In the last edition of The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective), I answered the first part of Bryan’s question; in this edition I will answer the second part. But first, I’d like to share a couple of emails I’ve received recently:
Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
I looked at your literary dick thing, it was
interesting. I think Coleridge used to ask visitors to
his home to give him enemas because the opium made him
constipated. That's all I've got. What about the
ladies though? It's all these boys who predictably
went to bed together. -- Susan J.
Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
You will recall from "This side of Paradise" that the main character has this very close friendship or mentorship with a priest -- Monsignor Darcy I believe is his name in the book. This fictional account was very largely based on Fitzgerald's real-life friendship/mentorship (lasting I think from high school through college) with a Catholic priest -- whose name I don't recall offhand. There's no evidence that this was a romantic liaison, but people have suggested that it was a somewhat ambiguous situation. I suppose it must be classified as an insinuation, but it's all in good fun. I think the most telling aspect of it is that both Fitzgerald and the Monsignor burned their correspondence later in life. It is also ineresting to note that is the name of the protagonist in "Tender is the Night": Dr. Richard Diver, who goes by Dick Diver -- a name which can be viewed as a more decorous way to say "c**k s**ker."
I'd like to emphasize that I'm just passing along theories and conjectures that you'll find in the many and various biographies and articles written about Fitzgerald, so bear that in mind.
-Anonymous
______________________________________________________________________
Deviant Satyriasis & The Feathered Man, pt II – 10’s Men
Questions: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
Jerzy Kosinski and his obsession with transexuals, cavorting with them at fabled Plato's Retreat in Seventies. Any word on it? Or how 'bout T. Williams' NY sex obsession down by the docks? Would love to read your thoughts.
bryan
Answer: While I was able to find convincing proof that Williams had sex with sailors in New York, I was unable to verify the supposition that he ever had sex by the docks (with sailors or anyone else). I will discuss the implications of this distinction in a moment, but first I will reveal the evidence suggesting that Williams had sex with sailors.
On September 15, 1941, Williams wrote to Paul Bigelow.
“The town is over run with soldiers, a few sailors. I presume I shall get my share of the trade around here, there is a back entrance to my room & it is right on the Circle.” (The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams: Volume 1 – 1920-1945. Ed. by Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M Tischler. A New Directions Book, 2000. p. 337)
The above, you will notice, makes no specific notice to a sexual encounter, just to Williams’ anticipation of one/many. Even if Williams had mentioned a particular episode, it wouldn’t directly help our search, as the letter was written from New Orleans. But the letter is important, I think, because it gives a sense of Williams’ candor and sexually adventurous nature. How candid and sexually adventurous was Williams? Here’s another letter:
“Well, Friday nights we have great orgies with fifty cents admission to raise the rent-money. Of course I got kuite drunk and due to frustration over the blond I carried on in a way that shocked everyone including myself. Four of us girls retired to an upstairs bedroom from which only occasional news-bulletins were issued to the party below till it ended.” (Ibid., p.324)
But Williams was not only open in his letters to friends. In his 1972 Memoirs, Williams writes explicitly about sex with sailors:
“(In those days I used to cruise Times Square with another young writer who would prefer to remain unmentioned by name in this context, and he would dispatch me to street corners where sailors or GIs were grouped, to make very abrupt and candid overtures, phrased so bluntly that it’s a wonder they didn’t slaughter me on the spot. I would go up to them and say, [Deleted by author] – sometimes they would respond, ‘Sure, where’s the girls?’ – and I would have to explain that they were my cruising partner and myself. Then for some reason, the would stare at me for a moment in astonishment, burst into laughter, huddle for a brief conference, and, often as not, would accept the solicitation, going to my partner’s Village pad or my room at the “Y”)
Surely this adequately covers, to say the least, the deviant satyriasis with which I was happily afflicted in those early Manhattan years of my life. Sexuality is an emanation, as much as in the human being as the animal. Animals have seasons for it. But for me it was a round-the-calender thing.”
(Williams, Tennessee. Memoirs. Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company: 1972, 1975. p. 52-53)
Williams writes of a rather disturbing encounter with some sailors that he and a friend met on Tin Pan Alley. (Note: the first ‘boy’ Williams describes is his soon-to-be cruising partner, not a sailor.)
“I had no sooner seen one of these boys, with his great dreamy eyes and willow figure, than I thought, Baby this one’s for you.
We all started dancing to a band that was playing directly below their room and I no sooner had gim in my arms for the ostensible motive of dancing than I began to kiss him and paste my pelvis to his. […] We were soon cruising together, mostly about Times Square. One night we were approached by two sailors outside the Cross-roads Inn after midnight. It so happened that my friend had booked a room at the Claridge Hotel because the painter with whom he stayed had an overnight guest.
Well! It was a night to remember but not for romantic reasons. I was somewhat suspicious and not very intrigued when the sailors insisted that we enter separately, my friend and I going straight up to the room and the sailors following later.
I was far from enchanted by the brutal sex-bit. When it was completed, the sailors abruptly ripped the telephone cord from the wall. Then they stood me against the wall while they beat my friend, knocking out a few teeth. Then they stood him against the wall with a switch-blade knife while they beat me up.
My upper teeth cut through my lower lip.
The violence, the terror, deprived me of my senses. My friend got me back to the “Y,” but I was in a state of fantasy, totally out of my skull.
At the “Y,” a sympathetic young doctor stitched my lip.
Thus ended for quite awhile out Times Square cruising together.”
(Ibid., 97-98)
The preponderance of evidence then clearly shows that Williams had sex with sailors in New York. As stated earlier, I know of nothing to suggest that Williams had (much less harbored an obsession for) sex by the docks. If Williams enjoyed dock-sex (and the exhibitionism that goes along with it), he is clearly a different kind of person than if he just liked sailors a lot. But given Williams’ sybaritic nature it would be foolish to dismiss that possibility (that he liked dock-sex) out of hand, simply because of a lack of evidence. If you have information that you think would clear up this matter it would be excellent if you sent it in.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com
______________________________________________________________________
In the last edition of The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective), I answered the first part of Bryan’s question; in this edition I will answer the second part. But first, I’d like to share a couple of emails I’ve received recently:
Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
I looked at your literary dick thing, it was
interesting. I think Coleridge used to ask visitors to
his home to give him enemas because the opium made him
constipated. That's all I've got. What about the
ladies though? It's all these boys who predictably
went to bed together. -- Susan J.
Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
You will recall from "This side of Paradise" that the main character has this very close friendship or mentorship with a priest -- Monsignor Darcy I believe is his name in the book. This fictional account was very largely based on Fitzgerald's real-life friendship/mentorship (lasting I think from high school through college) with a Catholic priest -- whose name I don't recall offhand. There's no evidence that this was a romantic liaison, but people have suggested that it was a somewhat ambiguous situation. I suppose it must be classified as an insinuation, but it's all in good fun. I think the most telling aspect of it is that both Fitzgerald and the Monsignor burned their correspondence later in life. It is also ineresting to note that is the name of the protagonist in "Tender is the Night": Dr. Richard Diver, who goes by Dick Diver -- a name which can be viewed as a more decorous way to say "c**k s**ker."
I'd like to emphasize that I'm just passing along theories and conjectures that you'll find in the many and various biographies and articles written about Fitzgerald, so bear that in mind.
-Anonymous
______________________________________________________________________
Deviant Satyriasis & The Feathered Man, pt II – 10’s Men
Questions: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
Jerzy Kosinski and his obsession with transexuals, cavorting with them at fabled Plato's Retreat in Seventies. Any word on it? Or how 'bout T. Williams' NY sex obsession down by the docks? Would love to read your thoughts.
bryan
Answer: While I was able to find convincing proof that Williams had sex with sailors in New York, I was unable to verify the supposition that he ever had sex by the docks (with sailors or anyone else). I will discuss the implications of this distinction in a moment, but first I will reveal the evidence suggesting that Williams had sex with sailors.
On September 15, 1941, Williams wrote to Paul Bigelow.
“The town is over run with soldiers, a few sailors. I presume I shall get my share of the trade around here, there is a back entrance to my room & it is right on the Circle.” (The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams: Volume 1 – 1920-1945. Ed. by Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M Tischler. A New Directions Book, 2000. p. 337)
The above, you will notice, makes no specific notice to a sexual encounter, just to Williams’ anticipation of one/many. Even if Williams had mentioned a particular episode, it wouldn’t directly help our search, as the letter was written from New Orleans. But the letter is important, I think, because it gives a sense of Williams’ candor and sexually adventurous nature. How candid and sexually adventurous was Williams? Here’s another letter:
“Well, Friday nights we have great orgies with fifty cents admission to raise the rent-money. Of course I got kuite drunk and due to frustration over the blond I carried on in a way that shocked everyone including myself. Four of us girls retired to an upstairs bedroom from which only occasional news-bulletins were issued to the party below till it ended.” (Ibid., p.324)
But Williams was not only open in his letters to friends. In his 1972 Memoirs, Williams writes explicitly about sex with sailors:
“(In those days I used to cruise Times Square with another young writer who would prefer to remain unmentioned by name in this context, and he would dispatch me to street corners where sailors or GIs were grouped, to make very abrupt and candid overtures, phrased so bluntly that it’s a wonder they didn’t slaughter me on the spot. I would go up to them and say, [Deleted by author] – sometimes they would respond, ‘Sure, where’s the girls?’ – and I would have to explain that they were my cruising partner and myself. Then for some reason, the would stare at me for a moment in astonishment, burst into laughter, huddle for a brief conference, and, often as not, would accept the solicitation, going to my partner’s Village pad or my room at the “Y”)
Surely this adequately covers, to say the least, the deviant satyriasis with which I was happily afflicted in those early Manhattan years of my life. Sexuality is an emanation, as much as in the human being as the animal. Animals have seasons for it. But for me it was a round-the-calender thing.”
(Williams, Tennessee. Memoirs. Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company: 1972, 1975. p. 52-53)
Williams writes of a rather disturbing encounter with some sailors that he and a friend met on Tin Pan Alley. (Note: the first ‘boy’ Williams describes is his soon-to-be cruising partner, not a sailor.)
“I had no sooner seen one of these boys, with his great dreamy eyes and willow figure, than I thought, Baby this one’s for you.
We all started dancing to a band that was playing directly below their room and I no sooner had gim in my arms for the ostensible motive of dancing than I began to kiss him and paste my pelvis to his. […] We were soon cruising together, mostly about Times Square. One night we were approached by two sailors outside the Cross-roads Inn after midnight. It so happened that my friend had booked a room at the Claridge Hotel because the painter with whom he stayed had an overnight guest.
Well! It was a night to remember but not for romantic reasons. I was somewhat suspicious and not very intrigued when the sailors insisted that we enter separately, my friend and I going straight up to the room and the sailors following later.
I was far from enchanted by the brutal sex-bit. When it was completed, the sailors abruptly ripped the telephone cord from the wall. Then they stood me against the wall while they beat my friend, knocking out a few teeth. Then they stood him against the wall with a switch-blade knife while they beat me up.
My upper teeth cut through my lower lip.
The violence, the terror, deprived me of my senses. My friend got me back to the “Y,” but I was in a state of fantasy, totally out of my skull.
At the “Y,” a sympathetic young doctor stitched my lip.
Thus ended for quite awhile out Times Square cruising together.”
(Ibid., 97-98)
The preponderance of evidence then clearly shows that Williams had sex with sailors in New York. As stated earlier, I know of nothing to suggest that Williams had (much less harbored an obsession for) sex by the docks. If Williams enjoyed dock-sex (and the exhibitionism that goes along with it), he is clearly a different kind of person than if he just liked sailors a lot. But given Williams’ sybaritic nature it would be foolish to dismiss that possibility (that he liked dock-sex) out of hand, simply because of a lack of evidence. If you have information that you think would clear up this matter it would be excellent if you sent it in.
