Writers As Monsters:
Vanneman's Non-Satirical Look at Fellow Practitioners of the Craft

Review of Alan Vanneman's Author! Author! (2014)

Here is another volume, following the unpublished fanfiction trilogy of Nero Wolfe novelettes, showing Alan Vanneman's penchant for depicting real-life or fictional celebrities in a not-so-flattering light. In the 21st century Nero Wolfe novelette, the targets were luminaries of US (mostly) conservative political scene; in two earlier novel-length Sherlock Holmes pastiches, Dr. Watson assumed a debauched personality; and in Author! Author!, Vanneman's victims are three superstar writers of the 20th century. But while the 3 leading stars here are W. H. Auden, Joyce Carol Oates and especially John Updike, the volume – specifically, the two opening short stories – is very much also suffused with the spirit of two equally famous 19th century writers: Lewis Carroll and Herman Melville. These two only escape Vanneman's unflattering treatment by a hair's breadth, you might say. Jonathan Swift lurks in the background, ominously, while Henry James is a safe haven. In sum total, it's an exquisite company to spend time with.

The first Auden story is funny and tender at the same time; the second Oates story made me laugh out loud in its finale; and particularly the first part of the triptych, depicting the famous writer wrestling with bathroom issues, is glorious comedy, culminating in the insight:

<< The grossest shit in history had been the cleanest as well. >>

Naturally, in today's celebrity culture, having a star defecate in one's bathroom might realistically be considered a privilege by some.

By all appearances, the triptych takes place in 1982 – the mental climate back then was, of course, no different from today:

<< There was a great deal of money around, and some taste, but as for wit, as for beauty, there was nothing. >>

References to The New Yorker magazine and mechanisms of the literary establishment are scathing throughout. The posh environment is vividly depicted; the writer, in awe, moves from one palatial abode to another, only to find the previous one lacking and contemptuously dismissed by those who are even more opulent:

<< He didn’t mind the opportunity to absorb, in solitude, this lower upper-level baronial setting. For the Momsons, he felt, though completely successful, still had a budget of some sort. >>

The perceived "hierarchy" even applies to the writer's two risque teenage love interests in the triptych.

If anyone were to label these Vanneman stories "satire", I would object. Satire, as I see it, is intended to ridicule something. I do not perceive this to be Vanneman's intention. Rather, his goal appears to be the uncovering of the ugly, "monstrous" side of each and every writer's persona – not only the writers featured in this volume. The ugliness and wretchedness may be visible to the naked eye, as in the first Auden story:

<< To be rich, or at least comfortable, was not beyond Wystan’s capabilities, but it was beyond his desire. There was a comfort in his wretchedness. He was free, after all, from the necessity of keeping up appearances, of pretending that he wished to be presentable, which he did not. It was pleasant to see people wince at the sight of him; it was worth even wearing glasses, which unfortunately obscured his hideous, rheumy eyes. >>

Or, the ugliness may be carefully hidden behind a polished "mask" (literally so in the second story).

The triptych nicely sums up the writer's predicament:

<< Why the fuck had he married into one of his own novels? >>

... and excellently captures some of the painful paradoxes of an intellectual's life that a superficial observer might deem to be incompatible contradictions:

<< Too wicked, really, for [him], a spoiled adulterer, who wanted both his sin and his self-respect! How vulgar, how deserving the contempt of smug virtue and wanton corruption alike! >>

<< How powerless he was before the cliché, the little metal man on his little metal track, jostling between home and hotel and back, his little metal feet welded to a rude magnetic mass that defined him and his alternating pursuit of “freedom” and “sanctuary”. How pathetic was “vice” and equally so “virtue”! Squirrel in a cage! Squirrel in a cage with an aching ass! >>

<< By the second page, poor Strether was enjoying “such a consciousness of personal freedom as he had not known for years”! Well, poor Strether was well ahead of poor Updike, as hampered and hemmed by success as Strether was enabled by failure! >>

The unfortunate thing about the volume, to me, was that it started out strongly, but then seemed to peter out towards the end.

While I did not mind the graphic and detailed depiction of a prolonged sexcapade towards the end of the volume, neither did I see its justification; if it was meant to convey the eponymous "apotheosis" of the leading protagonist, I'm afraid it may not have achieved the goal. The sex scenes conveyed a sense of "playing to the gallery", given the huge general popularity of teen porn, regardless of intended audience; their inclusion may have been sincere on the writer's part, but some readers might see it as calculation.

The book ends on a flat note – which is less propitious than if it started out flat, but finished strongly.


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[review originally written in December 2013]

Also see: Alan Vanneman profile webpage

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