by Bebek McGhee
At a public appearance February 26, 2005, novelist and "Cider House
Rules" Oscar-winning screenwriter John Irving read from his new novel "The
Fourth Hand" about an unlucky maritime tatoo artist. He also brought the
audience up to date on what he has been doing for the last four years:
showing Amsterdam hookers how to arrange the shoes in their closet in order
to better serve their customers! It's an amusing side-line to research he
has been conducting for "The Fourth Hand." Seriously.
The movie-star handsome writer, who has written 10 best-selling novels
and won both the National Book Award and the Academy Award, is living the
kind of exaulted life one can only dream of. He certainly seemed pleased
with himself here in California as he helped us welcome in the Chinese New
Year of the Rooster crowing about all the fun he had in Amsterdam hanging
around with Dutch narcotics' policemen and prostitutes doing "research" for
his current novel. It's lonely at the top, I hear, and who can blame Mr.
Irving for wanting to cut loose from slaving away eight hours a day seven
days a week in Vermont, Toronto and Los Angeles for large amounts of
dollars? Can't a guy have a little fun too?
Sharing writing tips with the reverential audience, after reading for
forty-five minutes from "The Fourth Hand," John Irving revealed the deep
secret behind his blinding literary success - write the ending first! He
always starts a novel AND a screenplay by writing THE LAST LINE FIRST. The
whole story will then "take aim at that sentence." Before he can write a
word, he must know every detail, plot twist and turn. He obsessively and
carefully maps out the entire tale and gets to know every character. "I know
these characters better than any real people in my life," Irving confessed
gloomily.
Before he began writing "The Fourth Hand," Irving spent a year
searching for purveyors of the dying ancient art of tatooing sailors. He
traveled to Nova Scotia, Hamburg and Oslo, ( and don't forget Amsterdam!)
harbor cities since ancient times. Irving wanted to capture the "tone and
flavor" of the story before he began his missive. Irving then launched into
the storytelling "concentrating totally on the language, because the road
map is already in place. All I care about from then on is 'How good is this
sentence?'" One by one, the sentences lead Irving to the the last sentence
in the book, which he composed before he began the book. In the case of his
new book, "she was waiting for me in the form of a woman," the unfortunate
unwed mother and maritime tatoo artist.
This was all very interesting to me because I always wondered why I
could never finish my second or third John Irving books "A Prayer for Owen
Meany" or "Hotel New Hampshire." I wanted to read them because "The World
According to Garp" was one of the greatest novels I have ever read in the
English language. His Academy Award for "Cider House Rules" I felt was
well-deserved. "Cider House Rules" is storytelling at it's finest. But both
the other books felt so claustrophobic, lifeless and contrived that I could
never warm up to the frigid characters. That's why I never rushed to buy any
of Irving's other novels.
Like a New England winter, John Irving, too, comes across as cold.
Cold, condescending and on the verge of an almost William Goldman-like
invective against the Hollywood Golden Goose that has kept him. Really guys,
you actually think you are going to get sympathy from people like me for all
the money and glory you've earned because you've had to deal with "assholes"
in Hollywood? I guess everybody likes to complain. Now that I think about
it, I never hear Clint Eastwood complaining.
The main reason I had paid $50 to hear John Irving and support the arts
in my rural community was to question him about his screenwriting career.
It's incredible to get a chance to query a man who has won both the Academy
Award and the National Book Award. I asked him "What is the difference in
preparing yourself to write a novel or a screenplay and could you describe
your process?"
"Figuring out a way to lose five-eighths of the story," Irving responded
acerbicly. The tone of his answer revealed a contempt for Hollywood and his
perception of the screenplay as a degraded literary art form. It seemed like
writing novels represents real art to Irving and that his gigs in Hollywood
( read: his guilt at making lots of money writing screenplays because he
can) are something he is a wee bit embarrassed about. Think of Tom Cruise
doing car commercials in Japan, or imagine Hillary Clinton endorsing hair
care products for women.
"With my first screenplay, I was very irritated at having to put aside
my novel to work on a movie screenplay. I felt that it was a big disruption
of the solitude I need to write my novels. I also had the misfortune to work
with some REAL ASSHOLES in Hollywood. Now that I've found the right people
to work with, it's a completely different experience. I look forward to
being around other people and all the colaboration that's involved in the
filmmaking. And I find that when I return to writing the novel, it has been
improved by a new perspective."
Yet it seemed from his tone of voice that the hundreds of thousands of
dollars the reluctant screenwriter is paid upset Irving's high opinion of
his own literary integrity. I had the impression that screenwriting was
something he'd rather not discuss. Screenwriting seemed to be his sordid
little secret, as if he was moonlighting in Toronto and Los Angeles from his
public job as a Vermont novelist. He acted like I was asking him a question
about his personal finances or a secret mistress. In other words:
Screenwriting = Filthy Lucre. Or a guilty pleasure.
Irving seemed much more comfortable with the audience's questions about
his novels. Maybe Irving is a Puritan and feels guilty about all the money
he makes and all the fun he has with Lasse Holstrum when they film movies
together, like "Cider House Rules" with Charleze Theron. He did not specify
on his creative process with the director by name, but stated, without
elaborating, "it's nice to do something with a committee for a change!"
Irving suddenly brightened up, and it was the only time I saw him smile all
evening (he takes his literary eminence verrrry seriously.) " I know the
people I want to work with in Hollywood now," he almost bubbled. "I
appreciate what it does for my novels. I know who I want to work with!" he
repeated excitedly.
The difference between screenplay and novel writing is, according to
Irving, "Screenplays are truncated. It's not a very happy process," he
sighed. "There's more practicality involved. In the process you have to lose
5/8th of your novel. It's much easier for me to write an original
screenplay. I can bang those out in two months. That versus the four to six
years it takes me to write a novel. Even if noone made movies of my
screenplays I would still write them."( My own thoughts as Irving said this:
well, duh! ) "I enjoy the collaborative process with the filmmakers and a
chance to step out of the process of writing my novels. It's so solitary.
For five years noone knows where I've gone; it's not like writing by
committee," he lamented bravely. Solitude aside, Irving does have young
assisstants to transcribe his novels, which he writes by hand. His wife is
the only other one who he allows to reads early drafts of his novels.
I wonder how Mrs. Irving feels about the last four years of "research"
the novelist has been conducting in Amsterdam for his new novel "The Fourth
Hand?" Mr. Irving smugly recounted the warm friendships he formed with a
group of prostitutes in Amsterdam while "capturing the esssence of my
character," the son of a female maritime tatoo artist. Irving hosted a
little gathering with a group of hookers in order to interview them. The
prostitutes told him about a problem they have with customers who want to
pay them for letting them watch others "do it." But hiding the voyeurish
customers in the prostitutes' closets with their feet pointed outwards was
difficult. Irving brought his considerable brain power to the hookers'
plight. Eager to help the women, Irving suggested they turn all the shoes in
their closets outwards, to make it easier for the voyeurs to hide. Puffed up
with pride, Irving regealed us with the sensational news that when he
returned to Amsterdam a year later, "My friend, the leader of the group of
protitutes, told me that ALL the hookers in Amsterdam were placing the shoes
in their closts pointing outwards now!" Way to go, John!
On a roll, Irving, a former wrestler, took the opportunity to throw a
fellow legend on the mat. "I'm lucky I read Dickens when I was young. If I
had read Hemingway, I'd be writing ad copy right now." Plunging ahead with
his dis of one of the greatest authors of the English language, Irving
continued, "Hemingway was a journalist, he didn't have a great deal of
imagination. Chalk on a blackboard to me. I don't see the appeal in it," he
sniffed. Irving seemed to sense he might have said something a little out of
line with the audiences' feelings about Poppa Hemingway. "I liked 'The Sun
Also Rises' OK," he damned Mr. Hemingway with faint praise. "But I don't
like the characters; I don't really feel sorry for them. Do you?" Irving
generously including us, the audience, in his elite literary opinion.
Irving then resorted to a different tactic in his quest to win our
affirmation of his sensitive, genius wonderfulness. "The Writer has a sense
of not belonging anywhere. I'm drawn to characters who feel they don't
belong. Most writers feel they don't belong where they live." With exquisite
self-pity, John Irving paused and surveyed the audience, "The only place I
feel at home these days is in an airplane lavatory," he groaned catharticly.
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