Month: February 2015

Author Aliases: The Name Doesn’t Remain the Same

Posted by

301

I’m currently reading a novel by the famous writer Marie-Henri Beyle. Who is that, you might ask? Well, literature lovers know him as Stendhal.

Beyle — author of The Charterhouse of Parma (the 1839 book I’m reading) and The Red and the Black — is one of many writers who have used what are variously described as pen names, aliases, pseudonyms, noms de plume, and “don’t you dare call me Marion Morrison, pilgrim, because I’m John Wayne.”

Authors change their names for all sorts of reasons, ranging from wanting to disguise their identity to desiring a catchier or less-clunky moniker. Beyle is said to have chosen Stendhal because the Frenchman admired archaeologist/art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann from the German city of…Stendal.

Perhaps the most famous authorial pen name is Mark Twain, which Samuel Clemens adopted in 1863 after his pre-Civil War experience as a riverboat pilot. The pseudonym refers to marking water depth — with the depth of two fathoms (“twain” being the archaic word for two) considered safe for ships to pass over.

Another famous alias is O. Henry, which William Sydney Porter took to shrink the odds of his stories being rejected because of his incarceration for embezzlement. One theory for how Porter chose his pen name involved the existence of a prison guard named Orrin Henry, and another theory has O. Henry as a combination of Ohio (where Porter was jailed) and penitentiary.

There was also Voltaire. To come up with that name, Francoise-Marie Arouet might have combined an anagram of the Latin spelling of his last name with the initial letters of the French phrase le jeune (the young). In Arouet’s case, he adopted the Voltaire name after imprisonment.

One of the most famous living authors using an alias is Lee Child, whose real name is Jim Grant. The author of the wildly popular Jack Reacher thrillers chose Child because he wanted his novels on bookstore shelves between the works of Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.

Another living author, Toni Morrison, was born Chloe Wofford — but the change in her first name was more a matter of people having trouble pronouncing “Chloe” than for literary reasons. Her last name became Morrison by marriage.

Various female authors have used pseudonyms to disguise their gender — more often before the 20th century, when women writers were especially frowned upon and/or not taken seriously. So we had the Bronte sisters taking the names of Currer Bell (Charlotte), Ellis Bell (Emily), and Acton Bell (Anne) — though they were of course later published under their real identities. Then there was George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), George Sand (Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin), etc. And Jane Austen’s novels were published anonymously during her lifetime.

Austen’s male contemporary — Sir Walter Scott — also published many of his novels anonymously, with a big reason being that he was first a renowned poet at a time when novels were not considered as respectable as verse.

Other female authors have masked their gender by using initials — witness J.K. (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling, A.S. (Antonia Susan) Byatt, M.L. (Margot) Stedman, P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James, and various others. Initials also have a “cool,” sophisticated vibe, and not just for women. J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, D.H. Lawrence, H.P. Lovecraft, and W.E.B. Du Bois certainly roll smoother off the tongue and please the eye more than John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Clive Staples Lewis, David Herbert Lawrence, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. (While his nonfiction writing is much better known, Du Bois also wrote several novels.)

For her crime novels, Rowling writes as Robert Galbraith. J.K. was outed as Robert against her wishes — illustrating how hard it is to keep an identity secret in today’s 24/7 media and social-media environment. But Rowling, because of her previous Harry Potter superstardom, got a huge spike in Galbraith sales. If Jane Austen were alive today, she probably wouldn’t remain anonymous for long (especially since she would be 239 years old, but that’s another story).

“Anonymous” was also the authorial byline used by columnist Joe Klein for his political novel Primary Colors. It allowed Klein to be more candid about things (his book includes real-life aspects of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign), and the mystery of who wrote the novel increased interest and sales.

Some authors — such as Charles Dickens as Boz — wrote under pseudonyms for a while and then dropped them. In certain cases, writers use pen names to cover the embarrassment of penning trashy novels as they struggle early in their careers, as Honore de Balzac did under aliases such as Horace de Saint-Aubin.

Other authors use both a real name and an alias because they write in more than one genre or are so prolific they don’t want to oversaturate their “brand” by churning out too many books under their birth name. The latter reason was why Stephen King wrote several novels as Richard Bachman.

One reason why some novelists seem so prolific is that they have assistants helping them, with books published under the name of the “head author.” James Patterson is a current example of that phenomenon.

Another guy who had a “factory” approach was Henry Gauthier-Villars (aka “Willy”), the first husband of Colette. Her debut novel Claudine at School was initially published under his name, as were books by other writers.

It’s also well known that some young-adult series containing many books have been penned by various authors even as one name — real or fake — appears on all the covers.

Then there are writers who mostly keep their own name for their authorial identity, but streamline it or jazz it up. Examples include Wole Soyinka (Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka) and Erich Maria Remarque (Erich Paul Remark).

Of course, nonfiction writers also hide their names — with one of the most famous cases being Thomas Paine’s anonymous publishing of the 1776 revolutionary pamphlet “Common Sense.” If the British knew who penned that “treasonous” treatise, Paine’s life would have obviously been in danger.

For fun, I thought I’d also name a few of the many notables who changed names while making their names outside of literature: Elvis Costello (Declan McManus), Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman), Judy Garland (Frances Gumm), Whoopi Goldberg (Caryn Johnson), Cary Grant (Archibald Leach), Elton John (Reginald Dwight), Ben Kingsley (Krishna Pandit Bhanji), Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer), Spike Lee (Shelton Lee), Bruno Mars (Peter Hernandez), “Brenda Starr” cartoonist Dale Messick (Dalia Messick), Julianne Moore (Julie Smith), Katy Perry (Katy Hudson), Pink (Alecia Moore), Sting (Gordon Sumner), The Clash’s Joe Strummer (John Mellor), and Stevie Wonder (Stevland Morris).

Who are some name-changing authors (or non-authors) you’d like to mention? Also, your thoughts on the idea of aliases?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else. Also, please feel free to read through comments and reply to anyone you want; I love not only being in conversations, but also reading conversations in which I’m not involved!)

—

For three years of my Huffington Post literature blog, click here.

I’m also writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in New York City and Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Liars in Literature

Posted by

133

Just as suspended NBC (Not Being Candid) anchor Brian Williams should resign or be fired for lying, I’m resigned to and fired up about seeing liars in literature. They’re annoying, but can make for interesting characters. And their fibbing can drive many a plot.

Why do they lie? What are the consequences for them and others? Can lying sometimes be a good thing? I’d be lying if I said this paragraph didn’t contain three questions. 🙂

Fibbers include not only people representing themselves, but also politicians (“Saddam has WMDs!”), corporations (“our dangerous products are safe!”), law enforcement (“that unarmed black man has a gun!”), the media (Brian Williams again), and so on.

One of the most iconic books featuring falsehood-telling people and institutions is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Indeed, many novels that focus on dystopian societies and dictatorships are all about depicting “The Big Lie” and the citizenry being “sold” a fabricated reality.

Mysteries and detective fiction also rely on lies and misdirection (aka “red herrings”) to create suspense. For instance, the killer “hiding in plain sight” in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is certainly not truthful as victims multiply. A.S. Byatt’s more literary mystery Possession contains 19th-century lies and secretiveness that reverberate into the 20th century.

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, white woman Mayella Ewell lies under oath because she’s scared of her brutal/racist father and can’t publicly admit in 1930s Alabama that she liked black man Tom Robinson. Her false testimony leads to tragedy — with the lie of white superiority creating the climate for what happened.

Lies also send the innocent Edmond Dantes to prison in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo — and having been framed makes Edmond’s subsequent vengeance as visceral as any in literature.

Of course, lying is practically a prerequisite for married people when they have affairs. Among the countless protagonists in that situation are the title characters in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Severine in Emile Zola’s The Beast in Man, Mattie’s husband and father in Anne Lamott’s Blue Shoe, and Dave Raymond in Tom Perrotta’s The Wishbones (Dave is actually engaged, not married, when he cheats in that novel).

Then there are lies told by married characters who want to marry someone else, as is the case with Edward Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Godfrey Cass in George Eliot’s Silas Marner. Also in Eliot’s novel, Godfrey hides the existence of a daughter, and Silas’ treacherous “friend” William lies in a way that devastates Marner for years.

Some married characters lie by omission about their pasts. For instance, in Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady, the husband of Isabel Archer doesn’t tell her about a relationship he had with someone Isabel knows well (or thought she knew well).

In Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Briony’s accidental and deliberate lies devastate the lives of her older sister Cecilia and the man (Robbie) who Cecilia loves.

Yet another kind of family-related falsehood occurs in M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans when island residents Isabel and Tom Sherbourne keep a baby who washes up in a boat rather than report the find to authorities. Their claim that “Lucy” is their biological child inevitably gets publicly outed as the lie that it is.

Among the examples of necessary lies is the surgeon in Erich Maria Remarque’s Arch of Triumph using the fake name of Ravic to shield his identity after escaping Nazi Germany for Paris.

In the area of plays, among the most famous liars are Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello and the title character in Moliere’s Tartuffe.

Which liars in literature have you found the most memorable?

Here’s a concluding thought by no means original to me: It’s interesting that Brian Williams seems to be the only prominent person punished for lying about the Iraq War. Not George W. Bush, not Dick Cheney, not Donald Rumsfeld, etc. — all fiction creators extraordinaire with lots of real-life blood on their hands.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else. Also, please feel free to read through comments and reply to anyone you want; I love not only being in conversations, but also reading conversations in which I’m not involved!)

—

For three years of my Huffington Post literature blog, click here.

I’m also writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in New York City and Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

This Blog Post Is On The House

Posted by

219

Fictional characters are female, male, black, white, poor, rich, nice, not nice, and…four-walled?

Yes, houses can be memorable enough to almost seem like characters. In fact, some literary works even have “house” in their titles: The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende), The House of the Seven Gables (Nathaniel Hawthorne), The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson), The House on the Strand (Daphne du Maurier), House of Sand and Fog (Andre Dubus III), The Professor’s House (Willa Cather), Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder), and “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Edgar Allan Poe), to name just a few.

I thought of the idea for this post while reading a nonfiction book: Cathy Turney’s just-published Laugh Your Way to Real Estate Sales Success. I have absolutely no desire to be a Realtor, but I was interested in the book because Cathy is a friend and because my house got sold last year. Given that I usually read fiction, I couldn’t help thinking of houses in literature as I read about real-life California houses in Cathy’s funny and informative book.

The California dwelling in House of Sand and Fog is a relatively modest one, but the fight over its ownership is major. That disastrous battle is between a former Iranian military man and a former drug addict — the latter finding an ally (and lover) in a married, ethics-challenged sheriff who may find himself in The Big House (jail, not the University of Michigan’s football stadium).

The Haunting of Hill House is understated as horror novels go, but the abode in that novel is quite a spooky place that seems to almost have a mind of its own. As for “The Fall of the House of Usher,” well, I think the title gives you a clue about what happens to that dwelling. But not before some macabre moments.

In Margaret Drabble’s The Witch of Exmoor, the brilliant/eccentric Frieda Haxby Palmer is rather a mystery to her children and grandchildren as she abandons her former life to live in a rambling, rundown former hotel by the sea.

The dwelling in Morag Joss’ Half Broken Things is a fancy mansion being taken care of by a house-sitter. Then things get psychologically weird as Jean has others move in — including a “son” who is not really her son and a pregnant “daughter-in-law.” They create a kind of family until…

Another impressive structure is Thornfield Hall — a house in which Jane Eyre finds mystery, happiness, and heartbreak in Charlotte Bronte’s novel. One of the strongest scenes is near the end of the book when Jane returns to the grounds of Thornfield Hall after many months, slowly moves into position to catch a full view of its impressive facade, and…

The awe-inspiring, seemingly impregnable mountain castle in Where Eagles Dare is being used as a Nazi headquarters in Alistair MacLean’s novel, but the book makes several references to the castle’s history as a private residence for “one of the madder of the Bavarian monarchs.”

On a more positive note, the castle of L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle is an idealized structure of Valancy Stirling’s imagination. But the beleaguered character does eventually find a wonderful home and relationship; the question is whether she’ll live to enjoy both. In Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, the structure of the title is a lovely refuge for Anne Shirley — though the orphan girl’s life certainly holds some challenges after she arrives there.

Literature offers more modest dwellings, too. For instance, Hagrid’s hut is just a small place on the grounds of Hogwarts in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Yet Harry, Hermione, and Ron often visit — and some interesting and important things happen in or near that diminutive dwelling.

There are also huts in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, a lighthouse keeper’s basic cottage on remote Janus Rock (off the southwest coast of Australia) in M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans, and the opium den (operating during New Zealand’s 19th-century Gold Rush) that I think doubles as a minimal residence for its proprietor in Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries.

Many other novels depict impoverished characters living in ramshackle homes — including the shacks and shanties of John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat, the slave dwellings of Alex Haley’s Roots and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the Jim Crow-era housing of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. (Say, will there ever be a second book by Ms. Lee? 🙂 )

One of the more singular homes in literature lies in the middle of a colonial New York lake in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer. Tom Hutter lives there to try to protect himself from the Native Americans he and most other white men have been treating so badly.

What are the houses you remember most in literature? Mentions of apartments and other dwellings are welcome, too.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else. Also, please feel free to read through comments and reply to anyone you want; I love not only being in conversations, but also reading conversations in which I’m not involved!)

—

For three years of my Huffington Post literature blog, click here.

I’m also writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in New York City and Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Living Together Without the Romance

Posted by

163

When one thinks of adults residing in the same household, the first people that come to mind are couples who are married or living together.

But there are other grown-up groupings: parents with adult children at home, parents with their parents in spare rooms, siblings sharing an abode, people taking care of ill relatives, unrelated adults renting an apartment together, servants or nannies residing on the premises, refugees clumped together during a war, and so on. Those kinds of household arrangements in literature are the subject of this blog post.

Why those arrangements? They’re done for reasons such as economics, love, neurosis, or tradition (for instance, in “the olden days” adult women often stayed home until they married). In real life, the situations of adults non-romantically living together can often be mundane; in the heightened world of literature, those arrangements are frequently depicted in more dramatic fashion.

Take Washington Square. In Henry James’ novel, things get rather interesting as rich, unkind Dr. Austin Sloper opposes his at-home daughter Catherine’s relationship with the not-very-solvent Morris Townsend because he suspects the charismatic Morris wants to marry the uncharismatic Catherine for her inheritance. (There’s a reason why the movie version of the book is called The Heiress.) Meanwhile, Dr. Sloper’s also-at-home sister Lavinia Penniman supports the possible marriage in her meddlesome, irritating way because she finds the whole scenario vicariously exciting.

James’ pal Edith Wharton offers another niece-aunt dynamic in The House of Mirth, which features the not-wealthy Lily Bart uneasily living with her wealthy but ungenerous Aunt Julia. When the aunt dies, Lily’s financial problems are seemingly over — until she learns that Julia mostly wrote her out of her will because of an alleged “scandal” for which Lily is not really to blame.

Adult daughters living with widowed fathers are memorably depicted in Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Emma. Anne Elliot is a together person from the start of Persuasion, with an unlikable dad. Emma Woodhouse grows as a person in Emma, with a likable but hypochondriacal dad.

Also in 19th-century Brit lit, George Eliot’s dramatic Daniel Deronda features various non-romantic living arrangements. After Daniel saves her, Mirah Lapidoth lives with the family of Daniel’s friend from school days. Meanwhile, Mirah’s brother Mordecai lives with a different family. Later, after Mirah and Mordecai find each other following years of separation, they share a household as siblings.

The Bronte sisters are part of this discussion, too. The title character in Charlotte’s Jane Eyre becomes the governess to Edward Rochester’s “ward” Adele at Thornfield Hall. (Though that situation eventually turns into a romance.) In Emily’s Wuthering Heights, servant Nelly Dean is the crucial narrator who lives with a number of the novel’s tempestuous and/or sickly adult characters.

Moving to 20th-century fiction, we have siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert sharing a residence when they seek to adopt a boy to help on their farm. Instead, they end up with the delightful Anne Shirley in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has the mysterious Radley family, including mentally challenged adult son Boo, in the same house. Then there’s the impoverished Ewell family dwelling — where the adult Mayella lives with her siblings and drunk, abusive father Bob. Boo and Bob “meet” during the novel’s famous conclusion.

In Elsa Morante’s History, Ida and her lovable son Giuseppe have to live in a shelter with many other adults and kids because of the ravages of war in 1940s Rome.

Cost-conscious college students and young adults sharing the same room or apartment appear in numerous fictional works, including Margaret Atwood’s debut novel The Edible Woman. Protagonist Marian shares a Toronto apartment with Ainsley — and the depiction of their interesting, at-times funny friendship is an early example of Atwood’s novel-writing skill.

What are your favorite literary works featuring adults (other than spouses/romantic partners) living together?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else. Also, please feel free to read through comments and reply to anyone you want; I love not only being in conversations, but also reading conversations in which I’m not involved!)

—

For three years of my Huffington Post literature blog, click here.

I’m also writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in New York City and Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.