Writing the Appassionata

I'm about to start a five-day writing intensive on Monday with Andrew Todhunter. Andrew wants about twenty pages of writing, which pushed me to visit the American Library yesterday. It's a public library, not a university library, and I was disappointed, actually, at how little I found there. Clearly, if I am going to do any in-depth research, I need to get to the American University. This library is in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, so I journeyed to yet another part of Paris—the Seventh Arrondissement, an area of broad boulevards and grand buildings on the C Line of the RER, the double-decker train we took to Versailles. I had to pay 9 Euros for a one-day membership to the library before I could even look at the card catalog—expensive and only good for the day, so I stayed the whole afternoon, doing what I could.

I was on the hunt for historical maps of Paris and similar documentation. Among other things, I went through two art books on Gericault and discovered a recently-written novel about him and the painting of The Raft of Medusa—by an award-winning British writer. There's also a film script that's floating around and a new non-fiction work. Lots of interest. So, that helped. Now I know I'm not going rewrite my novel to be about Gericault—it's just been done. The good news is that seemed to resolve my writer's block, simplifying my decision-making process enough that I could write fiction today—for the first time since arriving in Paris. (Yeah!)

It started last night, actually. I got the idea to go over my Table of Contents, which means I actually listened to my own advice. I told students this summer, in the historical fiction class I taught, that if they can't write on the text, work on the Outline/Table of Contents/Chapter-by-Chapter Synopsis—my way of exploring, tracking and embellishing the plot-line of the novel, essentially a map of the book, and every bit as important as the map I carry of Paris everywhere I go. (And use all the time.)

My goal was simple: to add notes for things I know need changing based on my experiences in Paris—things like the staircases and the architecture of the building where Tori lives, or adding the fortuneteller as a character. Here are my notes on "The Prelude," the opening of The Appassionata. I color code my Table of Contents—the blue is what's written; the green is new since my arrival in Paris; the red is pre-Paris thoughts that still need to be addressed. The pictures support the changes. For example, the staircase besides Chopin's tomb—I like the specificity of its existence as a detail that anchors the scene in a real place. And the view from my apartment window, looking down through the elm tree, is what Tori might see.

The Prelude: Père-Lachaise
The dead are named. The cemetery described, ghosts appear. St. Genevieve walks with her lantern. (What about Saint Denis?) Genevieve finds a dying Tori wandering among the ghosts and stone monuments of Père-Lachaise. She takes Tori down the marble staircase beside Chopin’s tomb.Chopin's ghost is playing the Raindrop Prelude. Tori listens and swoons, ready to welcome death. Chopin speaks to her of death and takes her to the street where she lives—describe the street. Tori hears music—her own, a Beethoven Sonatina she learned as a child. This is the movement to Chapter One. The setting isn’t strong enough—describe Père-Lachaise, perhaps other tombs? Gericourt’s? Add Gericault and his son to the named dead. (They are both buried at Père-Lachaise. Gericault died in 1824.) Madame Lenormand is also buried there.The critique is that it doesn’t give readers enough sense of story, only atmosphere.

In Chapter One, Tori is at the piano.

Chapter One:Sonatina in G
Four-year-old Tori is sitting at the piano. Her mother is giving her a lesson. She's learning Beethoven’s Sonatina in G practicing grace notes, learning what they are. Her mother is a good teacher, dedicated and imaginative. Aristide comes in annoyed that Louise is still teaching. It’s time to go. Tori is intimidated by Aristide, but Louise is not. Once her parents head out the door, Tori rushes up the circular staircase to her nursery where she in the big carriage that has come to fetch them.n Tori is fascinated with the horses. Changed Pegasus to the French, Pégase. Need to fix window description and street/courtyard below, including the elm tree. Bette, the maid, finds Tori at the window, gets her ready for bed, and tells her a story. Is there anyway to bring more of the opening ‘voice’ into this, to have it more like Jane Eyre, where one feels the narrator reflecting from the distance of adulthood?

In Chapter Two, we see Louise and Aristide Farrenc, Tori's parents, at the opening of Victor Hugo's play, Hernani, which was performed at the Comédie Francaise—a theatre I haven't yet visited. I have incorporated my experience from the ballet, though, and what it was like to occupy a 19th century box seat there.

So. Once I worked on the Table of Contents, I felt clear about what I needed to do to make changes to my existing text. The Prelude was (and remains) the most difficult. I'm not sure, yet, that I've got what I actually want. I did introduce Gericault's ghost into The Prelude, coupling him with Delacroix. I also added the staircase which gave real-life detail to the scene. I still need more of that kind of detail. One of the things I learned from my research is the posture and character that Delacroix posed for in The Raft of the Medusa. I also learned that Delacroix did indeed have many of Gericault's paintings and drawings in his studio after Geriacualt's death. He studied them in depth. I'm going to tie the horses together. Gericault's expertise was horses. Delacroix is going to discuss horses with Liszt which is going to tie the death of the carriage horse that Tori thinks of as Pégase to Liszt, so it is a shared experience. Unless you've read the chapter about the July Revolution of 1830, this probably doesn't make sense. Suffice to say that horses are a quirky theme/thread running through the story.

I added the fortuneteller to scene in the theater and described the theater box in specific detail. That was fun and changed the way things worked. The same is true about getting the staircase right, that it's circular, not squared-off like a British staircase. Almost every staircase I've seen in Paris is circular. It changes the architecture of the building. Also, either they had a courtyard (and lived on the "ground" floor) or lived in an apartment that opened onto the street and did not live on the ground floor, but rather the first floor up. This has to do with wealth.

I've given them a courtyard, using this courtyard from the home of painter, Gustave Coubert, who is not in my book, but was a contemporary of my characters. This building is very near to where Liszt lived. It's behind a heavy wooden door that looks like it should enter into the interior of a building, but instead opens into this courtyard. Gericault's home on Rue des Martyrs is similar. I really like the way the staircase rises to the center on either side of the truck. When Tori looks down, she sees this courtyard with the addition of a big elm tree.

Once I started working, I got excited. This is what I had in mind coming here, that I would see and incorporate the visual specifics of Paris. That's only a part of what needs shifting, but it's a big piece, because without it, I have a kind of generic, more British backdrop. So. I'm writing. It's late on Friday and I've spent most of the day working, a very different kind of day.

It helps me to have done this for another reason too. Now I better understand what I'm looking for as I take my walks and go about my life, and understand the power of my photos too. So. In spite of the fact, I have no Parisian adventure to relay, I did have a very fruitful day.