A TALK WITH DOS PASSOS REVISITED (1969)
by RONALD PAYNE
(Editor’s Note: The author of the following article interviewed John Dos Passos at his home in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1969. Dos Passos, a close friend of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, was the author of “U.S.A.” and one of the world’s greatest writers.)
A shy and gentle man, perhaps, best known for his
trilogy, “U.S.A.”, Dos Passos talked freely to me about how it felt to be a
member of the famous ‘lost generation.’
It was a cool and sunny afternoon and Dos Passos
looked out over Sandy Point, talking more about past friends rather than his
work.
He said of the man known as ‘Papa,’ “In the beginning,
Ernest Hemingway was great fun. But he was always a very strange man and had to
prove things to himself as well as to others. In his last years he
was psychopathic (diagnosed with ‘manic depression,’ now called ‘bipolar
disorder’) and had a very bad persecution complex.”
In an interview Dos Passos gave ‘The Washington Post,’
he said that “The Sun Also Rises” was not quite as it should have been. “The
truth never seemed quite the way Ernest wrote it,” he said. “Ernest may have
seen things differently than I. I enjoyed his early short stories very much.
‘In Our Time’ was a very good book. But the novel I liked best of his was ‘A
Farewell to Arms.’ That seems a better account of how things were during the
First World War.”
Of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls,’ he said: “Some parts of
it were very good, but the sleeping bag scenes between Maria and Robert Jordan
were really over done—a Hemingway fantasy.”
Dos Passos listened intently and, when he spoke, often
talked in quick enthusiastic spurts, awaiting eagerly the next question. He
lost an eye in a horrific car crash that killed his first wife, Katy–and his
remaining good eye is near sighted. His wire frame glasses and round lenses
give him a ‘wise old owl’ expression when he is listening or reaching for
depths of an important answer, usually with an expensive cigar in his hand or a
glass of fine bourbon. He dressed casually and looked the part of the Virginia
country squire.
Asked about the age differences of Hemingway’s wives,
Dos Passos smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Ernest’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, was
a little older, and she was very pleasant. There was a seven year age
difference. And, his second wife, Pauline–also seven years his senior– was also
very nice. But I wasn’t too fond of Martha Gellhorn, his third wife, whom he
dedicated ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ She was ten years younger, talented and
ambitious. Ernest left Pauline for Martha, which was a serious mistake. Martha
was blonde and beautiful. She came to Key West from St. Louis, just to find
Ernest, who was already famous. Mary Welsh, his widow, is a very interesting
person and has protected his reputation, his manuscripts and his legacy.”
Dos Passos sipped his bourbon. “My feelings on
Gellhorn are that she competed with Ernest in a negative way–as a writer and
journalist–competed with him in covering the 2nd World War. Gellhorn, was of
course, could do nothing to raise Ernest’s stature as a literary figure, but he
certainly helped and boosted her career with his publisher, ‘Charles Scribner.’
Martha Gellhorn was a good reporter and a good novelist, but Hemingway opened
doors for her that she could not possibly have opened for herself, especially
with his editor, ‘Maxwell Perkins,’ who discovered Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas
Wolfe. That cannot be denied. Perkins was the greatest editor in the United
States–and perhaps, the world, at that time. Before his death in 1946, Perkins
had also discovered and nurtured ‘James Jones,’ who went on to complete ‘From
Here to Eternity.’ Martha owed a lot to Ernest for his help in getting her
recognized and established.”
Dos Passos had recently read from his works at
theUniversityofTexas. “That was a couple of years ago,” he said. “But I don’t
generally make public appearances. If you do it for one, you must do it for
all.”
After pouring us both a second bourbon on the rocks,
Dos Passos agreed that that the character ‘George Elbert Warner’ in his novel
‘The Great Days,’ was based on Hemingway. “I’ve used Ernest as a prototype in
many of my stories. Hemingway was a very intriguing and interesting man. He
didn’t like me writing about him, though. He did a caricature of me in one of
his books, ( The character ‘Richard Gordon’ in Hemingway’s “To Have and Have
Not” is based upon Dos Passos), but we had a falling out after I used the
George Elbert character in my novel, ‘Chosen Country.’ Ernest could be very thinned
skin. My first wife, Katy, knew Ernest and his father, Dr. Hemingway, up in
Michigan when Ernest was a boy.”
“Most of what happened to George Elbert Warner in
‘Chosen Country’ really happened. And, it happened to Katy, too. It was her
story, as much as Ernest’s, but Ernest didn’t see it that way, though he used
Katy in a couple of his stories, as well. As a teenager, Ernest was in
love with ‘Katy.’ I’m glad she married me.”
Our conversation was temporarily interrupted as he
received a telephone call from his daughter, Lucy, who was away at ‘Occidental
College’ in California. “Lucy is the joy of my life,” Dos Passos said, speaking
of his only child, born to him and his second wife, Elizabeth Holdridge (Betty)
Dos Passos. “I am very concerned that Lucy gets a good education. The world is
rapidly changing and young people must be made to realize the importance of it.
When my father sent me to Harvard, at the beginning of this century, he not
only wanted me to learn everything I could, but he wanted me to go out there
into the world and use what I had learned. And, he wanted me to forcefully use
it.”
Switching to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of ‘The
Great Gatsby,’ Dos Passos said: “ ‘Tender is the Night’ is out of focus.
Scott was brilliant and disciplined in ‘The Great Gatsby,’ but I really must
read ‘Tender is the Night’ again. It strikes me that Scott was overwhelmed with
many of the autobiographical aspects of that book. It is a novel about
psychiatry and his wife, Zelda’s breakdown and confrontation with
schizophrenia. She is called ‘Nicole Diver’ in the story. Fitzgerald often told
me how painful the book was to write. He based ‘Dick Diver,’ who is first
Nicole’s psychiatrist, then her husband, on his own research and feelings about
Zelda.”
Did Fitzgerald really start out writing about Sara and
Gerald Murphy in that novel and end up writing about himself and Zelda?
“Yes, no doubt about it,” Dos Passos said, blowing a
halo of blue smoke from his freshly lit ‘Cubana.’ “The Fitzgeralds were a
handsome couple. Zelda’s novel, ‘Save Me the Waltz,’ was not really a very good
book, cutting into much of the material Scott was preparing for ‘Tender is the
Night.’ She wrote it in six weeks in one of her high manic phases while being
treated in an institution. Scott spent much of his time in Ashville near his
wife, editing out the more embarrassing episodes from their lives from her
manuscript. Scribners sold only about 1,500 copies, but it has recently been
reissued. Zelda’s use of his material incorporated into ‘Tender is the Night’
annoyed him to no end. He spent nine years writing and perfecting ‘Tender is
the Night.’ She wrote about her extra-marital affair with a French aviator,
which almost brought their marriage to a very sudden and abrupt end. Scott forgave
her. He was very loyal to ‘Zelda’ and protected her, always. Her bills for
being institutionalized forced Fitzgerald to move to Hollywood, where he wrote
screenplays for MGM. It was the only way he could survive.”
Was the autobiography, “Beloved Infidel,” written by
movie columnist Sheilah Graham about her love affair with Fitzgerald true?
“Definitely. Everyone could tell that they were in
love who saw them. Scott was drinking badly during this period of his life and
Miss Graham was a great help and comfort to him. I don’t know Miss Graham that
well to tell you much more than that.” Dos Passos switched gears and said: “I
watched the debate, several years ago on television, between my friend William
F. Buckley, Jr. and novelist, Gore Vidal. I have to say I am very much
prejudiced in favor of anything Bill Buckley writes and talks about. Bill, of
course, the conservative editor of ‘National Review’ and Vidal, the liberal
author of the recent bestseller, ‘Washington,D.C.,’ gave us a splendid night of
explosive television. I saw Vidal’s play ‘Visit to a Small Planet’ and found
some of it amusing.”
Dos Passos’s stepson, Christopher Holdridge, had
accompanied us to a paint store in Callao earlier in the day. “Kiffy,” or “The
Kiffer” was now upstairs and Dos Passos quietly shut the door. “I told him
yesterday that getting a job in a sawmill might be a good thing. I don’t know
if he agrees, but when I was a teenager that would have been a writer’s
experience. It would all be an adventure. Something to use in my later
writing.”
Until now–and the afternoon was passing in a hurry–I
felt the interview, while pleasant enough, had been unyielding. I didn’t want
to go home with a story about a great author saying just some ordinary things
that most people already knew. I kept hoping he would say something ‘wildly
unexpected, something exciting,’ as he showed me a photograph of himself with
fellow writers, ‘John Steinbeck’ and ‘William Faulkner’ taken in Japan in 1957.
It came out of nowhere. “It haunts me that Ernest Hemingway
shot himself. After the death–a violent death mind you–of my beloved ‘Katy,’ I
considered doing the same thing myself. My reasons, possibly, would have been
different from Ernest’s, but the result the same.”
Dos Passos, who was usually reticent with strangers,
opened up–only because I asked him about the character ‘Roland Lancaster’ in
his novel, “The Great Days,” a book I very much admired, though it had been
compared unfavorably with Hemingway’s “Across the River and Into the Trees.” It
was sensitive territory, but I pushed on.
” Roland Lancaster, the hero of ‘The Great Days’ is
the most autobiographical character I have ever created. Roland Lancaster’s
life was almost destroyed. He was an author and a war correspondent. Of course,
I was driving the automobile that took my wife’s life. Unequivocally, an
accident, but I was still driving. And, it still killed her. I had the sun in
my eyes. Ran directly into the rear of a parked truck on the highway. Katy was
partially decapitated. I lost an eye–went into shock–into denial. For many
years afterward, I grieved and suffered debilitating bouts of depression that I
never talked about.”
“It is perceptive of you to link Roland Lancaster’s
story and mine together. The abortive trip to Cuba with the girl. Much of it is
true. I wrote that novel to exorcise a lot of painful experiences out of my
soul. My second wife, Betty, really deserves the credit for saving me. I might
not be here, if not for her. She, too, had lost a spouse in a car accident. She
was working for ‘Reader’s Digest’ and we met and fell in love.”
As a child, John Dos Passos was known as ‘John R.
Madison.’ His father, one of New York City’s most important and wealthiest
corporation attorneys was not married to his mother, Lucy Sprigg. He attended
schools inEngland, until the death of his father’s first wife. He would later
return to Virginia and Westmoreland County after the marriage of his mother and
father.
Well read, brilliantly educated, Dos Passos as a young
man graduated from Harvard and went overseas, just as Hemingway had done to
drive ambulances for the ‘Red Cross,’ as the First World War exploded in
Europe. After the war, he cultivated the friendships of poet ‘e.e.cummings,’
critic ‘Edmund Wilson,’ writers ‘F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Ernest
Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Sherwood Anderson.’
Dos Passos lived for a while in London and Paris and
traveled extensively through Europe and Russia after the war.
While still in his twenties, Dos Passos wrote ‘One
Man’s Initiation:1917,’ a novel about the First World War, “Streets of Night,”
the classic “Manhattan Transfer,” and another great novel, “Three Soldiers.”
His play, “The Garbage Man” was performed in New York
and he worked on nonfiction books such as “Rosinante to the Road Again,” taking
his title from Cervante’s “Don Quixote.”
It was during this period that he was arrested for
publically protesting the handling of the ‘Sacco and Vanzetti’ case in Boston.
He later wrote about it. Along with writers, ‘Theodore Dreiser’ ( “Sister
Carrie” and “An American Tragedy”) and ‘Upton Sinclair’ (“The Jungle” and the
‘Lanny Budd ‘ series) Dos Passos protested the treatment of miners in
Appalachia and wrote about that, too, with a distinctly “socialist bent.” It
wasn’t until after the Spanish Civil War, which he covered with Hemingway, and
the assassination of his friend and translator, that Dos Passos’s political
views took a radical swing from the Socialist ( thought never Communist) view
of the left to the conservative right.
During the 1930s, Dos Passos’s books, “1919,” “The Big
Money” and “42nd Parrallel” which make up the trilogy “U.S.A.” were fervently
embraced by the political left in this country. French author Andre Malreaux
called Dos Passos “America’s greatest living writer,” totally ignoring the
achievements of Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, John Steinbeck, John
O’Hara and James T. Farrell.
However, with his sudden and extraordinary shift to
the conservative right in the 50s, Dos Passos lost his “critical readership.”
The left wing intellectuals of the thirties turned against him. Dos Passos was
no longer in vogue and his big books of this period–though just as expertly
executed–”Chosen Country,” “The Adventures of A Young Man,” “Number One,”
“District of Columbia,” the trilogy that did for conservatism what “U.S.A.” did
for the Socialist view, all had disappointing sales. It wasn’t until his 1961,
bestseller, “Midcentury,” a novel that captured the flavor of present day
America and used some of the same Newsreel techniques created in “U.S.A.” that
Dos Passos once again found himself on the bestseller lists.
“Midcentury,” though it is not a great novel, in the
same way that “U.S.A” is great, is still a superior work as it examines the
life of the fictional Jay Pignatelli, who is obviously based on Dos Passos
himself. It also takes us inside the lives of popular American heroes such as
Marilyn Monroe, William Randolph Hearst, James Dean, Henry Ford, Franklin
Roosevelt, etc., which means it’s also fun to read.
In later years, Dos Passos also worked on the
non-fiction historical biographies, “The Head and Heart of Thomas Jefferson”
and “Mr. Wilson’s War,” about the First WorldWar. He also wrote his memoir of
Paris, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and ‘the lost generation,’ and called it “The Best
Times,” published in 1966. It is a counterpoint to Hemingway’s own memoir, “A
Movable Feast,” which covers many of the same places and people. (That book is
being reissued next year with material cut from the original edition.)
In the 1930s, Dos Passos wrote the the motion picture,
“The Devil Is a Woman” for Marlene Dietrich. “Dietrich was quite a girl,” Dos
Passos smiled, lighting his second ‘Cubana.’ “I didn’t want to stay in
Hollywood, the way Scott Fitzgerald did. He had hopes of becoming a director
and producer. I didn’t. And, Scott died there of a heart attack, far too early.
Just 44. William Faulkner arrived in Hollywood and went immediately to work for
‘Howard Hawkes.’ He wrote an adaptation of Hemingway’s ‘To Have and Have Not,’
that was very different from the book. Raymond Chandler also worked in the
studio system, which made films of his ‘The Big Sleep’ and ‘Farewell, My
Lovely.’ Faulkner and Chandler both desperately needed the money.”
“There is a story about the legendary ‘Jack Warner,’
who ran Warner Brothers Pictures. He always bragged that he got a Nobel Prize
winner—William Faulkner–for $150 a week, when another writer he had on the
payroll, with none of Faulkner’s abilities or credentials was getting $5,000
per week for working on the same script.”
“Faulkner asked Warner, if he could go home and write
on the script. ‘Sure,’ Warner said–and to his surprise, Faulkner got on the
first plane and flew home to Oxford, Mississippi to finish his screenplay. But,
Warner was not good to writers. Referred to them as ‘smucks with typewriters.’
“
In August 1969, Dos Passos was still writing and
researching his last non-fiction book, “Easter Island,” that was due to be
published by Doubleday the following year. He was also working on another Jay
Pignatelli novel about the character who first appeared in “Chosen Country.”
John Dos Passos died in his Baltimore apartment, his
winter retreat away from his estate in Westmoreland County,Virginia, of a heart
attack in 1970. He was 74 years old.
Author’s Note: A short time
before his death, Dos Passos inscribed a pamphlet about the ‘Space Program’ on
which he had been working for NASA. He spelled the author’s name “Paine,” as in
Tom Paine, one of his favorite characters of the American Revolutionary Period.
Ronald Payne received the news of Dos Passos’s death while sitting in a
Richmond bistro, with his then fiance’, Paula Jones, now Mrs. Danny Meade
of that city.
Payne attended services for ‘John Dos Passos’ in
Westmoreland County,Virginia, with William F. Buckley, Jr., at his side, who
called Dos Passos, “One of those writers for the ages….”
Posted in Dos Passos, E. E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, One Man's
Initiation, Writer-RONALD
PAYNE | Tags: A Farewell To
Arms, Beloved Infidel, For Whom the
Bell Tolls, Gore Vidal, Hadley
Richardson, In Our Time, John Steinbeck, Martha Gellhorn, Mary Welsh, Tender is the
Night, The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also
Rises, To Have and Have
Not, William F
Buckley Jr, William Faulkner
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