Michael Davidow's Blog: The Henry Bell Project - Posts Tagged "pico"
Verisimilitude
It snowed that night; polka-dot smudges, that Bell watched fall from his living room window. And even though it was early for snow, the months of the year had gathered momentum, winter would be arriving soon, and Bell had exposure now, too. His own, and nobody else’s...
October in New York City does not typically feature snow. It did in 1972, though. I learned that while researching a separate matter, so I documented it, accordingly. The moon phases in this book are similarly correct. And yes, there was indeed a fistfight when Nixon appeared at the Nassau Colliseum. “It was a full moon that night,” deadpans Peterson to Bell. “Brings out the worst in people.”
Too much research is the bane of historical fiction, and the internet makes it absurdly easy to find these sorts of details. And while the lion’s share of my reading for this novel came the old-fashioned way (I went to the library and I took out books), I still faced these standard questions: how much is too much, and why. I answered them as best I could: by focusing on the details that mattered to my story, and either ignoring or glossing over those that did not.
That’s why Bell walks in the rain so much, for instance. I believe I had slated him for a rainy autumn even before I found out that he really, truly, and factually would have had a rainy autumn; Manhattan seemed stuck under a cloud that year. And since that rain suited both his mood and my story, he ended up in his Burberry raincoat in nearly every chapter (“hands pocketed against that day’s weather, staring as he went at skirts that stoked his loneliness, and wondering if he would ever again find solace in this world.”). It’s also why Paula Bell was fond of Robert Young (whose television show, Marcus Welby, M.D., topped the charts in ’72), and why Bell kept threatening to eat at the Shun Lee Palace (getting lots of press at the time for its recreation of Nixon’s dinner in Peking) (sic). But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I did not want to go too far.
In the early renaissance, an Italian named Pollaiuolo fixated on being scientifically accurate in drawing the human body; his men had muscles in all the right places, basically. But he also drew each muscle flexed for action. He had not yet learned that when you move your arm, for instance, one muscle works and its companion relaxes. His works therefore came out stilted. They didn’t look life-like at all.
He didn’t make into SPLIT THIRTY, but one of his companions did. “‘The east coast is built for humans,’ Peterson asserted. ‘It puts man in the middle of things, right where he belongs. Pico della Mirandella. Give him a shot, and see.’ ‘Is that a new place in the Village, Chan?’ ‘No, Henry! He’s a renaissance philosopher!’ Peterson cracked up. ‘I told you. My daughter is in college now. What a gas. Ask me about Noam Chomsky.’”
Bell, however, chose not to ask. Some sleeping dogs are best left alone.
October in New York City does not typically feature snow. It did in 1972, though. I learned that while researching a separate matter, so I documented it, accordingly. The moon phases in this book are similarly correct. And yes, there was indeed a fistfight when Nixon appeared at the Nassau Colliseum. “It was a full moon that night,” deadpans Peterson to Bell. “Brings out the worst in people.”
Too much research is the bane of historical fiction, and the internet makes it absurdly easy to find these sorts of details. And while the lion’s share of my reading for this novel came the old-fashioned way (I went to the library and I took out books), I still faced these standard questions: how much is too much, and why. I answered them as best I could: by focusing on the details that mattered to my story, and either ignoring or glossing over those that did not.
That’s why Bell walks in the rain so much, for instance. I believe I had slated him for a rainy autumn even before I found out that he really, truly, and factually would have had a rainy autumn; Manhattan seemed stuck under a cloud that year. And since that rain suited both his mood and my story, he ended up in his Burberry raincoat in nearly every chapter (“hands pocketed against that day’s weather, staring as he went at skirts that stoked his loneliness, and wondering if he would ever again find solace in this world.”). It’s also why Paula Bell was fond of Robert Young (whose television show, Marcus Welby, M.D., topped the charts in ’72), and why Bell kept threatening to eat at the Shun Lee Palace (getting lots of press at the time for its recreation of Nixon’s dinner in Peking) (sic). But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I did not want to go too far.
In the early renaissance, an Italian named Pollaiuolo fixated on being scientifically accurate in drawing the human body; his men had muscles in all the right places, basically. But he also drew each muscle flexed for action. He had not yet learned that when you move your arm, for instance, one muscle works and its companion relaxes. His works therefore came out stilted. They didn’t look life-like at all.
He didn’t make into SPLIT THIRTY, but one of his companions did. “‘The east coast is built for humans,’ Peterson asserted. ‘It puts man in the middle of things, right where he belongs. Pico della Mirandella. Give him a shot, and see.’ ‘Is that a new place in the Village, Chan?’ ‘No, Henry! He’s a renaissance philosopher!’ Peterson cracked up. ‘I told you. My daughter is in college now. What a gas. Ask me about Noam Chomsky.’”
Bell, however, chose not to ask. Some sleeping dogs are best left alone.
