Six Characters in Search of a Stenographer

If you are at all interested in novels and novelists you have probably read an article about, or interview with, one of your favorite authors in which the author declares: “I don’t really write my books, my characters write my books, they talk to me and I just take dictation.” Readers seem to love hearing this from novelists, if we take as evidence the fact that so many fictioneers, not to mention a few literary authors, have spouted this line at least once in their careers. It is a statement that portrays the writing process as almost mystical, practically magical and downright mythic, putting writers and their process on an existential plain somewhat above the mundane. Some authors will use the qualifier as if, but I think many reader’s eyes glaze over those two simple words and accept only the unqualified version.


It is, of course, an absurd notion and a damn silly thing to say. After all, Pirandello did not write Six Characters in Search of a Stenographer. Writers write their own work, it comes from them and not from some rarified literary ether where characters live. Writers deserve all the credit for what they produce—or all the blame.


This stenographer-author notion may come from the fact that when you are writing well, when the words are just flowing out almost faster than you can write them down, it does indeed feel as if something supernatural is going on, but this is more akin to the art of a good jazz musician or improvisational comic, than to the channeling of a psychic. Everything that a jazz musician, or a comic as wildly inventive as Robin Williams, does comes not from somewhere out there, but from somewhere in their brains—and only from their brains. Brains that we hope have been well-informed and that are the repositories of a myriad of experiences both personal and researched, as well as knowledge and opinions lodged in those brains and based on the information received and the experiences deposited. Add to this the emotions naturally attending this information and knowledge and those experiences, and you have a very real place from which music, comedy—and certainly novels—can spring.


Good writers do not channel in from some higher plain, they are simply human creatures who have a talent for expression and a talent, as Noel Coward would have said, to amuse. Brilliant writers combine those talents with a talent to reveal truths—or, at least, very interesting questions—about the human condition. Everything they write—everything—is an expression of their selfs, no other selfs are involved.


I started thinking about all this a couple of weeks ago after I went to the Hammer Museum in Westwood to attend the screening of two works of Samuel Becket’s that was part of the UCLA Festival of Preservation. One was the 1961 television production of Waiting for Godot with Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith.

Al Hirschfeld's drawing of Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel in Waiting for Godot

The other was the only film Becket was involved in, an experimental short made in 1965 called Film, featuring Buster Keaton. 

Buster Keaton in Samuel Beckett's Film

Despite being considered by some the greatest playwright of the Twentieth Century, Beckett, being avant-garde and absurdist, is not an easy writer to warm up to, although I do think his Godot may be the greatest play of the Twentieth Century, or, at least, the purest distillation of the existential nature of man in the Twentieth Century. I bring Beckett up though, not to talk about him and his place in literature, but to offer an example of how an experience I had lodged in my brain and, many years later, came out in a short scene in my Hollywood based thriller, Blood is Pretty:The First Fixxer Adventure.


In 1979 I was an independent publicist specializing in small animation studios. One of my clients was the great Chuck Jones who had been one of the key directors of the Warner Bros Looney Tune shorts. 

Me at the servants entrance to the Chuck Jones Studio in Hollywood. Photo by Peter Lonsdale

We were in London, where Chuck was having a “season” at the National Film Theater, and staying at the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. 

The Hyde Park Hotel seen from Hyde Park

One afternoon when we came back from a radio interview Chuck had done, the hotel’s Major Domo, the tall, handsome and very efficient Peter Crome, excitedly informed us that, “Mr Samuel Beckett is staying with us while he is in town doing several BBC Radio plays.” 

Peter Crome at the Hyde Park Hotel in 1979, later voted one of the top three Hotel General Managers in the World in a readers poll in Gallivanter's Guide. Chuck Jones can be see to far left of the photo.

Chuck did not seem impressed, but then Chuck was not often impressed with a person until he had been convince that that person had been impressed by him. I, on the other hand, being a budding cultural snob (and here I was doing publicity for a man who had gained fame for animating a duck and a bunny!), was very impressed and shared Peter Crome’s excitement. While Chuck excused himself and headed up to his room for his afternoon nap, I asked Peter if he thought Mr. Beckett would autograph a book of his plays for me. Peter assured me that he could arrange it if I would but give him a copy of the book to hand to Mr. Beckett. I immediately left the hotel, went to the Knighsbridge tube station, took the subway to the Tottenham Court Road, emerged to quickly walk down Charring Cross Road to the big Foyles bookshop there and found Ends and Odds, a small book of plays and sketches by Beckett. I got back to the hotel and gave the book to Peter, thanking him for his kindness.


The next day when Chuck and I returned from another interview, Chuck went immediately up to his room to rest and Peter Crome called me over and handed me Ends and Odds, autographed by Samuel Becket. 

The thing itself

 I was thrilled and decided to go into the hotel bar for a drink to savor this, the first autographed book by a famous author I had ever received. I sat down and ordered a Pimm’s Cup, an alcoholic concoction Chuck had introduced me to and which I insisted on drinking despite not really liking because it was so English and I was, as I said, a budding cultural snob.


I started to look through Ends and Odds—I had not had time the day before to peruse it—and was fascinated to see that in Beckett’s Radio II radio play, the lead character was named, “Animator.” Wow, I thought as I looked up from the book. “Wow,” I probably said out loud when I realized that Samuel Becket was sitting alone across the bar directly opposite me drinking a beer. 

The man himself

I immediately got up and went over to him, apologized for disturbing him, but explained that I was the person who he autographed this book for, and I just wanted to thank him. He graciously accepted my thanks. I then told him that I was in London with Mr. Chuck Jones, the famous American animator and cartoon director and I couldn’t help notice that one of his characters in Radio II was called “Animator” and I was just wondering if the character was a cartoon animator? Mr. Samuel Beckett looked up at me as if I was an idiot—although the qualifier, as if, is probably unnecessary here. “No, no,” he said. “By ‘Animator’ I mean the one who animates the discussion.” “Oh,” I said, quickly excusing myself and going back to my Pimm’s Cup.

Peter Crome, Chuck Jones, Chuck's future wife, Marian Dern, and the young idiot in front of the Hyde Park Hotel

As time went on, and after actually having read plays by Samuel Beckett and seen productions of his work, this small, autographed copy of Ends and Odds became a proud possession and meeting Becket became a cherished memory. It should not be surprising, then, that years later when I was writing a scene in Blood is Pretty, involving my hero, the Fixxer (you never learn his real name), and his “Watson,” Roee (who is also an avant-garde playwright) the experience of meeting Beckett popped out of my head and became the basis for the following dialog between my characters:


     “Penne with Moroccan lamb and mint.”
      I opened my eyes. It was Roee announcing the “simple” pasta dish he had prepared for dinner. “Did the lamb really come from Morocco?”
     “It’s not the lamb that’s Moroccan, it’s the sauce. Which should include Zucchini, but as I know how much you hate Zucchini....”
     “Your indulgence of my dislikes is appreciated.”
     “And I know you are not a wine lover, but I have found a rather nice Chenin Blanc that I would deem it a tragedy for you to pass up.”
     “Well, if you can indulge my dislikes I can certainly indulge your likes. I will have a glass. And after dinner I would like you to join me for a little job.”
     “Oh.” Disappointment expelled with the word.
     “You had plans?”
     “I was going to watch a video tape of Waiting for Godot.”
     “Can it wait?”
     “I have borrowed it from a friend.”
     “Can he wait?”
     “It is Beckett directing Beckett!”
     “Well, he’s dead. I suppose waiting is not a problem for him.”
     “Fine. I will wait.”
     Roee began to leave as a commentary on my request.
     “I met Beckett once.”
     Roee turned back to face me, as I knew he would. “You did not!”
     “In the bar of the Hyde Park Hotel in London. He autographed a book for me.”
     “Which you have conveniently lost.”
     “No. You’ll find it in the Bs.”
     Roee went over to a bookcase. “Which one?”
     “Small blue book. Ends and Odds, I believe.”
     Roee pulled the book out and opened it up. His eyes widened slightly. “With your background, this could be a forgery.”
     “Yes, but for what reason? The only person it has ever impressed is you.”
     Roee looked at me, raised his eyebrows, nodded his head, and closed the book. “Let’s have dinner.”
     “Good idea. I’m starving.”


I can assure you that Samuel Becket did not look upon the Fixxer as an idiot. They probably had a wonderful, intelligent conversation, and most likely many laughs as Beckett drank his beer and the Fixxer drank his vodka tonic with a lemon twist (I can’t imagine the Fixxer drinking a Pimm’s Cup—therefore he never will!). However, if it had not been for that young idiot, who has become, I hope, less idiotic with time, my character would not have been able to reveal this little moment in his past, which I hope the reader finds to be an intriguing hint into the nature and history of the mysterious Fixxer.


My Fixxer novels, Blood is Pretty and Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army, are available at Amazon.com. Check them out, sample them in digital print for your e-readers and, for Blood is Pretty, in audio as well.