Early—too early—the next morning he phoned Paulhan, apologized for waking him up, and announced he was ready to make a contract. When could he meet the author? A few pre-coffee wheezing coughs on the other end, and the Gallimard éminence grise was forced to confess that the author had already signed a contract with another publisher. What? That was not possible! Then why had Paulhan given him the manuscript after the fact? It was his book. As Jean-Jacques describes it, visions of guns and knives swam through his head, of poisons that, drop by fatal drop, would do in this interloper, whose name he finally extracted from his by now thoroughly cowed friend. Paulhan tried to explain that he had given the manuscript to Pauvert because he thought the man who had contracted for it might be having second thoughts. The publisher in question was the very proper Monsieur René Defez, owner of Éditions des Deux Rives. “That gentleman currently has some serious problems with the government,” Paulhan explained, “and may not want to add to them with Story of O. Perhaps you can work something out with him.”
Defez’s problem, it turned out, was an explosive book he had recently published, Le trafic des piastres, exposing corruption not only at the highest levels of the French government and military in Indochina but reaching as well into the Paris parliament and, apparently, even the inner circle of the French president. Defez’s home and office had been burglarized, and he was currently the subject of several indictments. To Jean-Jacques’s urgent inquiries, Monsieur Defez responded, “Oh, yes, you mean Madame O, the little porno novel Paulhan laid off on me. You really want it? I paid a hundred thousand francs for it. Pay me back the same amount and the contract is yours.” Fortunately, Jean-Jacques had brought along his checkbook, and he complied without hesitation. Later, he had second thoughts: Why so precipitous? The man was so clearly no longer interested in the project that if he, Jean-Jacques, had bargained a bit more, Defez would probably have let it go for nothing. Ah, hindsight …
Now his only concern was how he would cover the check, for he had known as he wrote it that the account was virtually empty. So what? He’d find the funds somehow. Meanwhile, he had his book. Nothing else mattered.
* * *
Enter (once again!) Maurice Girodias. By the spring of 1954, both Jean-Jacques’s office on the rue des Ciseaux and Maurice’s sublet on the rue Jacob having become too small for them, they decided to join forces and share a large office at 8, rue de Nesle, off rue Dauphine. Given their new proximity, it was only normal that Jean-Jacques tell Maurice about his exciting discovery. Girodias asked to read the manuscript and decided it would fit nicely into Olympia. There was never a formal contract between them for the English version—Girodias was suspicious of paper trails, for they could be trod against him—but it was verbally agreed that Olympia could print no more than three thousand copies and that the translation would be undertaken by Girodias’s brother Eric, an excellent translator. To capitalize on the uproar that Maurice presumed would greet O’s publication in French, he decided his English version had to appear at the same time. But Eric was busy with another project, and all the tried-and-true members of Maurice’s translating stable—Trocchi, Wainhouse, Logue—were otherwise engaged, so he turned to that relatively new Merlinite in Paris, Baird Bryant, who swore he could meet the deadline. What he failed to divulge was that his French was, to be generous, limited. When Baird delivered the manuscript and received his standard six-hundred-dollar fee, Maurice may or may not have read it. If he did, he failed to correct even the most egregious errors, for the French publication date in June was fast approaching, leaving him, in his mind, no choice.
The French book, clad in its demure yellow cover and proudly bearing the name and address of its publisher (anyone who wants to pursue me knows where to find me)
A SCEAUX
CHEZ JEAN-JACQUES PAUVERT
MCMLIV
arrived from the printer to almost no bookstore orders. No problem: wait until the reviews, pro or con, it matters little, start appearing. Wait for the uproar. One week, two weeks, three weeks, four. Not to mention five, six, and seven. The only review to appear was a notice in Dimanche-matin on August 29 that, while positive, compared O to the Song of Songs, perhaps more aptly to the tale of Tristan and Isolde. Not exactly selling copy, and besides nobody read Dimanche-matin anymore. The only person regularly depleting stock was Jean Paulhan himself, who kept writing and asking for “ten copies if you please”; “six more if you don’t mind”; “can I have a few more? I assure you they will be put to good use.” In short, no movement. No uproar. No sales.
Part of the problem was that a few months before O’s publication, another novel appeared, written by an unknown teenager named Françoise Sagan, that took Paris—and later the world—by storm: Bonjour tristesse. It was shocking in an undaring way, a book you could discuss openly without fear of opprobrium. By year’s end, Bonjour tristesse had sold over a million copies. Counting, Jean-Jacques figured maybe a thousand of O had shipped, but that probably included Jean Paulhan’s “promotion” copies.
That lack of critical and commercial success did not, however, deter the judiciary, for someone in high places either had read the book and been shocked or had been told it was truly scandalous. Further, this female Sade had to be uncovered and chastised before she sapped the moral fiber of the nation. Both Pauvert and Paulhan were summoned separately by the Brigade Mondaine. The publisher, for whom such inquests were by now old hat because of the Divine Marquis, admitted he indeed knew the author. Yes, she was a woman, though she had used a pseudonym. Yes, he had a good and valid contract. No, the police could not see it. His defense, in short, was that such information between publisher and author was privileged, as was that between a lawyer and a client. Stymied, the inspector stood, shrugged, and the two shook hands. Pauvert 1, Brigade Mondaine 0.
Jean Paulhan, suave and imposing, took a different tack. Yes, he was fairly sure he knew who the author was, and, yes, he was prepared to reveal her identity. Good! Now we’re getting somewhere! One person frequently mentioned, Paulhan averred, was Lucie Faure, the wife of the prominent politician Edgar Faure. Another name bruited about, he had to confess, was that of Louise de Vilmorin, a lady well-known in high circles, a woman of considerable wealth and standing. He could go on, he said, but didn’t they see the problem: Sullying the name of ladies who might well be innocent? All of whom were well connected? What gentleman would ever stoop that low? The inspector(s) nodded in agreement. Indeed. Many thanks, Monsieur Paulhan, for all your help …
* * *
A faint ray of light in the darkness of O came early in 1955, when the novel won the Prix des Deux Magots, a literary prize started before the war that counted among its laureates the highly regarded Raymond Queneau, author of Zazie dans le métro. It was, as Pauvert noted, not the Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary award, but it was notice of the book’s existence. Another push came roughly a year after publication, when two extremely laudatory reviews finally appeared, one in Critique by André Pieyre de Mandiargues, the other by Georges Bataille in La nouvelle revue francaise. Both reviewers were friends of Pauvert and Paulhan, so there was a touch of copinage—cronyism—in their praise, but nonetheless it brought the book to the attention of a wider audience. Still, it would take years before word of mouth, aided and abetted by the continuing curiosity and controversy about who Pauline Réage really was, brought Jean-Jacques’s prescient prediction to reality. Into each copy of the original edition he had inserted a card that read: “Story of O, we assure you, is a book that will make its mark in the history of world literature.”
Today, more than fifty years after its publication, that assurance to the reader has been borne out. Far more copies of Story of O have been sold worldwide than, with all due respect, Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour tristesse.
* * *
I did not meet Jean-Jacques Pauvert until the early 1960s, but I had taken note of his courageous commitment to Sade over the years and followed the vicissitudes of Story of O, which
he published the last year I lived in Paris, 1954. From a scandal virtually ignored at first, O by slow degrees, mostly by word of mouth and then increasingly from heated controversy—for the feminist movement of the 1960s branded it as pandering to male fantasies, and more than a few swore the book, which details a beautiful woman’s total and willing subjugation to male sadists, had to have been written by a man—became a worldwide success. That O was (or purported to be) written by a woman without doubt contributed to its ultimate triumph. But unquestionably, two other elements helped: the preface by the literary icon Jean Paulhan, which even the most vehement detractors could not ignore; and, even more important, the quality of the writing itself, for the prose of the novel was shot through with stunning, if often painful, images, which after the initial shock imbued it with a mystical aura—even a religious one, for in O’s suffering and subjugation some found parallels with the blessed martyrs, even with Christ.
I had first heard of the novel not from Pauvert but from Girodias’s English-language edition, which appeared the same year as the original French. Reading it, I wondered what all the fuss was about, why critics—even those who condemned its content—raved about its prose, its purity of style, for in the Olympia version the prose was so stilted and awkward I dismissed it as the trash it actually wasn’t.
Barney and I discussed the book briefly my first year or two at Grove, and I was dismissive, scoffing at the French literati who were still claiming it was a classic. Only when I finally read the French did I understand that the problem lay not with Pauline Réage but with Olympia’s unnamed translator. Not only had he (she?) massacred the style, but the mistranslations, the howlers in the Olympia edition, were as frequent as they were egregious. After I revised my judgment, we approached Girodias about the English-language rights, which he said he would be happy to sell us if, to be sure, the price was right. To make a contract, however, we needed proof that he, not the French publisher Pauvert, owned the foreign rights. Ah, what suspicious types these Americans! Will my word not suffice? No, my dear Maurice, it will not. A simple copy of your own contract will be fine. Sputter, sputter, foil and fumble. You must understand that in France a simple handshake seals a deal. But this is America, my dear friend, where pen and ink are more in fashion. Further beating around the bush. It occurred to us finally what should have occurred to us immediately, namely, that the man had no foreign rights and maybe no rights at all. A letter to Monsieur Pauvert confirmed that Olympia had never had a contract, its “rights” restricted to a single modest printing of three thousand copies, which of course Maurice had immediately violated by printing almost twice that number. When he had been put on notice never to print more, he had simply changed the title to The Whip and the Lash and gone back to press. Further—this according to Jean-Jacques—the author, herself a critic and highly considered translator, had been so appalled by the Olympia version she had written a letter of protest to Jean-Jacques:
Dear Friend:
You know as well as I that if we agreed to authorize a printing of only 3,000 copies (not a copy more!) of the translation of O by Girodias, it was before we had a chance to see the translation. I was horrified by the translation. It is uncommonly vulgar and completely denatures the character of the book. Under no circumstances can it continue to be sold, and I hereby authorize you to take whatever measures are necessary to stop its sale.
With the issue thus clarified, we contracted with Pauvert for the English-language rights. In all fairness, after Madame Réage’s letter of protest, Maurice had hired someone to clean it up, and the resulting version was far better. But given the rift between Maurice and Jean-Jacques, there was no way we could refuse to deal with Girodias contractually and at the same time ask to use his new translation. In fact, a basic condition of buying the English-language rights was Jean-Jacques’s stipulation that we commission a new translation. By now, he and Maurice were in open war.
* * *
We had talked about O with Pauvert, first in Paris in the spring of 1963 and again at the Frankfurt Book Fair that fall. From our first meeting, I found Jean-Jacques a delight, a totally positive spirit, whose almost handlebar mustache quivered with pleasure whenever he smiled or laughed, which was often. His close colleague Jean Castelli, who managed the company and handled foreign rights, was a perfect “second,” almost as charming and energetic as his boss.
“O … ah, O…” Then the smile. Of course he would like us to have it, but there was a problem: “Monsieur Girodias. Olympia and Grove. Weren’t we in bed together? After all, Casement, Burroughs, Miller…”
Jean-Jacques had a point, starting with the Casement diaries.1
Henry Miller for another, not to mention The Olympia Reader, on which Girodias was counting to make himself rich once again (the fruits of Lolita now squandered). Anything we did together, we insisted, was on a book-by-book basis.
The truth was, Maurice was furious with us for negotiating with Jean-Jacques rather than with him for the English-language rights to O. “There goes, under my nose, another book for which I have fought like the devil,” he would write to his New York lawyer. “Of course, Jean Jacques needed the couple of thousand dollars Barney presumably paid for the contract, and he just dismissed me as a negligible quantity.” For the last year or two, relations between Grove and Olympia had in fact been fast deteriorating, for the simple reason that each court case we won, bringing down the walls of censorship, made us—and everyone—freer to publish without restriction, which meant that Maurice’s little empire of forbidden work was shrinking daily.
Contractually, we would have to translate from scratch. I wondered whether Richard Howard might take it on, but he was busy with other work. Barney suggested Patsy Southgate, for he thought the novel should be translated by a woman. Patsy, a beautiful young woman whom I had met briefly in Paris when she was married to Peter Matthiessen and had become a friend, politely declined, not on grounds of morality, though she found the book disturbing, but because, she said, she was then concentrating on her own writing, having recently published a superb story in Evergreen. And then one night, close to dawn, it came to me as if in a dream: I knew whence the author had derived that name. And, almost at the same time, I had solved the code name of the translator.
Barney asked me to translate O, and I accepted. I became “Sabine d’Estrée.”
The author’s name including coded clues to the real author’s identity, I felt that it was imperative to play along and create a code for the translator’s name as well. It was equally important to have the translator be a woman. I had a lot of fun searching for a name when I came upon “Sabine,” Jeannette’s middle name. As for d’Estrée, “Sabine astrayed” … evolved into “d’Estrée”.
We all swore to secrecy, including Pauvert and Jeannette, and so it remained for several decades. The literary world, meanwhile, went into contortions and speculations to try to unlock the code and expose the name of the translator, each time making me smile.2
Once again, we wondered, would the censors move in with fangs bared, for though the barriers were crumbling, this could well be perceived as even more shocking than Miller. Sadomasochistic to say the least, though a case could be made that O, in all her tribulations, was almost saintly in her response to her torturers, to be compared to the early Christian martyrs. I suggested this potential defense to Barney and Fred one morning. Double head shakes. Then what we should do is run the opening section in the magazine and see the response. Double nods. A brief introduction to that scene was added, which we ran with the partial translation in Evergreen Review 31 in the fall of 1963 and waited. If we anticipated howls of anger or disgust, we were disappointed. Still, maybe they’d come when one had the whole book. Censorship may have been on the ropes, but it was far from knocked out. We knew, too, that O had been censored in France—copies of the Olympia edition had been seized shortly after publication, both Girodias and Pauvert questioned by the Brigade Mondaine, as were several of the putative authors. W
hen, however, it turned out that some of the suspects were women of prominence, the investigation was quickly dropped. Someone high up in the government, it was rumored, had given the order to cease and desist. Still, Paulhan had to hire a lawyer to defend himself and the book, and when later he was nominated to a seat in the Académie Française, those who opposed his inclusion among France’s “immortals” surreptitiously placed a copy of O on every academicians chair, to sway the vote. The tactic backfired, and Paulhan was elected without further incident.
The novel would shock, we knew (or hoped), but we were weary of lawsuits and discussed how best we might avoid them in this instance. Customs was no longer a force of censorship, but, we recalled, it was New York customs, in the person of Deputy Collector Irving Fishman, who had declared Lolita not obscene when an Olympia copy fell into his hands. Why not try that route again? We asked Pauvert to mail us several copies, which predictably were seized at the border. On appeal, that same Mr. Fishman declared the book not obscene and released the copies. So far, so good. Nonetheless, as a safety measure, we decided to add to Monsieur Paulhan’s introduction another essay by one of our authors, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, which in essence was a laudatory review he had written of the work in France. Again, to avoid any appearance of appealing to prurience, we clothed the novel in a pristine white jacket, with the title set in a modestly small typeface framed by a discreet rule, repeated the title on the verso, but otherwise left this free from any copy save, at the bottom, a line taken from the movie industry—“The sale of this book is limited to adults”—and sent it into the world. By now, bookstores had grown used to the annual Grove Press shocker, were generally impressed by the way we defended them, and were less prone to take none or to conceal our dubious wares under the counter. A few days after O arrived in the stores, I visited half a dozen in the New York area and saw, in most instances, the novel openly—may I say proudly?—displayed. Another small step for man- (and woman-) kind.
The Tender Hour of Twilight Page 44
