As I noted in my remarks on the Napoleonic Henry James, the ‘Master’, due to rheumatism of the wrist, relied on ‘typewriters’, as shorthand typists were called circa 1900. Similarly, Joseph Conrad.
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/fruits-sec-and-napoleon-of-over.html
How far this vivâ-voce approach to prose conditions a writer’s style is a question that exercises many academics, particularly in the case of James and his tortured parentheses, described by one contemporary critic as ‘phraseologic stress’. Discerning criticism of his times disparaged James’s overcultivation of the parenthetical exposition, suspecting its origin lay in the hesitancies of dictation, a prose manner that compels the reader ‘to leap the five-barred gates of his parentheses in a game of verbal hide-and-seek’ to keep the writer’s meaning in sight.
In this regard, James’s shunning of the straightforward was noted by contemporary novelist Mrs Humphry Ward:
‘Personally, I regret that, from What Maisie Knew onward, he adopted the method of dictation. A mind so teeming, and an art so flexible, were surely the better for the slight curb imposed by the physical toil of writing. I remember how and when we first discussed the pros and cons of dictation ... he was then enchanted by the endless vistas of work and achievement which the new method seemed to open out. And indeed it is plain that he produced more with it than he could have produced without it ... Still, the diffuseness and over-elaboration which were the natural snares of his astonishing gifts were encouraged rather than checked by the new method ...’
(Incidentally, Aldous Huxley was the nephew of Mrs. Humphry Ward, whom he described as his ‘ literary godmother’. ‘I used to have long talks with her about writing; she gave me no end of sound advice. She was a very sound writer herself, rolled off her plots like sections of macadamized road. She had a curious practice: every time she started work on a new novel, she read Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau.’ )
So the jury is still out, it seems, when a verdict is demanded on the merits of dictation.
The roll call of the great dictators is long (Dostoevsky, Hardy, James, Milton, Scott, Stendhal, may be mentioned, together with Barbara Cartland) and many of the names will prompt loyal readers to return to consult the texts in attempts to find the nigh invisible seam between authorial longhand and the mechanical transcription of the author’s voice or dependency on a literary amanuensis.
Under such critical scrutiny, it seems, literary works are reweighed to determine where a writer’s distinctive style remains unalloyed, and where it is debased by oratorical flourishes.
That reliance on dictation can give rise to mockery of an author is confirmed by the following anecdote:
Famously, a visitor to the home of Edgar Wallace observed him dictate a novel in the course of one weekend. It became a standing joke that if someone telephoned Edgar and was told he was writing a novel, they would promptly reply, ‘I'll wait!’
PS. I could not find a suitable photo of one of my great dictators so here is another Edgar ... Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1935 dictating one of his books.
See also:
Miss Emily Dickinson Communes with the Great Dictator Mr John Milton . . .
https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2019/10/miss-emily-dickinson-communes-with.html
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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence,
see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)
see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)
and Listen Close to Me (2011)
