Inside the Story: Time Not Wasted /chapter 22 or “the advantages of being a non-world famous writer”23/3/2018 I’ve heard that there are writers who pay other people to do the research for them. I guess that goes for well-known, international bestselling writers who have a tight -- writing -- schedule (believe me! I have a tight schedule, too.) My feelings are ambiguous. Doing research in hackers and bank scandals for another story was tedious at times but more than once research led me into unfamiliar paths, added depth and extra layers that I couldn’t have imagined possible before. You can bet I didn’t know of “push daggers” before Time Not Wasted. I didn’t know of poisonous mushrooms, too, but that’s another chapter’s post. I researched for daggers for Bertillon’s tattoo and that alone was a treasure hunt. (more about it below…) This is the best push dagger image I found and it pretty much says it all. I wonder… did you get that image when you read Étienne’s description? (Of course the dagger in his case was not professionally made and not so sturdy or he would be dead.) Anyway, reading about life in prison was not the merriest subject -- sometimes research can be depressing. Other times, it brought a smile on my face-- I couldn’t help it when I read that Jean Valjean could NOT have worked as a galley slave as is implied in the book because the galleys at Toulon didn’t operate after 1748. They were shut down before his time there. The Gorden Age of reform for French prisons was in the years 1820-1840 where significant changes happened (for example they stopped taking the property of convicted criminals -- a policy that allowed Étienne much later -- late 19th cent.-- to return rich to his village.) Still, reading that riots in prisons were very few because prisoners most common fate was break down or suicide... It was hard. Money and the intimidation of rape were ruling in prison life and prisoners more than words used their bodies to convey their stories, their preferences, their identity. And then I discovered Mauvais Garcon: Portraits de tatoués (1890-1930). In English it’s freely translated “Bad Boys: Tattoos' Portraits”. I don’t know about the origin and authenticity of all the photos there -- there is one in particular that feels new to me, the stare of the man almost familiar, haunting -- but if you Google it, you’ll be amazed. And then there is the story of Dr. Vilette.
I honestly don’t remember whether I thought about a man collecting human skins first, then searched for it and found that it actually existed (I was doing a research on skin and grafts at the time) or researched about prisons tattoos and read about it but the mere fact that a man collecting human skins actually existed gave me confidence in writing. Of course, Dr. Villette in real life is supposed to be a surgeon that carefully extracted tattoos from autopsies of French soldiers and preserved them. He acquired more that 300 skins for the Wellcome Collection. (Extracted tattoos are on display at the Wellcome Library in London and I only now connect dots about the way the mind works regarding another “Library” for my other graft-related story.) Of course in my story I didn’t use his name. Not only is there no point in this but I had the freedom to have the collector visit the prison and work with the guards. If one is a collector of something so unique and rare would he wait for dead soldiers or go to his own, personal “Garden of Eden” where all kinds of tattoos were at his reach? In conclusion, research for a story equals inspiration (and it’s the best recipe for writer’s block if ever anyone suffers from one… says knocking wood.) How about you? How do you feel about tattoos?
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September 2018
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