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.
If it happens to Hugo…
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.
Mauvais Garcon: Portaits de tatoues
This is the man I imagined drawing Étienne’s tattoo
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.)
I’ll close this somehow more positively… with Simonetta Vespucci and Botticelli’s Venus…
Étienne and Eliane Bertillon are certainly not Romeo and Juliet -- I’m so glad for that and I bet they are, too! -- but the way we “hear” a hero’s name in a story is something quite serious and very, very personal. I felt a rather unsettling feeling when I realized that on some occasions (and there were a lot!) the way I heard some characters’ names in my head was completely different than what the author intended.
After the initial shock, I concluded that these heroes were even closer to my heart and more part of me than the rest I pronounced right. Other times it was a matter of decision. For example, the first edition of Michael Strogoff is this:
I couldn’t cope with that Michel Strogoff so I turned it to Michael Strogoff (the way any English speaker would find the book in order to read it.) Still, in my mind he’ll always be Michail Strogoff as I first read his name (in a Greek translation of the book.) After all, the "indeed a man" according to the Czar himself lived in 19th century Russia. (Anyone knowing Russian here?)
Anyway, I got more than a couple of readers who were wondering about the way Étienne’s and Eliane’s names in Time Not Wasted are pronounced--or to be more accurate… how I hear their names in my head because as I found out there are plenty of ways to pronounce them.
At first I searched online (of course!) and found this YouTube video.
It sounds a bit robotic, isn't it?
There is a video where the accent in "Eliane" is on the first syllable but I don't like that at all! "Eliane" is pronounced ehL-iy-AE-N while for "Étienne" the best I found were "et-ee-N" and "Ate-T-ann". Something between these two is what I hear.
We should not forget that the people live in France (in another universe, late 19th cent Southern France which still exists just for our sake’s--isn’t Fiction a blast?) so I prefer the intonation to be on the last syllables.
I think this is a reason I stayed away from an audiobook conversion. French accents tend to sound ridiculous when tried by actors. And after all, I don’t hear a French accent when I read their inner thoughts. They think in their mind’s language and if that happens to be in French but we listen to it in English… this is another one of Fiction’s little miracles.
Finally, the video I found for "Bertillon" was awful! For starters, it had a very clear-sounding "LL" and an "R" that could pierce my ears. (I'm not embedding it here to save you!) Again: this is French! I wish I had native speaker to help me but I never heard such a clear “R” in any of the French movies I watched--and they are a lot!
Please don’t get discouraged if what you hear while reading the story is totally different than what it's “supposed to be”. That only makes the reading experience more personal. In the end, a name does not really affect who one is, “that which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet” as even that silly girl who died due to a misunderstanding --a.k.a. Juliet-- knew very well.
Useless trivia: did you know that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet based on another story written earlier with a very-very-very similar plot? I don’t recall the author’s name at the moment but I have read it. Let me tell you: the mastery of the craftsmanship makes ALL the difference! In that earlier version Juliet dies by … holding her breath.
And useless trivia No2: I picked the name “Bertillon” after Alphonse Bertillon, the Frenchman who introduced the "Bertillonage", a system of criminal identification that was named after him. It was based on the finding that several measures of physical features, such as the dimensions of bony structures in the body remain fairly constant throughout adult life. Still, as disclaimers say “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.” After all, my Bertillon is a convicted murderer. ;-)