by Svetlana Konnikova

We had thousands of books in our home library. Reading was one of my favorite pastimes, especially in winter. We didn’t spent too much time with computers and computers games, and speaking endless minutes on the mobile. We didn’t watch television broadcasts with boring, upsetting news and undelivered promices by politicians. It could never have substituted or competed anyway with the world od classic literature and music.

 I savored the time I had to read masterpieces of literature, created by talented people throughout the world through the centuries. I convinced myself that the books would put me in fascinating adventures and voyages, and would substitute successfully in the wintertime for all the fine, soft-petaled spring flowers; the bounty of sweet-smelling summer blossoms and herbs, their scents made stronger by the heat of the summer sun.

I imagined that the books I held in my hands were paper flowers, blooming with brilliant human thoughts, so I developed a “strange habit.” It amazes me now how dedicated I was to reading and how I read each book voraciously as if I were a starving peasant with an insatiable appetite, gobbling down each word if it were my last bit of bread, my last drop of honey. I read volume after volume of Jules Vern’s science fiction, Alexandre Dumas novels, and James Fennimore Cooper’s colorful adventures in the wild West.

I devoured the works of Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Honore de Balzak, Gustave Flaubert, Theodore Dreiser’s dramas, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare’s tragedies, and Walt Whitman’s poems. It was a feeding frenzy. I never stopped reading an author’s collection. I read volume after volume until I finished all of them. It was my passion. I read all of their works, including the epistle genre: the letters they wrote to loved ones, friends, and other writers. Do you think I changed a little bit? I continue to read great books with the same passion day by day, year by year.

Today I would like to share with you my thoughts about Alexandre Dumas, a superstar of 19th century French literature. He was one of my favorite writers in the middle school. Fascinating adventures of his heroes in masterpieces like The Three Musketters and The Count of Monte Cristo fired my imagination, and I dreamed of  far-away, mysterious places where three musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo have been living their  exciting life, their “joie de vivre.”

It was good influence. In 7th grade I gathered together my seven friends and formed my club, “Seven Musketeers.”  Twice a week we visited an orphanage in our town. We brought to the children there colorful picture books and fresh baked cookies that our Moms and Grandmas made with love. We  read them fairy tales and told them a story of  The Three Musketeers and their endless adventures.

While I have been admiring Dumas novels, sometimes I wondered how Dumas could be so productive in writing one after another such thrilling novels? Through the years some literary critics around the world argued the fact if Alexander Dumas really was an author of these works or he was a writer-businessman, an opportunist in the best meaning of a capitalist society. However, others insisted that without Auguste Maquet,  his collaborator’s creativity and precision of thought the erratic and uncontrollable Dumas would have been lost.

A longstanding, vigorous debate between the scholars and fans around the world took its central place  in a new movie about Dumas and his unknown collaborator, Auguste Maquet that has gone unacknowledged for more than 150 years. Finally the quietly creative ghostwriter playing crucial role in the production of Alexandre Dumas’s most famous novels, has his moment in a limelight. 

Creators of this new film cleverly mix fiction with fact,  and trace Maquet’s attempts to outshine his master in the public eye. Several days ago a film L’Autre Dumas (The Other Dumas) was released in French movie theatres.   Check out the site at http://www.lautredumas-lefilm.com (The Other Dumas–a  movie).

However, even if many scholars say that a beloved author of The Three Musketeers had a ghostwriter. Alexandre Dumas  is one of France’s most celebrated authors, so are other few around the world. Don’t we know how many famous authors with hundreds of novels written one after another, today have ghostwriters and collaborators quietly standing in the shadow of their masters– contemporary authors those names savvy publishers turned into brands?  

We can call anybody a collaborator who come up with “a million dollar idea.” Is that everything?  Somebody has to think and work all over all details, to do a solid research and produce an excellent writing packed in a great book-a novel that will take readers into a captivating adventure full of actions, noble and brave heroes, victories and happy end.

The news magazine Le Point suggested that whether Dumas was the brains and talent behind 17 novels that Maquet co -wrote with him or if Maquet was a hidden genius collaborating with Dumas, but the famous writer treated him “as a slave.” Other undisputed facts have fuelled the “French Style” melodrama. In 2002, Dumas was celebrated and honored in a posh ceremony that only national heroes are entitled to.

Devotees of Dumas say that Maquet’s greatest talent was his hard work . He assisted Dumas the best way he could and provided him with basics on which Dumas could then build his masterpieces. In the meantime, on Maquet’s tombstone at Pere-Lachaise cemetery the titles of classics The Three Musketeers,  The Count of Monte Cristo and La Reine Margot are engraved in a beautiful script. Was he the true genius behind these novels? In the public eye only Dumas was crowned with laurels for these masterpieces.

A new movie The Other Dumas (L’Autre Dumas) shows Maquet as victim. Famous French actor, Gerard Depardieu created an image of Dumas as a dude with ceaseless appetite for women, a careless spender running deeper and deeper in debt. Renoit Poelvoorde plays Maquet as a devoted family man, Dumas’ shadow. In 1858, frustrated with his lack of recognition, he sued Dumas in an attempt to gain the joint rights to their works they have been working together. Maquet was awarded financial damages for unpaid fees, but Dumas kept his sole ownership of their output. Dumas admitted Maquet’s help, but insisted he was the one true creator.

Scholars will definitely continue to study Alexander Dumas legacy, his life and character. Bernard Fillaire, the author of “Le Grand Decervelage,” other books and has written an essay in support of the ghostwriter’s rehabilitation,  favors Maquet as Dumas’ secret weapon. ” Of course he wasn’t a Balzak or a Dickens… but he definitely had talent.” He calls Dumas in his book ”as a kind of highway robber too busy as a bon vivant  to actually take that time to write his novels.”

It is such a pity to realize that a reputation of a brilliant writer widely recognized in his genre can be “smashed.” Scholars continue to clash over Auguste Maquet’s role in creating masterpieces such as The Tree Musketeers. For loyal Dumasiens, this is just a ruling which vindicated their idol’s brilliance. After all who individually can produce dozens of novels and plays over one decade without assistants’ s involvement?

In the article “Film reignites literary debate over Alexander Dumas’s ghostwriter”, Lisa Davies writes in Guardian on February 9, 2010, “There’s a view shared by Safy Nebbou, director of L’Autre Dumas, for whom Maquet was an able accomplice but little more. “Maquet did not have the genius of Dumas, neither did anything else that was really excellent. But Dumas did nothing more of any note, while Maquet went on to write a lot.”

As it happpened even Dumas had a grand burial, but being a hopeless debtor, he died a pauper. Maquet, sources say, died rich. he even bought himself a chateau in the French countryside. Some sources reveal tha fact that , in his library, he had a copy of The Three Musketeers rebound and retitled: “By A. Dumas and A. Maguet.”

So, who is a better businessman here? The writer or his collaborator? No matter what, as French scholar, Claude Schopp said, “They had an unusual alchemy together.” Obviously they both understood the magic of it and both profited from it in their own way.

My Grandma used to say, “Every love has its own secret.” In reality, Maquet was a talented but struggling writer. He couldn’t get published his works because “he did not have a famous name,” so he decided to sacrifice on recognition and collaborate with  already well known Dumas  and make money to support his and his family good life. But the only Dumas name on the cover of the books makes him unforgettable in the literary world with all other credits attached. As Schopp concluded, “They were both smart men in their own ways. Nobody was a real victim here.”

Is it not the same story can find its light in the 21st century? Do we ever read the same reminiscences about a group of 10-15 super popular writers who write so fast one book after another, as they bake pancakes? Sometimes it reminds me a publishing  factory production line that stops working only for  routine maintenance. Do you think, for example, that the  famous writers like Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts who are producing an uncessant stream of popular novels,  work without a team of collaborators? It’s simply impossible. But who are they? The history will hopefully show.

Sources: Mama’s Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasure of Natural Living by Svetlana Konnikova, MA, AN, Aurora Publishers, Inc., 2008, p.224; http://www.lautredumas-lefim.com; http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/did-alexandre-dumas-use-ghostwiter-august-maquet-fo-the; http://www.guardian.co.uk/book/2010/feb/maguet-dumas-ghostwriter-feud/print

Copyright 2010