Leo Tolstoy is tired of writing for kopecks. He wants the big rubles.
“So you think you’re ready for the big rubles, Leo,” says his agent.
Leo Tolstoy says he wants it all. The 250,000-ruble advance. The 1,275,000-ruble paperback sale. The big movie deal. The television sale.
“Such talk is music to my heart,” says his agent. “Go home and write me a few hundred words describing your novel.”
Leo Tolstoy goes home and writes 250,000 words. His agent cannot wade through it. “Leo, Leo,” he groans. “All this talk about Napoleon in somebody’s parlor and I can’t even keep the names straight. Go home and write letters to John Kenneth Galbraith and Norman Mailer and Philip Roth and ask them to give you some punchy sales lines for the jacket, and maybe I can find a sucker.”
Leo Tolstoy writes letters of 100,000 words each to Galbraith, Mailer and Roth. They do not answer. Turgenev and Henry James, however, agree to send jacket blurbs on condition that Leo Tolstoy stop writing them 100,000-word letters.
Leo Tolstoy shows James’s blurb to his agent. It says, “Leo Tolstoy has done it again!” Turgenev’s says, “Couldn’t put it down!”
“Leo,” says the agent, “I will give it to you from the shoulder. James Turgenev does not sell books, but I will tell you what.”
And he tells Leo Tolstoy to forget the book for the time being and write the condensation for Reader’s Digest.
Leo Tolstoy writes the condensation. It runs to 575,000 words.
“Let’s skip the condensation, Leo, and go right to the movie,” says his agent. “Once you have written the movie, you can do the paperback novelization of the film and then work backward to the full novel.”
At home, Leo Tolstoy writes a great movie. If filmed, it will run for thirty-seven hours, not including intermissions for meals. “Leo,” says his agent, “nobody is going to buy a thirty-seven-hour movie, a 575,000-word condensation or a full-length novel that takes a 100,000-word letter to describe.”
Leo Tolstoy is depressed. He sees the big rubles eluding him.
“However,” says the agent, “if you write the sound-track music for the movie, it will create a terrific audience, which will then demand that the rest of the movie be made, which will make everybody want more and have the publishers begging you to write the full-length best-selling novel.”
Leo Tolstoy goes home and sits down at the piano. After having a lot of fun learning to play “Chopsticks,” he realizes he cannot write music.
“In that case, Leo,” says his agent, “do the comic book first. Then we will hire a composer to write the music for the smash-hit film soon to be made on which the comic book is based, and point out that when the movie is finished it will be based on the full-length best-seller soon to be written.”
Leo Tolstoy goes home and does the comic book. It is thicker than the Manhattan telephone directory and is very poorly drawn.
“Leo,” says his agent, “I don’t suppose you could make the bubble gum.”
“Bubble gum?” says Leo Tolstoy.
“The ‘War and Peace Bubble Gum,’” says his agent. “It would create a demand for the ‘War and Peace Comic Book,’ which would trigger demand for the ‘War and Peace Sound-Track Record,’ which would set up demand for the film, which would create demand for the condensation of the book on which the film is based, which will create demand for this best-seller you want to write.”
Leo Tolstoy admits to an inadequacy. He cannot make bubble gum.
“Not to worry,” says his agent. “We’ll go all the way to the end and work backward. Go home and make me a ‘War and Peace T-shirt.’”
Leo Tolstoy sits at home sewing. He sews for days. The T-shirt already covers fourteen acres. “Sometimes,” thinks Leo Tolstoy, “literature doesn’t seem to be my glass of tea.” He toys with the idea of chucking it all and looking for the big rubles in the garment trade.