A Literary Stroll in the Quarter
New Orleans’ French Quarter - the Vieux Carre (deliciously pronounced ‘Voo Carray’ by the locals) is peppered with literary landmarks, some well-known, others less so.
Wandering its rues, decorated with a mish-mash of creole cottages, narrow shotgun homes and splendid townhouses dressed with iron-lace balconies, the imagery of Southern storytelling is all around. Stepping on to those hallowed cobbles, visitors are instantly transported to Tennessee Williams’ ‘little bohemia’; to Toole’s carnival of curios; to Capote’s tall-tales of a time gone by.
Venture beyond the usual literary tourist spots and soak-up the city as it was seen by the many authors who have fallen for its charms; as it still can be seen today.
The Route
‘Beneath the immaculate shapes of lamps we passed, between ancient softly greenish gates, and here was Jackson Park. Sparrows were upon Andrew Jackson’s head, as childishly conceived, he bestrode his curly horse in terrific arrested motion. Beneath his remote stare people gaped and a voice was saying: “Greatest piece of statuary in the world: made entirely of bronze, weighing two and a half tons, and balanced on its hind feet."' William Faulkner, Out of Nazareth
‘However, of all secret cities, New Orleans, so it seems to me, is the most secretive, the most unlike, in reality, what an outsider is permitted to observe. The prevalence of steep walls, of obscuring foliage, of tall thick locked iron gates, of shuttered windows, of dark tunnels leading to overgrown gardens where mimosa and camellias contrast colours, and lazing lizards, flicking their forked tongues, race along palm fonds – all this not accidental décor, but architecture deliberately concocted to camouflage, to mask, as at a Mardi Gras ball, the lives of those born to live among these protective edifices…’ Truman Capote, Hidden Gardens
'All good New Orleanians go to look at the Mississippi at least once a day. At night it is like creeping into a dark bedroom to look at a sleeping child--something of that sort--gives you the same warm nice feeling, I mean.' Sherwood Anderson, Death in the Woods and Other Stories
‘By night he was plagued by dreams and by day by the impossible route Mr Clyde had given him. No one in the French Quarter, it seemed, was interested in hot dogs. So his take home pay was getting smaller, and his mother, in turn, was getting surlier. When and how would this vicious cycle end?...
“Hot dogs, hot dogs,” Ignatius said a little angrily. “Savouries from the hygienic Paradise Kitchens.”' John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
‘Dean rubbed his hands over the wheel. "Now we're going to get our kicks!" At dusk we were coming into the humming streets of New Orleans. "Oh, smell the people!" yelled Dean with his face out the window, sniffing. "Ah! God! Life!"... The air was so sweet in New Orleans it seemed to come in soft bandannas; and you could smell the river and really smell the people, and mud, and molasses, and every kind of tropical exhalation with your nose suddenly removed from the dry ices of a Northern winter.’ Jack Kerouac, On the Road.
'Don't you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour - but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands - and who knows what to do with it?' Blanche Dubois, in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
