Who disinherited William Monahan?

Now, for some of you who are following my blog religiously, as much as that is possible given my infrequent posts, the idea that writer and filmmaker William Monahan modeled the personal history of his fictional character Claude La Badarian after his own personal history, may be a self-evident truth at this point. Yet, I am still not satisfied with the evidence that I have discovered and I believe that there remain nuances that could be better understood with further research. Knowing which family member it was that, at some point in time, disinherited Mr. Monahan, could potentially have a huge impact on the body of knowledge concerning the fiction serial Dining Late with Claude La Badarian, particularly if it was Mr. Monahan's maternal grandmother who disinherited him under similar circumstances to which Claude La Badarian was disinherited by his own grandmother. Already I have provided supporting evidence that Mr. Monahan's maternal grandfather is a match for Claude La Badarian's grandfather, so to be able to say as much about both of Mr. Monahan's maternal grandparents would be earth shattering to the insular world inhabited by Monahan scholars such as myself.

It is in Mr. Monahan's 2000 essay "Stoned in Amherst," that he mentions that he was disinherited, a commonality he points out that he shares with the fictional character Ivanhoe:¹

"I suppose it's a sketchbook, technically, perennially associated with undergraduate poets and ex-Seven Sisters Young Moms with a few minutes to spare to pour forth from their collective anima their Mistreatment Diaries and the latest version of I Stand here Ironing, Tillie Olsen's much-anthologized masterpiece about standing there ironing and feeling Vaguely Dispossessed and au fait, as opposed to, say, Disinherited, like Ivanhoe and me."

That phrase, "Disinherited, like Ivanhoe and me," could just as easily have been said by Mr. Monahan's fictional character Claude La Badarian in the La Badarian letters (aka Dining Late with Claude La Badarian) since Claude La Badarian happens to have been disinherited as well, by his grandmother no less, the result of a conspiracy on the part of the Medford La Badarians. Claude La Badarian writes in letter 7, "Claude and the Little People":

"When I explained to my grandmother that I had been disinherited, she wrote me a check for five dollars, the sum she put in my Christmas cards until I was 40. It bounced. If I am going to get a summerhouse of the sort to which I am accustomed, Henry, I am going to have to do it myself–a daunting prospect."

I admit, this is one of the weakest comparisons I have made between the personal history of Mr. Monahan and his fictional character Claude La Badarian. But seen within a larger context, it is further damning evidence. Perhaps you are not familiar with some of the supporting evidence I have previously proffered, indicating that Mr. Monahan was lifting passages from his own published works while writing the La Badarian letters? I will be drudging up new supporting evidence below, so feel free to ignore my previous blog entries while reading this one, until after you are done.

I have previously postulated that in using his own autobiography to create Claude La Badarian, Mr. Monahan is making some sort of point about autobiographical writing. But, then again, there is always the possibility that I am afflicted with a mild form of Asperger's syndrome (based on my understanding of that disorder from David Mamet's book Bambi vs. Godzilla) and am simply connecting everything to the point of uselessness. It's not like a writer becomes an entirely new person each time he starts an essay, novel, or script. But as you will see below Mr. Monahan very clearly copied from his works, practically verbatim. As I have delved deeper into Mr. Monahan's personal history through his works (and genealogical research with regards to his maternal grandfather Harold L. Armstrong), I have come to realize just how much of Mr. Monahan's autobiography has been passed down to his character Claude La Badarian.

From letter 1, "The Last Supper": Claude La Badarian writes:

There comes a time in every writer’s life when he realizes that he has a biography rather than a life. Some of us can delay this disastrous cognition until the Pulitzer, or the Lethe of senility; but I’ve been worried since the age of sixteen about unborn people wondering about what "lay behind" my poems, and where I was living, and whose purse I was taking pills out of, and so forth. Paranoids, Henry, have real biographers–especially when, like me, Claude La Badarian, they’re massive polymathic geniuses.

In his 2000 essay "Coney-Catching,"² Mr. Monahan wrote the exact same thing, which was later copied verbatim to the La Badarian letter excerpted above:

"We wander around Cunt Island, feeling the same. Still hazy. A day to become disoriented in the sky. A day to slam your plane into the water to stop whatever this fucking shit is that is different from life, the shit that happens when you have, and know you have, a biography instead of a life.

And yet another comparison! From letter 4, "Silence, Exile, and Claude La Badarian": Claude La Badarian writes:

Claude La Badarian, from earliest youth (photograph exists of the young Claude in a badged blazer, emerging from a basilica with his palms pressed together and his eyes turned skyward), has been besieged by gratuitous integrity. Anti-success training is the specialty of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.

In his 1995 essay "The Angel Factory",³ Mr. Monahan wrote of having had the exact same experience:

"The last time I took Communion and believed it meant anything was when I was in the second grade, wearing a blue school blazer with a badge on it, coming out of a counterfeit basilica with my palms pressed together, in a sexist double-crocodile of embarrassed Irish and Italian kids. I never got confirmed."

Pretty amazing stuff. The prose speaks for itself.

So, no concluding thoughts this time, simply a promise to discuss the importance of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" as it appears in the La Badarian letters for my next blog entry about Dining Late with Claude La Badarian.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, here is a quote from Mr. Monahan's essay "A Night on the Tiles," in which he states that the only person he ever satirizes is himself:⁴

"It's ordained […] that I can never write satire of other people: I can start to do it, but God has ordained that I am smart enough to turn the burning glass around on myself: the only person I ever satirize, thank Christ, is myself. I have a built-in, possibly Catholic, ethical alarm system."

That says it all, doesn't it?

Take-away question: Whom was it that disinherited William Monahan?

Sources:

1) William Monahan. "Stoned in Amherst", New York Press, vol. 13, no. 2 (January 12–18, 2000), pp. 1 (Sec 1), 8–9 (Sec 2).
2) William Monahan. "Mermaid Parade: Coney-Catching", New York Press, vol. 13, no. 26 (June 28–July 4, 2000), pp. 14–15.
3) William Monahan. "The Angel Factory: Making Martyrs & Monsters", New York Press, vol. 8, no. 3 (January 18–24, 1995), pp. 1, 16–17.
4) William Monahan. "A Night on the Tiles: The Big Bad Bollocks & the Mirror of England", New York Press, vol. 13, no. 27 (July 5–11, 2000), pp. 1, 27–29.