A Moveable Feast
question
Insight Into Hemingway's Writing Style
Monty J
(last edited
May 24, 2013 07:41PM
)
May 23, 2013 01:15PM
here's an excerpt from A Moveable Feast, which it is important to note was written late in his career. The context is Hemingway had been having an argument with Fitzgerald about the potential degradation effect on the quality of Fitzgerald's writing from his financially necessary diversion from novels to short stories for consumer magazines like Saturday Evening Post.
After talking about Fitzgerald, Hemingway segued into his own craft.
(p. 154) "Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do. But it was very difficult, and I did not know how I would ever write anything as long as a novel. It often took me a full morning of work to write a paragraph."
It's a small paragraph but brimming with insight into his writing. What it seems to imply is that writing with economy is harder than being more florid.
After talking about Fitzgerald, Hemingway segued into his own craft.
(p. 154) "Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do. But it was very difficult, and I did not know how I would ever write anything as long as a novel. It often took me a full morning of work to write a paragraph."
It's a small paragraph but brimming with insight into his writing. What it seems to imply is that writing with economy is harder than being more florid.
reply
flag
Certainly its harder. I seem to recall him mentioning that several times in his career. Its what he strove for. Its what a lot of writers and artists strive for, actually. From classical Chinese poets to Roman epigram writers to Japanese origami or calligraphists, to students learning to master charcoal pencils. Brancusi, the Bauhaus, Louis Kahn, Phillip Johnson, Picasso, Kollwitz, Basho, O'Keefe, Pound, Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Robert Towne..articulating a concept or expression leanly, with poise..is a goal for many. Less is more. One brush stroke, one word to finish a line.. the exactly correct choice on the very first try..no re-write, no second-guessing; no hesitation; no wasted motion. Pure creativity from idea to form. I struggle with it all the time, myself.
I find the following few sentences from A Moveable Feast insightful regarding his writing:
"Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan."
"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."
"If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written"
and
"...I would write one story about each thing that I knew about."
And I think that is just what he did and I love the result!
"Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan."
"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."
"If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written"
and
"...I would write one story about each thing that I knew about."
And I think that is just what he did and I love the result!
Today's interest in Hemingway and his style reflects a different attitude than the 1960s and 1970s when, with the culture change, he was regarded as a male chauvinist with prose lacking in sensitivity. Chauvinistic, okay, but look at the mother he had. And lacking in sensitivity? I could only think of what he said about his craft, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." I see him as bleeding throughout his life, finally with a .12 gauge shotgun.
Patrick Powell
You see, I don't think the male chauvinism and the anti-semitism or the incessant fake machismo is at all relevant. What is relevant is that he simply
...more
· flag
· flag
Feliks and Linda, thank you, you get it. Hemingway said many things that have stayed with me, including one that is seldom quoted: "I want to write sentences and paragraphs so after you read them you will feel more than you think you should." I don't know if that's the exact quote, but that fellow writers is what it's all about.
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
