Re: becoming oneself
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:22:05 -0500
> In a message dated 98-01-16 02:57:45 EST, scottie b writes:
>
> << Hemingway had the practice
> of actually copying out passages from certain writers in order
> to absorb - by a kind of magical osmosis -their techniques.
>
> that sounds like a fascinating thing...did he actually do this?
Yes, I believe so. He also took Gertrude Stein's advice to simply write
automatically without regard for what he was writing, with the idea that
something would pop out of his unconscious improvisations. He also spoke
several times about trying to read the 1920s equivalent of John Grisham
novels while he was working on something. He didn't want to cloud his mind
with "good" writing, so he would stick with popular books and thrillers and
mysteries.
For anyone interested in seeing Hemingway emerge as a writer (in a way
regrettably impossible with Salinger), Peter Griffin has been writing a
wonderful series of small gems that cover specific periods of time:
Along with youth : Hemingway, the early years [1985]
Less than a treason : Hemingway in Paris [1990]
Another biographer who covers the writer's formative years is Michael Reynolds:
Hemingway, the Paris years [1989]
Hemingway : the 1930s [1997]
Hemingway's first war : the making of A farewell to arms [1976]
I find it fascinating to see Hemingway learn his craft in those early days.
He kind of loses my interest in him as a writer after the 1930s, when he
gave in to drinking and other demons. But accounts of the Paris years are
instructional.
--tim