Subject: Re: farewell to arms
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 23 2002 - 19:05:58 EDT
[Coming to this a bit late, I feel I am returning from the mists of the
past, a state from which I have been fitfully reading but not commenting.]
On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 09:18:58PM +0100, Scottie Bowman wrote:
> Agree absolutely. The later Salinger's dandyism
> dribbling over into word wanking has the same
> look-at-me-I'm-writing quality that was already
> in some danger of spoiling Gatsby. (Though it
> never quite did.) And given a certain common
> glibness (plus handy desk thesaurus) it's not really
> all that hard to reproduce.
My mousy little opinion on this is that "Gatsby" is too great a work
to have ever come close to spoilage, and that rather than being the
product of too-great a reliance on a thesaurus, it represents
Fitzgerald's exuberance with language -- in diametrical opposition to
Hemingway's contemporary style, though Hemingway admitted that he was
prepared to dislike the book given the "garish" cover, but that after
he had read it, he knew that his new friend Fitzgerald was the real
thing. Even though stylistically it was quite different from what
Hemingway was slowly grinding out, he could appreciate the lovely
descriptive talent that was evident.
(In fact, Cambridge University Press has just added to its Fitzgerald
series a title called "Trimalchio," which was one of the original working
titles for "Gatsby," and this edition contains some material Fitzgerald
cut at the urging of Max Perkins. Cambridge did a brilliant
reconstruction of "The Last Tycoon," published under the title "The Love
of the Last Tycoon: A Western" and making sense of the story in a way
that the Scribner edition never did.)
And to be more impertinent, I seriously doubt that anyone, with any
desktop tools, could mechanically reproduce either Fitzgerald or
Salinger when either writer was at his best. Though (as with
Hemingway) when any of them were working at a sub-par level, they all
lend themselves to parodic imitation or worse. As does anyone with a
"nail 'em dead" original style.
But I feel the need to stand in defense of both FSF and JDS. I know
that work like Salinger's Glass stories or Fitzgerald's "Tender is the
Night" isn't for every reader -- and much less is the case with such
sad instances as Hemingway's "Across the River and Into the Trees" and
much of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," which are just plainly embarrassing
-- especially the former.
Nothing personal in this disagreement, Scottie -- I know we both have
a respect for what we consider good work finely executed.
> Many people find it impossible NOT to imitate
> Hemingway. Yet that early, breath-taking stuff,
> before the drink got to him, is wholly inimitable.
> He couldn't even repeat himself.
Now, on this, we agree absolutely. Up until the point where he and
his first wife parted ways, he had an absolute purity of style that
nobody could touch. In fact, it is a sad comment on his state when he
allowed Scribner to issue "The First Forty-Nine Short Stories" when he
was only in his 40s (roughly); for all practical purposes, he didn't
produce a collection-worthy story after that, and all that has been
added to the group of memorables are the miscellaneous Nick Adams
stories that have popped up here and there, or that appeared in the
separate "Nick Adams Stories" collection (if the bits and fragments
haven't actually been incorporated into the gigantic omnibus edition
now on the shelves).
[I know that this heretical thinking would get me crucified, in
highbrow, incomprehensible rejoinders, on the Hemingway list -- so I
trust you, Scottie, with my secret perspective on this!]
In fact, the downward spiral seems nearly impossible to comprehend,
and, like the early Hemingway style, stands as a cautionary point for
all those who would emulate him, not something I'd recommend (!).
(The biography of his first wife, called "Hadley," by Gioia Diliberto,
is wonderful in illustrating the complex interweaving between the
emerging writer and his no-nonsense wife who kept him grounded in a
way that none of his later wives ever did.)
Salinger put on the brakes in public in 1965, of course, possibly a
little too late after having become "bogged down in [his] own mannerisms,"
though Hemingway kept on producing after the booze killed his finely tuned
mechanism. In his latter years, though, he managed to produce one
lovely allegory ("The Old Man and the Sea" is, to me, a lovely tale of
near-Biblical prose that manages to stand up where the other Hemingway
books of the time merely wobbled -- and I know that many people belittle
its simplicity, which to my ears is part of its mastery). And in terms
of (mostly) non-fiction, "A Moveable Feast" is one of only a handful of
books that I can, and have, reread countless times.
I'm glad to see the cross-pollination here between Salinger and other
writers.
To Chris (who, I think, asked where to begin with Cheever): grab
yourself a copy of the Collected Stories that won Cheever a couple of
awards when it was issued in the 80s. I personally prefer the earliest
stories that take place in New York City first (local bias); then I
like the ones in New York suburbia (no local bias, but I can relate to
the people and places); then, finally, the ones in Italy, which are often
very good, but which feel alien to me in comparison to the earlier
work. You'll find a wonderful stylist at work who never prostituted
himself the way so many others did, milking the short-story market of
the day.
The Cheever novels are hit-and-miss, mostly, in my opinion, and he was
never as great a novelist, in my opinion, as he was a short-story man.
I think "Falconer" will stand the test of time. Perhaps the "Wapshot"
books, but I am more dubious about them.
[Now back to hibernation. Thanks for the ears.]
--tim o'connor
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Tue Sep 17 2002 - 16:26:07 EDT