Compiled and edited by Chen Yong
[Continued]
Five. An icebreaker in the literary world
2. Modern literature created by Hemingway
Hemingway has always had his own unique views on literature. He did not have much respect for the literature of writers such as Hawthorne, Emerson, and Whittier, who were popular in the American literary world in the nineteenth century. He believed that although these people were very famous, or very gentlemanly, their novels were not dynamic and spiritual. He very much disagreed with the literary works of classical writers, believing that their literary language was too traditional, too rigid, too innovative, and there was no vivid and lively daily language or spoken language, because they were so heavily influenced by English literature that their literary language was too heavy, and these classical writers were generally in the upper echelons of society and could not reach the broad masses of people at the lowest level of society, so it was impossible to understand the language that came from life and was closest to life. In short, it is pretentious and ungrounded! In his mind, the admiration is Mark. Twain's Huckleberry. The Adventures of Finn" because of Mark. Twain has been at the bottom of society, refined from the life of civil society, and his literary language also comes from the most authentic folk life, vivid and full of novelty.
Hemingway loved this style of writing and used his journalistic experience to refine it, eventually forming a unique minimalist style. Before the Sun Went Well, Hemingway had been writing for a long time, writing countless short stories. But most of them were ruthlessly rejected because they did not conform to the trend of the literary market at that time. Hemingway's "minimalist" approach, which we now admire, was not favored by the editors of the time. They prefer traditional romance novels with flowery language and lengthy plots. As you can imagine, Hemingway's minimalist style is like an outlier. One editor even wrote to Hemingway in a rejection letter that if we published the book, people would not only say we were vicious and hurtful, but would also describe our tastes as incomparable.
There was once a small publishing house that published two of Hemingway's little books, including some of his poems, essays, and short stories. These two little books are a good showcase of his revolutionary new style, but they have not won him much readership, and the number of them flowing into the market does not add up to more than 500 copies.
In contrast, Hemingway's friend Fitzgerald publishes short stories almost every week. Fitz told Hemingway that he would change the article to the type people wanted to see, as the editor asked, so that he could get paid. Hemingway scoffed at this practice. He once said that if you do this for the sake of eating, you are not human.
It was in this generally unpopular environment that Hemingway began writing his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Because he realized that only long novels are the most important things for high-quality publishing houses on both sides of the ocean, which can make him a hit in the literary world.
Novels don't happen overnight. Hemingway had at least three failed attempts. The first idea was stillborn as soon as it was formed; the second time it was put into practice, but the manuscript was written in more than twenty pages, and he abandoned it; the third attempt seemed to have reached a relatively mature stage, but a painful accident caused him to lose all the manuscripts of the novel, which also put his will as a writer to a severe test. He decided to continue. In the process, he suffered from the exhaustion of his literary thoughts, sometimes squeezing out a few words on paper all morning.
Finally, after a trip, he wrote down everything that happened during the trip.
This was the first draft of "The Sun Also Rises," for which Hemingway wrote 7 small books and more than 80,000 words.
After years of frustration and accumulation, Hemingway's first novel was finally born. He named the manuscript "The Sun Also Rises," a phrase borrowed from the Bible. "The sun also rises" is something he distills from the passage "The Void of Life."
Hemingway discarded the high and the low content, focused on the general public, and wrote all kinds of people in the Paris literary scene into the novel, which is an interesting gossip for the average reader; but it also writes about a new generation, whose loss, pain, death and survival, all in an unprecedented tone, this is a pioneer of modernist literature, the literary coup that has been brewing for more than a decade, and finally found its popular leader.
After the success of "The Sun Also Rises", Hemingway still worked tirelessly, constantly improving himself and breaking through himself! Play hard and push the simple style to the extreme. He made a bold statement that my books would be appreciated by all. He wanted to make his work accessible to people at the middle school level, and at the same time make it simple but not shallow.
A novel, if you want to describe the life and death of the characters in detail, marriage and livelihood, etc., the length will be very large, and the details are required to be carefully crafted, compared to many veteran writers, Hemingway knows that he has no advantage. If you want to surpass them and write good works, you have to find another way and innovate. For example, when describing, all the parts that are unnecessary to the reader are excluded, and they must make them feel like they have really happened after reading it. It wasn't easy, but Hemingway did. He repeatedly studied "the art of omission", figuring out how to hide the key plot under the surface narrative, how to cut down the dialogue and avoid the metaphor. The knife falls in the hand, and if it can be cut, it will be cut. Text that does not affect the overall expression, delete! Already know the details, delete! In short, remove all redundant words.
A reporter asked Hemingway, when you don't write, do you still keep observing and looking for materials?
Hemingway said, yes, but observation is not for the sake of writing, but for not to write.
He had seen marlin mating and had studied marlins in depth, so he didn't write about it. He had met more than fifty sperm whales and tried to use harpoons to fork them, so he did not write this part. All the stories he knew about the fishing village, he didn't write about, but these all formed the underwater part of the glacier. Delete what you know, and you will thicken the part that does not show the water.
After the baptism of the law of icebergs, Hemingway's works are even more intriguing. The solemnity of an iceberg is that only one-eighth of it is exposed to the water. This "omission" is based on respect for the reader, as if the reader and the author work together to create characters and scenes. But at the same time, it's also a respect for the writing itself. If a writer adopts the method of omission because he does not understand what he is writing, he is simply leaving a gap in the work. The so-called "vacancy" does not only refer to meaningless omission, but also refers to the expression of "emptiness", in other words, there is no direct depth of reality, and this is the "not seriousness" of writing, not writing the real situation, which is disrespectful to writing.
It can be seen from this that the image of "iceberg" is not only a style for Hemingway, but also an attitude, an attitude toward writing and life and the world. Behind the concise, silent, and unobtrusive narrative of language is an endless richness, a thorough portrayal of the characters and a comprehensive perspective of the self.
His work is like a spotlight, the reader can only see the content under the spotlight, but through the light of this lamp, the reader's thoughts will spread, and he will see the artistic conception outside the text, the iceberg under the water. Just like the ending of "Farewell, Weapon", the protagonist insists on taking a look at his wife who has died of dystocia, and after seeing it, he does not say a word, does not shed a tear, turns around and leaves the hospital, and walks back to the hotel in the rain. On the surface, the wind and waves are calm, but under the silent trick, we can still feel the heart-wrenching pain hidden under the water.
In "The Old Man and the Sea", the big marlin dragged the old man swimming for a day and a night, the old man almost fainted, but still insisted on not giving up, Hemingway used a few very concise words "Pull, hand, he thought." Stand firm, legs", accurately express the fatigue of the elderly, thus producing a strong visual and psychological feeling.
At the end of the short story "Mountains like White Elephants", Hemingway tirelessly repeats "Then please, please, please, please, please, please, please,
Another example is at the beginning of the novel "The Killer", george, a waiter, who has only two guests, asks "Which one is yours?" "In the face of a fierce killer customer, he must be more cautious and must not make mistakes. This superfluous questioning fully expresses George's high nervousness. Even without a description of the environment and atmosphere, the reader can appreciate the horror atmosphere of the restaurant and George's long-frightened smirk. Hemingway uses seemingly indifferent descriptions to let the reader experience the psychology of the novel's characters for himself.
Behind this seemingly pure objectivity is the strong subjective cognition of the narrator and the author, although low-key, even vague, still deeply affectionate, even moving, which is the essence of hemingway's "iceberg" under the eighth of the content.
Hemingway was engaged in creation at a time when the American literary world admired a gorgeous and elaborate literary language. Hemingway dared to break with tradition, break the usual obscure and lengthy style of fiction, and create new styles and techniques to adapt to the needs of the subject matter. In the process of creation, he will inevitably reveal confusion, disappointment and frustration, but he is not depressed, but has always insisted on working hard, not satisfied with following others, tirelessly looking for an expression that reflects the social reality of new literature. He discarded those flowery words and a multitude of adjectives, and used fresh, concise, compact, and plain language to make the articles more vivid, vivid, and vital. His language is taken from life and has been tempered by thousands of hammers, concise and profound. Therefore, his works rely on a unique iceberg theory, brisk rhythm, refined brushstrokes, deletion of psychological depth, and only preservation of the way of writing actions, which are naturally more close to the public.
On the road of writing, Hemingway has never been satisfied, and has always tried to find ways to break through himself, and to play a concise and powerful way of writing to excellence. With his own creations, he sounded the clarion call of modernism. Use individual writing to practice the renewal of literary concepts, embed individual experiences into the mood of the times, and become a well-deserved pioneer of modern American literature!
To be continued, please continue to pay attention to Hemingway's fate counterattack to change the world serial biographical story - Chapter 5 No. 3.