Your_NewLunarDoll
(?)Community Member
Toothsome Elder
Offline
- Report Post
- Posted: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 04:06:27 +0000
LiaThistle
Soup Dumpling
LiaThistle
I have no idea what it means, either. If that doesn't help.
I'm interested in this "American style," mostly because I see very little similarities between Twain's works and Hemingway's hacks.
I'm interested in this "American style," mostly because I see very little similarities between Twain's works and Hemingway's hacks.
In a nutshell, Twain's style was a sharp departure from European writers working at the same time. Comparatively, his characters are plainspoken and his descriptions are plain as well (lacking embellishment and floweriness). He deliberately wrote about life the way that common people experienced it, in a voice that common people would be familiar with and understand. The most commonly used word to describe the style in comparison to other writers of the time is "spare" with an emphasis on truth.
Hemingway was all about truth. He often retorted in interviews as well as in his own work on writing that his method was to write and write until he wrote something that was plain and true, and then he would erase all that came before that solid truth. Hemingway's descriptions are down to earth and straight to the point. His dialogue is brief but each word is meaningful. He turned Twain's spareness and truthiness up to 11. Compare him with English writers of the time, as well as the writers he and Fitzgerald fostered (Elliot) and you'll immediately see the departure. Other examples include Faulkner, even while he was twisting the s**t out of it (The Sound and the Fury is plainly written but told from fiercely personal perspectives which are still confounding and delighting readers today.) Between what Hemingway did with the style (pumping it up to 11) and what Faulkner did (pushing it to the limit and going beyond it focused on the human perspective) one can chart a trajectory through literary influences all the way through today.
I agree with your assessment of Twain for his most famous works.
I disagree entirely with your assessment of Hemingway.
Firstly, Hemingway wrote no "truth" (more on this in a bit). His style was only successful because of a mass disillusionment, and general dislike of the lofty, languid prose that typified earlier works thanks to the Great War.
Hemingway has no real descriptions. Take Hills Like White Elephants. What's the man look like? What's the girl look like? Note that he describes the main female in it as a "girl," not a woman, and for a while, I thought she was in her early teens. In contrast, the man is never described as a boy, and comes across as much older (when I read it, I placed him in his 30s, and yes, I thought the story was pediophiliac in nature). His only description in the whole story is the first paragraph - the setting. The rest of his writing is similar.
Now, back onto the topic of "truth" and Hemingway. Firstly, you should know better than to trust anyone who claims they speak/write/communicate "truth." This goes for storytelling, politics, religion, sex, everything. Additionaly, Hemingway had an ego - quite a massive one - and given that he claimed his own writing was deeper than it is speaks of that (the "Iceberg Principle," if you are unfamiliar with it). The biggest example that supports both of these is A Farewell to Arms. The story about a dashing young WWI ambulance driver and the British Nurse who falls madly in love with him and dies having their love child.
Oh, by the way, were you aware that in WWI, Hemingway was an ambulance driver, and dated a British Nurse? Who, after the War, sent him a "Dear John" letter?
Truth, huh? Rewriting life into a power fantasy isn't truth - it's ego. See modern comics.
In regards to his dialog, I again point to AFtA:
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes.
"Maybe."
Which occurs, if I remember right, at least twice. This is neither brief (at least one y/n exchange can be cut), nor meaningful.
Hence why I say Hemingway wrote hacks.
