Thoughts on Hemingway

It becomes easy, after reading Hemingway, to say to yourself, "Well, if I lived in Paris, I could write my own moveable feast too. If I lived in Paris, and knew people like Fitzgerald and T.S. Eliot by names like Scott and Major Eliot, I could write anything." Hemingway makes it easy because he writes with a frankness that can be mistaken for simplicity. To be able to create such an illusion is a mark of the mastery of his craft.

There is nothing simple about the sentence, "I found that many of the people I wrote about had very strong appetites and a great taste and desire for food..." Or "There was only the choice of streets to take you back fastest to where you worked." And while the directness with which he lists whose paintings he likes and what people he doesn't like reminds me somewhat of a child telling you which candies he prefers, Hemingway's unflinching observations of the people he encounters reveal an startling acuteness. Hemingway's short stories have often disappointed me, mostly because there seems to be a sense of dryness, a detachment from the characters in his stories. But his reflections on the people in his life, or his on own experiences with writing seem to be accrued with an intimate understanding that intrigues me. He puts things into words that inexplicably make sense, though I couldn't tell you what words themselves mean. What does he mean when he says that Ernest Walsh was "clearly marked for death as a character is marked for death in a motion pictures," or writes of Fitzgerald's mouth,"The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more"? Yet, Hemingway captures their charms and eccentricities-Fitzgerald's childishness, Ezra Pound as a mother hen, Wyndham Lewis as "the Measuring Worm."

Hemingway was lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, but he also knew how to glean material from the world around him. (He also had writing skills exceptional enough to win him a Nobel.) And while Hemingway's memoirs are both awe-inspiring and intimidating, it is also slightly comforting to think that there will always something to write about, whether you are in Paris in the 1920s or in modern-day Hsinchu, as long as you look in the right places.

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

You and Me--I've missed you

When it comes to formal writing, "you" and "me" are often marked as the untouchables of the English language, right alongside "alot" and "dude." They have become the lepers of polite society, words that, in suggesting a direct and intimate connection with both the audience and the writer herself, endanger the tone of objectivity and professionalism academics and other smart people seek. People reading research papers or critical analysis want to be offered a view from the outside in, not a direct glimpse into the writer's heart. Or their own.

Of course, I'm not saying that third person and professionalism do not have their place. Limiting the use of words that speak of a more personal narrative certainly makes it more difficult for biased misconceptions to surface and distort critical analysis. Detachment, to a certain extent, is essential in academic work.

But how I've missed being able to poke the reader in the eye with a rousing "you," or sprinkling in a dash of personality with a handy first person pronoun! One of the reasons blogs are often much more entertaining to read is because they unabashedly flaunt their subjective and even biased content. These posts address their audiences with the familiarity of a particularly outspoken and slightly eccentric neighbor, and seem to hold nothing back. "There is nothing quite as degrading as trying to have a serious argument when you're half drunk and dressed up like a giant pumpkin of the tooth fairy" (Hyperbole and a Half) or "Yes, I packed wipes. I'M A MOTHER" (Dooce) are statements that, in their hilarious candour, click immediately with their reader's own thoughts and experiences. They are calls, reminders to examine the humanness of the words that surround them, and to seek some sort of connection. They say "yeah you, I'm talking to you" or "have you ever come across the same thing I have?" Where "one" is reserved, ever-courteous, and often hypothetical, "you" and "me" are rude, invasive, and unapologetic.

In reclaiming these two words, it feels as though I am somehow reclaiming my audience, and myself. No longer do I have to disguise the fact that I am reaching out to an audience (whether they are listening or not), or that my opinions and my interpretations are my own.

Oh you and me, how I've missed you.

Editing--wonder what that's like

Editing is one stage of writing I have never been able to make it to. Perhaps it is because editing is against my nature. Go back and look over everything again when finishing it the first time almost killed you? I distinctly remember my sixth grade teacher once saying, "Don't be afraid to revise. Don't fall so deeply in love with every sentence you write that you can't bring yourself to change it." But what's wrong with getting it right the first time? Is perfection such a crime?

Of course I don't presume to believe that my writing is anywhere near perfect. Or that every single sentence I write is a masterpiece. But after I finish a paper or a story, it is as though my mind settles into an irreversible complacency and refuses to reopen the case. Even if this sentence rambles on for one third of the page. Or if this paragraph contains more color adjectives than the back of a Crayola box. My mind always manages to whip up an excuse that sounds so persuasive, so reasonable to someone whose laziness prevents her from throwing used tissues away until the Mount Everest of processed paper pulp emerges. "No, no, no, that sentence needs to run twenty lines because it is the part where Bob's reasons for stealing the shopping cart from a nearby grocery store finally come to the surface" or "Of course there are fifty two color adjectives in there! How else would you capture the essence of a unicorn?"

Or perhaps I have managed to combine the processes of writing and editing into one agonizing, blood-sucking procedure that leaves the writer incapacitated for weeks afterwards. Does that explain why it takes me fifteen minutes to write a single sentence?