Ernest Hemingway (1899- 1961)
American writer, Ernest Hemingway is a giant of modern literature. He was famous for his novels, short stories and essays.
Among twentieth-century American fiction writers, his work is more often compared to that of his contemporaries William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But their respective approaches to fiction are vastly different that there can be no comparison. Their styles have become famous and individually unique but when set along Faulkner's Mississippi novels, Hemingway's writing style are perhaps the more fun to read because of Hemingway's ultimate simplicity and because he so often used the same style and the same themes in much of his works. Hemingway's major works feature simpler structure and narrative voices/ personae.
Hemingway's style with its consistent use of short, concrete, direct prose and of scenes consisting exclusively of dialogue give his novels and short stories a distinctive accessibility.
Hemingway's approach to the craft of fiction is direct but never blunt or just plain simple.
Hemingway does make use of summary accounts of the past, of memories, and of flashbacks. These devices lend further depth to his characters and create narrative structures that are not completely straightforward chronicles.
Basically, a typical Hemingway novel or short story is written in simple, direct, unadorned prose. Possibly the style developed because of his early journalistic training.
"A writer's style," he said," should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous." So his words are simple and vigorous, burnished and uniquely brilliant.
Hemingway brought a hard-bitten realism into American fiction.
His heroes live dangerously, by personal codes of honor, courage, and endurance.
He's memorable not only for what he did, but he's also remembered for what he didn't do. He's known for brevity. He didn't use a lot of excess words and language in his books.
Hemingway has often described as a master of dialogue.
An excellent example of Hemingway's style is found in ' A Clean Well-Lighted Place'.
Hemingway once wrote," I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the world—or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather that spreading it out thin." And in ' A Clean Well-Lighted Place' he appears to succeed in that goal—boiling the lines down to their essence.
List of characters:
The young waiter: Impatient to close the café and go home to his wife, he insults the deaf old man, who, of course, can't hear him.
The old waiter: An old man, Like the deaf old man, he lives alone and is sympathetic to the old man's drinking until he is drunk.
The old man: About 80 years old and deaf, the old man is drinking brandy in the very early hours of the morning in a Spanish café.
In this story there is no maudlin sentimentality; the plot is simple, yet highly complex and difficult. (Because there is no plot, Hemingway enables us to focus absolutely on the story's meaning. No character has a name and there is no characterization.)
What is the theme of this story? Nothing, or nothingness. This is exactly what the story is about: nothingness and the steps we take against it.
The setting is a clean Spanish café; where two unnamed waiters_ one old and one young_ are discussing an old man (also unnamed).
What is important in this story is not only the condition of nothingness in the world but the way that the old man and the old waiter feel and respond to this nothingness. Thus, Hemingway' real subject matter is the feeling of man's condition of nothingness_ and not the nothingness itself.
A Moveable Feast (1964)
In 1922 he settled in Paris, associated with writers Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, and most crucially Gertrude Stein. Then he recalled that time in ' A Moveable Feast'
In Our Time (1925)
The Sun Also Rises (1926)
His first and perhaps finest novel that shows a "lost generation" of postwar American drifters in France and Spain.
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Describes life during the Spanish Civil War.
A fan of bullfighting, he wrote two nonfiction books on the subject:
Death in the Afternoon (1932)
The Dangerous Summer (1985)
Below are examples of Hemingway's most pared-down style in which he removes himself from the role of narrator. The stories are highly composed of dialogue.
A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Hills like White Elephants
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
Hemingway's affair with Agnes von Kurowsky became the inspiration for this work.
Africa would be the setting for two of Hemingway's most famous short stories:
Happy Life of Francis Macomber
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
The Nobel Prize for literature came to him in 1954.
Mentally distressed and physically ailing, he shot himself in 1961.
Hajar Bagherian Kh.
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A CLEAN WELL-LIGHTED PLACE
Ernest Hemingway
It was late and every one had left the café except and old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.
The two waiters inside the café knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.
"Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.
"Why?"
"He was in despair."
"What about?"
"Nothing."
"How do you know it was nothing?"
"He has plenty of money."
They sat together at the table that was close against the wall near the door of the café and looked at the terrace where the tables were all empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved slightly in the wind.A girl and a soldier went by in the street.The street light shone on the brass number on his collar. The girl wore no head covering and hurried beside him.
"The guard will pick him up," one waiter said.
"What does it matter if he gets what he's after?"
"He had better get off the street now. The guard will get him. They went by five minutes ago."
The old man sitting in the shadow rapped on his saucer with his glass. The younger waiter went over to him.
"What do you want?"
The old man looked at him. "Another brandy," he said.
"You'll be drunk," the waiter said. The old man looked at him. The waiter went away.
"He'll stay all night," he said to his colleague. "I'm sleepy now. I never get into bed before three o'clock. He should have killed himself last week."
The waiter took the brandy bottle and another saucer from the counter inside the café and marched out to the old man's table. He put down the saucer and poured the glass full of brandy.
"You should have killed yourself last week," he said to the deaf man. The old man motioned with his finger. "A little more," he said. The waiter poured on into the glass so that the brandy slopped over and ran down the stem into the top saucer of the pile."Thank you,"the old man said. The waiter took the bottle back inside the café. He sat down at the table with his colleague again.
"He's drunk now," he said.
"He's drunk every night."1
"What did he want to kill himself for?"
"How should I know?"
"How did he do it?"
"He hung himself with a rope."
"Who cut him down?"
"His niece."
"Why did they do it?"
"Fear for his soul."
"How much money had he got?"
"He's got plenty."
"He must be eighty years old."
"Anyway I should say he was eighty."2
"I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o'clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed?"
"He stays up because he likes it."
"He's lonely. I'm not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me."
"He had a wife once too."
"A wife would be no good to him now."
"You can't tell. He might be better with a wife."
"His niece looks after him."
"I know. You said she cut him down."
"I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing."
"Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him."
"I don't want to look at him. I wish he would go home. He has no regard for those who must work."
The old man looked from his glass across the square, then over at the waiters.
"Another brandy," he said, pointing to his glass. The waiter who was in a hurry came over.
"Finished," he said, speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners. "No more tonight. Close now."
"Another," said the old man.
"No. Finished." The waiter wiped the edge of the table with a towel and shook his head.
The old man stood up, slowly counted the saucer, took a leather coin purse from his pocket and paid for the drinks, leaving half a peseta tip.
The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity.
"Why didn't you let him stay and drink?" the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters. "It is not half-past two."
"I want to go home to bed."
"What is an hour?"
"More to me than to him."
"An hour is the same."
"You talk like an old man yourself. He can buy a bottle and drink at home."
"It's not the same."
"No, it is not," agreed the waiter with a wife. He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry.
"And you? You have no fear of going home before the usual hour?"
"Are you trying to insult me?"
"No, hombre, only to make a joke."
"No," the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from pulling down the metal shutter. "I have confidence. I am all confidence."
"You have youth, confidence, and a job," the older waiter said. "You have every thing."
"And what do you lack?"
"Everything but work."
"You have everything I have."
"No. I have never had confidence and I am not young."
"Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up."
"I am of those who like to stay late at the café," the older waiter said."With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night. "
"I want to go home and in to bed."
"We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was not dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café."
"Hombre, there are bodegas3 open all night long."
"You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant café. It is well-lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves."
"Good night," said the younger waiter.
"Good night," the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It is the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada4. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nada and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.
"What's yours?" asked the barman.
"Nada."
"Otro loco mas,"5 said he barman and turned away.
"A little cup," said the waiter.
The barman poured it for him.
The light is very bright and pleasant but the bar is unpolished," the waiter said.
The barman looked at him but did not answer. It was too late at night for conversation.
"You want another copita?"6 the barman asked.
"No, thank you," said the waiter and went out. He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted café was a very different thing. Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.
Hajar Bagherian Khoozani
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1-"Heis drunk now," he said. "He's drunk every night.": The younger waiter says both these lines. A device of Hemingway's style is sometimes to have a character pause, then speak again-as often happ-
ens in actual speech.
2-"He must be eighty years old." "Anyway I should say he was eighty": Is this another instance of the same character's speaking twice? Clearly, it is the younger waiter who says the next line, "I wish he would go home."
3-wineshops.
4-nada y pues . . . nada: nothing and then nothing and nothing and then nothing.
5-Otro loco: another lunatic.
6-copita: little cup.
posted by Hajar Bagherian Khoozani @ 4:22 AM
