--- Brian Thornton <
tieresias@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Show, don't tell, Patrick. If it's so easy to
find,
> please show it to us. I've read A MOVEABLE
FEAST
> twice and I don't recall any specific
reference
> along those lines at all. I suppose it's
possible
> that I missed it, but being the big Hammett fan
that
> I am, I doubt I'd have missed a reference like
that
> one.
Winning the argument isn't worth reorganizing my day to play
fetch for you, Brian. Why don't you come up with the quote
where Hemingway says, "Hammett, never read any of that crap!
He had no influence on me at all." When you find that then
I'll be wrong.
> Or of Hammett himself and Lillian Hellman.
Nick
> Charles bears as much resemblance to
Scott
> Fitzgerald (either privately or publicly) as
(to
> borrow from your anaology below) he does to
John
> Carter, Warlord of Barsoom.
Well both Nick Charles and Scott Fitzgeral wore suits and
traveled about staying in the best hotels and drinking a lot.
I never heard that Fitzgerald wore a loin cloth and killed
four armed green men with swords. You'll have to fill us in
on that part of his bio.
> Take as much exception as you like, but bear in
mind
> that Hemingway's connection to Twain/Crane and
the
> realist school is well-documented on this list,
so
> you're taking up the club with more people than
just
> myself, here.
>
> Don't believe me? It's easily confirmed by a
quick
> search of the Rara Avis archives. We've been
over
> that ground several times in the five-plus
years
> that I've been a member of this list.
No, I'm really not going to reorganize my day so you can
prove some point to me. I have no doubt that Hemingway read
both Twain and Crane. As to either of them being from some
"realistic" school of writing, Crane is noted for making RED
BADGE OF COURAGE up entirely from his imagination while Twain
is the master of hyperbole, read ROUGHING IT, and romance.
Most kids who get lost in cave die, they don't discover
hidden treasures. And in real life Huckleberry Finn's
experiences would probably have been a lot more noir, rather
like Aileen Wornos or William Bonnie, rather than the very
amusing experiences in Twain's classic story book.
> Spare us the hyperbole. I read everything
by
> Burroughs that I could get my hands on when I was
a
> kid. Loved his stuff, especially the
Martian
> Chronicles. BUT if I go read his stuff now,
it
> reads as labored, histrionic,
post-Victorian
> romantic escapist fantasy with carboard cutouts
for
> characters and plots so laughably predictable
that
> they'd make Carroll John Daly blush.
>
> Bear in mind, too, that "realistic" and "real"
are
> not the same thing in either Webster's dictionary
or
> in literary criticism.
Actually, Ray Bradbury wrote THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, but that
aside, have you read FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS? Unlike Crane's
RED BADGE OF COURAGE, which did depict a Civil War battle in
such detail that soldiers who had actually fought in them
were convinced Crane knew what he was talking about,
Hemingway's "masterpiece" bares little resembelance to
circumstances that took place in Spain in 1938. Like Crane,
Hemingway made FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS up from his
imagination. Until we get to Mars, we can't tell how close
Burroughs came to the truth, but I'll bet Hemingway's Spanish
Civil War is closer to Burroughs' Mars than it is to Crane's
American Civil War. I believe there's a Martian shuttle
scheduled for lift off summer, 2010. We'll just have to wait
to see if I'm right or not.
> You'll have to do better than that to convince
most
> of the folks on this list that Hemingway's
writing
> was the stuff of heroic fantasy and not
someone
> struggling to write "one true sentence."
I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm offering
you the benefit of my extensive reading. Any college course
in 20th Century American literature will tell you Hemingway
is listed with the romantic writers. Sinclair Lewis, Pearl S.
Buck are realistic writers. Hemingway and Fitzgerald are
romantics. Its a matter of how their plots evolve, not their
sentence structure.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo
Mobile. Try it now.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/sports;_ylt=At9_qDKvtAbMuh1G1SQtBI7ntAcJ
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 25 Nov 2007 EST