“Ernest Hemingway on Writing” Edited by Larry W. Phillips
This is a book that gathers what seemingly a hard task to do: compiling Ernest Hemingway’s many quotations on his writing methods, work habits, discipline, his aims and principles as a writer, and his general outlook on many topics in his books.
A hard task, because, as remarked in the foreword by his publisher and friend, Charles Scribner, Jr., Hemingway has this “almost superstitious reluctance to talk about writing, seeming fearful that saying too much might have an inhibiting effect on his muse.”
Hence, this gem of a book is the testament of the diligence of the author, Larry W. Phillips, who gathered all of the nuggets of wisdom from “his novels and stories, in letters to editors, friends, fellow artists, and critics, in interviews and in commissioned articles on the subject” where Hemingway do discuss about writing, and organized them all into 13 different categories.
You know what they say about wisdom being an organized knowledge? As Phillips elaborates, “comments apparently made at random, at different times, often decades apart, and in different cities or countries, magically began to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.” And the organization of these knowledge makes it easy to learn them all.
So what do the book have in store for the readers? Here’s my re-organizing from Phillips’ organizing:
[On doing the research]: Hemingway is teaching us about deep observation, about understanding everything without judging, about capturing a moment and dissect it to see which emotions fill that moment (and try to rewrite that). He reveals that when writing a story, he almost never know what’s going to happen in the ending. He also addresses being uninvolved politically, having no political alliance, instead understanding them from observing from far away.
[On writing]: He teaches about firstly write down the truth, and then add the emotions around it. On telling everything from the good, the bad, and the ugly to give the reader the complete picture (because if it’s all beautiful, the reader won’t believe it). On how to find inspiration for the title of the book. On creating living people in the novel and not characters. He also emphasize on writing a short enough stories, because long stories (and especially epics) are dull and boring. And write them in straight English, to make it extra clear, because the power of the book is in the story not the vocabulary. And try to avoid slangs, because slang language have expiry period. He also tell about how and when to use profanity (if needed).
[On breaks during writing]: He shows that he likes to stop writing when it is going well and knows what will happen next, to leave it for the next day so that he will never get stuck and can pick up where he left off. Distract yourself during the break, in fact, with exercise, with sex, with reading other books. And to not think about the book during the break, otherwise you will exhaust your mind before you even start writing tomorrow. You will never know how good your writing is until you read it again after taking a break from it.
[On editing]: He says the hard part in writing a novel is to finish it, especially in deciding what to leave out. He talks about hiding all the complications and big knowledge at the background, and instead express them in a simple narrative but with big analogies, meanings, wisdom, etc. He teaches that we can use the “skeleton” of a previously bad writing and fill it with new exciting things. And put it away when you’re finish writing the book, let it cool, and then re-read it again in few weeks/months while editing it.
Chapter 11 in particular is exquisite, where Hemingway talks about other writers, their style, their books, and money matters for living as a writer. Here’s an excerpt of it, when Hemingway said “I’ve been reading all the time down here. Turgenieff to me is the greatest writer there ever was. Didn’t write the greatest books, but was the greatest writer. That’s only for me of course. Did you ever read a short story of his called The Rattle of Wheels? It’s in the 2nd vol. of A Sportsman’s Sketches. War and Peace is the best book I know but imagine what a book it would have been if Turgenieff had written it. Chekov wrote about 6 good stories. But he was an amateur writer. Tolstoi was a prophet. Maupassant was a professional writer, Balzac was a professional writer, Turgenieff was an artist.”
All in all, this book is nothing but an absolute treasure trove. It is so precious to me that I feel like I want to hold it close to me, and want to buy several physical copies just in case this digital version that I’ve read is somehow lost. Definitely will read and re-read it several times in the future.
THE CHAOS THEORY 