Earnest
Hemingway had a house in Florida. In his fishing trips he wrote many stories.
Hi picture of a boxing bearded man with safari shirts and iconic beard makes me
imagine his' Old Man'. Many famous writers had odd habits when writing. Capote
always wrote in supine position with pencil in one and wine in other hand.
Hemingway wrote in morning about 500 words each day, according to himself, he
used to get 1 page of masterpiece in 99 pages of shit. Some writers wrote
naked, some wrote immediately after waking up from dreams.
V.
Nabokov used 3*5 index cards. 'Lolita' was such a controversial novel and I
read a Nepali translation of it in
teenage. First I thought it was ridiculously imaginative, profane, evil and
cheap like those cheap erotica novels sold on Bagbazar Street openly. I soon
changed my position after reading the English version. I saw the prose style,
melancholic, artful presentation, and very sympathy demanding Humbert. I
thought the inclusion of such a incest story, profanity and trying to make it appear to be artful literature is
simply pathetic and demeaning. But I didn't for once realize the writer was not
Humbert himself. He was not endorsing any position and he was not an addict. He
focused more on details and style rather than plot development or the content
itself. One of the reasons why Lolita's narration looked like clattering tools
of unrhymed poem verses was the fact that he wrote numerous notes, plots,
dialogues, details of characters in index cards and he used them wherever he
wanted. Not very organized for my liking but, nonetheless, excellent. A great
point of view again do describe a sincere but sexually addicted, incesting
stepfather who was obsessed with a twelve year old Haze, who he nicknamed
Lolita for her nymphomaniac nature.
Hemingway
liked drinking but he said he never wrote while drunk. Navakov would be
catching butterflies while writing. He wrote Lolita when he was in a Entomology
trip in west US. He never typed, or even edited. All his edition, translation,
writings, driving was done by his wife and his son. He was, in the beginning, very
reluctant to publish Lolita. He once tried to burn all the manuscript, but
Vera, his wife/ex-wife, saved it. He was also famous for plotting himself in
the story but not as a major character who influence the story much just like
he appears in Lolita out of nowhere, but may be that is a slight guilt, a
hideous attempt to cover that he was not the Humbert himself who was sick in
mind. I am not sure. He disliked Freud's psychoanalysis. He didn't believe in
such things. His love and translation of Russian and English literature from
and to one another is another remarkable talent of his.
In Hemingway's writings, I always found a dark,
melancholic, depressive tone. Even before I knew about his personal life, I
guessed that he had been a suicide planner all his life. I hate depression and
I hate suicide planners. I am a Tagore admirer. I do not want dark, cold,
lonely, fearful nights. I like to have Tagore's world.
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom...
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom...
Now coming back to Hemingway, as people are
celebrating his birthday, I am always
amazed by wonderful expression of sadness in his stories and his connection to suicides. I
remember one such story. I can't remember the title ...could be Old Man or
Suicide. I just remember the plot. A bar attendant is curious about a old man,
who comes in his bar regularly and sits in a dark, cold corner and drinks. He
never talks much and he has no friends. When inquired with another customer, he
finds out, that old man's daughter has committed suicide few days ago, and that
old man tried killing himself unsuccessfully few days ago; and perhaps planning a next one. After the bar is closed, the old man leaves.
The bar-attendant also heads for home. When the attendant was in the bar, everyone saw him smiling, happy,
and in lighted part of the building whereas the old man was drinking in the
dark corner. But as soon as bar attendant leaves, a darkness creeps in the
street, silent road but distant howling foxes, stars in the sky but not enough
to lighten him. He looks at his life, remember his home and realized he has
nothing exciting to look forward to. He also has darkness waiting for him at
home. Depressing, cold, silent, tired night... Excellent plot, and very clear picture
of what the real 'Old Man' was going to do, very soon. 'Papa' Hemingway, the
hunter, the story teller who was his own hero, Santiago, the Old Man who
imitate himself in his books, short and sweet was his style, a parody unto
himself, once wrote a six word story which he call his best work of all.
"Baby
shoes, for sale, never used.
July
21, 2012
Irving
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