Thursday, April 05, 2007

Splash du Jour: Thursday

-- Hemingway, writing dialogue --

In his biography of John Steinbeck, Jackson Benson cites the reminiscence of a friend from the author’s early years:


He would suddenly put down the bowl of onions he was peeling for the great chili he used to make. “Hemingway,” he’d sneer, as though somebody had mentioned Hemingway, and he would get up and go over and take The Sun Also Rises from a bookshelf. Then, sighing with satisfaction, he would read aloud, intoning the celebrated dialogue in a deliberately flat voice, without cadence, without caesura, and naturally it sounded awful. Then, pursing his lips and nodding, he would close the book and slap it against his knee. “God damn it. I don’t understand why people think Hemingway can write dialogue.”

Have a great Thursday!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry this has nothing to do with your current post, however I wanted to let you know you've won the Thinking Blogger award! You can read all about it here:

http://apatchworkofbooks.blogspot.com/2007/04/thinking-blogger-award.html

Congrats!

Cipriano said...

It is an absolute honor to have been named as one of your Thinking Bloggers, Amanda.
Thank you so much.
Am I supposed to do the same now, I mean... name Five Thinking Bloggers?
That would drive me insane. I know so many I would love to choose.... hmmm... I'm not sure if I could do this and still sleep well at night, haunted as I would surely be by the Ghosts of the Unselected!