Book Reviews
Lloyd Lofthouse: Ernest Hemingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Age of Ernest Hemingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald A Literary Reflection, By Lloyd Lofthouse.
The age of Hemingway and Fitzgerald took place long before the advent of MFA programs, where writers are mass produced assembly-line style. Today, there are more than three hundred MFA programs in the United States, and the number of students joining these programs is growing each year.
I wonder what Hemingway and Fitzgerald would have thought about these programs. Before MFA programs existed, how did someone like Hemingway and Fitzgerald learn to write and find success? It's been a long time since I've read Hemingway or Fitzgerald. The last time was when I taught Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to tenth grade English students at Nogales High School in La Puente, California. That was in the late 80s or early 90s. In the early 80s, I came within six units of completing a Masters in Literature at Cal Poly Pomona. Years later I transferred the units I earned at Cal Poly to another university where I completed one of those MFAs. Along the way, I spent seven years attending Marjorie Miller's writing workshops. She taught in UCLA's extension program. My focus at Cal Poly Pomona was on 20th century American authors. I studied Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and others and wrote papers about them. I also studied Maxwell Perkins, the editor for many of America's greatest 20th century authors. Perkins discovered Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Marquand, Caldwell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Alan Paton among others. Perkin's last discovery was James Jones, who wrote From Here to Eternity (1951).Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Perkins were born at the end of the 19th century, long before the .Instant Gratification, Self-Esteem Generation. arrived. Fitzgerald died in 1940 and Perkins in 1947. Hemingway left in 1961. None lived to see the changes that would take place in publishing brought on by the Internet, POD books, Amazon.com and the Kindle. All three worked their way to the top. It didn't happen overnight. They worked hard and stumbled often even after finding success. During his early years after finding success with short stories, Fitzgerald lived a colorful life with his wife Zelda until she had to be institutionalized (Zelda would outlive Fitzgerald and die in a fire at Highland Hospital in 1948). Alas, Fitzgerald's fast spending, heavy drinking lifestyle destroyed his health before he could finish his last novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon. Just when it looked like Fitzgerald was going to stop drinking, settle down and find happiness with another woman he loved, movie columnist Sheilah Graham, he died of a heart attack while working in Hollywood as a scriptwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
Both Hemingway and Fitzgerald were heavy drinkers and lived life on the edge but differently. In 1968, after returning from the Vietnam War and leaving the US Marine Corps, I decided I wanted to become a writer. Since I couldn.t follow in the footsteps of Hemingway, Fitzgerald or Perkins, I decided I would do the next best thing. After five years in 1973, I earned a BA in journalism. While earning that BA, Hemingway was my role model. I admired his style and wanted to write like him. Hemingway started writing in 1916 for his high school literary magazine. After graduating, he took a job as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. This is where he learned to observe and developed his style for concrete details and short, economical, unsentimental sentences. In 1954, Hemingway would be recognized with the Nobel Prize for his powerful, style-making mastery of the art of modern narration.. I knew from the start that I would never be a Hemingway (no one can), but I did learn from him. Hemingway taught me that a writer must be patient and learn to revise. That was a hard lesson. Writing a first draft without editing and revisions is more fun than what follows.
Hemingway's work style was to write one page a day and work on that page until he considered it done even if it took twelve or more hours. Once he finished a page, he never revised it again. The next day, he would write another page. Writing one page a day allowed him to finish one book each year. I'm sure Hemingway's writing habits did not develop overnight. What I describe here was his routine after he became famous and was living in Cuba. Hemingway might have completed his work page by page, but his editor, Perkins didn't let it end there. Perkins was known for revising and editing the work of his authors and was responsible, after a tremendous struggle, to convince Thomas Wolfe to cut 90,000 words from his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929). Perkins was known for his courtesy and thoughtfulness. He also helped writers as few editors did even in those years. Today, most editors expect books to arrive ready to compete for a Pulitzer or Nobel before they read the first sentence. Some editors and agents, buried under mounds of unsolicited manuscripts coming out of those MFA programs, reject work after looking at the title and cover letter.
On the other hand, it seems that many self-published writers today do not understand how authors like Hemingway and Fitzgerald learned to write. Today, hundreds of thousands of writers rush to publication churning out work that should have undergone heavy revisions and editing. The reason for this is because Print on Demand (POD) technology and the Internet allows anyone to publish anything at anytime. A writer can write a book in a month and have it published and listed with virtual-book stores like Amazon.com days later. Authors like Hemingway and Fitzgerald grew into their craft step by painful step through rejections and revisions. Most novels should not be written overnight with one draft. Few if any writers are born with the needed skills. Writers should experience life while learning to write outside of a university classroom.
Both Fitzgerald and Hemingway were in the military and served in WW I. Fitzgerald was convinced he would die in that war. Hemingway, while driving an ambulance for the Red Cross in Italy, was the first American wounded in WW I in 1918. As a war correspondent, he observed D-Day during WW II and was in Paris with American commandos before the city was liberated by the allies. He even had a drink in a Paris bar before the Nazis left the city. After that drink, he went to visit a friend, Picasso. After all the success and acclaim these authors earned, consider that F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing himself a failure. Perkins died years before Hemingway dedicated the Old Man and the Sea (1952) to him. The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In 1961, Hemingway, after shock treatment for depression, killed himself with a shotgun on July 2. It would seem that success does not guarantee happiness. I don't think MFA programs bring happiness either.
Join the Hemingway discussion and watch the video here:
By Lloyd Lofthouse, July 2008
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