Book Reviews
Lloyd Lofthouse: Ernest Hemingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Age of Ernest Hemingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald A Literary Reflection, By Lloyd Lofthouse.
Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Maxwell 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. 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. 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 today's MFA programs, reject work after looking at the title and cover letter.
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.
Join the Hemingway discussion and watch the video here:
By Lloyd Lofthouse, July 2008
The longer version of Lloyd's article is here:
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