The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions
APKnight25 (talk | contribs) m Removing page number in Works Cited. |
APKnight25 (talk | contribs) m Attempted to fix error message. Misspelled in text citation author. |
||
| Line 46: | Line 46: | ||
No one knows whether Leach’s letter interrupted Hemingway’s actual writing or merely his preliminary thinking about his next book. Although Hemingway establishes on the first page of ''Death in the Afternoon'' that this so-conceived “bullfighting book” will be as much about writing and authorship as bullfighting (the analogy is thoroughly developed throughout | No one knows whether Leach’s letter interrupted Hemingway’s actual writing or merely his preliminary thinking about his next book. Although Hemingway establishes on the first page of ''Death in the Afternoon'' that this so-conceived “bullfighting book” will be as much about writing and authorship as bullfighting (the analogy is thoroughly developed throughout | ||
the book, hinging on the similarities in the economic, institutional and cultural mechanisms by which any art form is produced for a paying public), the first several chapters merely introduce the milieu, the spectacle, and its value to the writer, who tries in the night to remember which amongst thousands of details results in a feeling—for it is by strict focus on and adherence to such details, the narrator believes, a writer can convey real feeling and avoid cheap tricks and sentiment. The detail is the contrast between a gored matador’s thighbone and his dirty underwear. {{sfn| | the book, hinging on the similarities in the economic, institutional and cultural mechanisms by which any art form is produced for a paying public), the first several chapters merely introduce the milieu, the spectacle, and its value to the writer, who tries in the night to remember which amongst thousands of details results in a feeling—for it is by strict focus on and adherence to such details, the narrator believes, a writer can convey real feeling and avoid cheap tricks and sentiment. The detail is the contrast between a gored matador’s thighbone and his dirty underwear. {{sfn|Leach|1930|p=20}} Mailer would approve. | ||
For the first six chapters, ''Death in the Afternoon'' promises to unfold as the observations of a writer (the narrative “I”) engaging with the culture, history, form, and presentation of the Spanish bullfight and, by extension, the character of the Spanish nation and people. Even had Hemingway not delivered something far more difficult, problematic, and admittedly obscure, | For the first six chapters, ''Death in the Afternoon'' promises to unfold as the observations of a writer (the narrative “I”) engaging with the culture, history, form, and presentation of the Spanish bullfight and, by extension, the character of the Spanish nation and people. Even had Hemingway not delivered something far more difficult, problematic, and admittedly obscure, | ||
| Line 202: | Line 202: | ||
{{cite letter |last= Leach|first= Henry Goddard |date= 28 June 1929|title= Letters to Hemingway|location= Boston, John F. Kennedy Library|publisher= TS. Hemingway Collection|pages= |ref=harv }} | {{cite letter |last= Leach|first= Henry Goddard |date= 28 June 1929|title= Letters to Hemingway|location= Boston, John F. Kennedy Library|publisher= TS. Hemingway Collection|pages= |ref=harv }} | ||
{{cite letter |last= Leach|first= Henry Goddard |date= 2 May 1930|title= Letters to Hemingway|location= Boston, John F. Kennedy Library|publisher= TS. Hemingway Collection|pages= |ref=harv }} | {{cite letter |last= Leach|first= Henry Goddard |date= 2 May 1930|title= Letters to Hemingway|location= Boston, John F. Kennedy Library|publisher= TS. Hemingway Collection|pages= |ref=harv}} | ||
{{cite book |last= Mailer|first= Norman|date= 1959|title= Advertisements for Myself|location= New York|publisher= G.P. Putnam's Sons|ref=harv}} | {{cite book |last= Mailer|first= Norman|date= 1959|title= Advertisements for Myself|location= New York|publisher= G.P. Putnam's Sons|ref=harv}} | ||