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 Fixed fanq quotation marks. |
APKnight25 (talk | contribs) m Fixed fanq quotation mark. |
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''In 1930, still smarting from compromises required of him by the publishing industry, Ernest Hemingway received a letter from an editor and pulled the "emergency stop" cord on the speeding train of his career. Crumpling the letter in his fist, he stepped out of the car and onto the platform of non-fiction; he stood there, in this empty page of a place, his eyes focused in the distance as though there he saw the Spanish bullfights he had long wanted to capture in words. But a shadow passed between his eyes and his object - a Hemingway-shaped shadow, both him and not him, through which he could not see clearly.'' | ''In 1930, still smarting from compromises required of him by the publishing industry, Ernest Hemingway received a letter from an editor and pulled the "emergency stop" cord on the speeding train of his career. Crumpling the letter in his fist, he stepped out of the car and onto the platform of non-fiction; he stood there, in this empty page of a place, his eyes focused in the distance as though there he saw the Spanish bullfights he had long wanted to capture in words. But a shadow passed between his eyes and his object - a Hemingway-shaped shadow, both him and not him, through which he could not see clearly.'' | ||
''He admitted the shadow to his work, naming it | ''He admitted the shadow to his work, naming it “Author,” as if a separate identity might contain and isolate it, trying to preserve the kind of clarity on which he had earned his reputation as a writer. He tied it up neatly and stuffed it into Hell, leaving its figure slumped, presumed dead, on the platform behind him.'' | ||
''The train changed course for Purgatory.'' | ''The train changed course for Purgatory.'' | ||