The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing: Difference between revisions
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===='''HONEST, TRUE AND PURE: HEMINGWAY AND MAILER’S ART OF WRITING'''==== | ===='''HONEST, TRUE AND PURE: HEMINGWAY AND MAILER’S ART OF WRITING'''==== | ||
At their core, the art of writing both Hemingway and Mailer espouse is founded in their aspirations to, as Hemingway puts it, “tell honestly the things I have found true”(Death 1).Echoing Hemingway’s standards,Mailer believes a writer must write“to the limit of one’s honesty”(“Hazards” 399). But what exactly does this mean? Consider Hemingway’s advice to friend and contemporary writer John Dos Passos in a March 1932 letter. Hemingway writes,“Keep them people, people, people, and don’t let them get to be symbols . . . Keep on showing it as it is. If you can show it as it really is you will do good” ( | At their core, the art of writing both Hemingway and Mailer espouse is founded in their aspirations to, as Hemingway puts it, “tell honestly the things I have found true”(Death 1).Echoing Hemingway’s standards,Mailer believes a writer must write“to the limit of one’s honesty”(“Hazards” 399). But what exactly does this mean? Consider Hemingway’s advice to friend and contemporary writer John Dos Passos in a March 1932 letter. Hemingway writes,“Keep them people, people, people, and don’t let them get to be symbols . . . Keep on showing it as it is. If you can show it as it really is you will do good” (354). According to Hemingway’s standards, good writing is achieved by writing honestly and thus capturing life “as it really is” (354). Mailer expresses a similar standard for good writing: “It proves amazing,” | ||
Mailer writes, | Mailer writes, | ||
how many evil reviews one can digest if there is a confidence that one has done one’s best on a book, written to the limit of one’s honesty, even scraped off a little of one’s dishonesty. Get to that point of purity and your royalties may be injured by a small welcome, but not your working morale. (“Hazards” ) | how many evil reviews one can digest if there is a confidence that one has done one’s best on a book, written to the limit of one’s honesty, even scraped off a little of one’s dishonesty. Get to that point of purity and your royalties may be injured by a small welcome, but not your working morale. (“Hazards” ) | ||