What was the relationship like between
Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner?
Though the two writers never met, they corresponded through letters
and were always conscious of the other's reputation. Hemingway was a fiercely competitive writer. He used to compare his reign in writing to the reign of a heavyweight boxing champion. In Faulkner, Hemingway
found a serious opponent, one who could very well threaten his self-proclaimed title of "The Champ." Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 (though was awarded it formally in 1950), and two Pulitzer Prizes, one in
1955 for his novel, A Fable and one awarded posthumously for The Reivers (1962). Faulkner also holds the distinction of co-writing one of the best screenplays for Hemingway's novels. In the 1944 film, To Have and Have Not,
Lauren Bacall says to Humphrey Bogart: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." We have Faulkner to thank, in part, for that memorable line.
As with many of his writing contemporaries, Hemingway both praised and criticized Faulkner. At times, he called him "the best of us all" and wished he had his talent. At other times, he said that one could not reread Faulkner and had to "wade through a lot of crap to get to his gold." Tension between the two mounted in 1947 when Faulkner made a seemingly innocent remark about Hemingway's courage (from a literary perspective), stating that the author has "never climbed out on a limb" and "never used a word where the reader might check his usage by a dictionary." True to form, Hemingway took this as an attack on his manhood and went as far as to have one of his distinguished military friends, Colonel Charles T. (Buck) Lanham send Faulkner his own eyewitness accounts of Hemingway's "grace under pressure." Faulkner later apologized.
The relationship between Hemingway and Faulkner is an interesting one. For more information, see Linda Wagner-Martin's 1975 book, Hemingway and Faulkner.
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How do Hemingway and Henry James differ as writers?
Besides the obvious differences in their writing styles, Hemingway and Henry James also differ in their
approaches to writing. If writing is an "art" to Henry James, it is a "process" to Ernest Hemingway. Writing, as Hemingway described it, is "mechanical work," at times pleasurable and rewarding, at
other times, lending itself to an "awful responsibility." For Hemingway, writing was more a job than an art. As a job, he knew it had to be done well and if done well enough, it would be remembered.
Hemingway was conscious of his style but to a lesser degree than James. He was less technical in his defense of his style. His attacks on critics and his contemporaries were more of a personal nature. Hemingway would never utter the remark, "I write this way because …" If he did favor the critics with an explanation, its ambiguous tone always resembled that of his novels and short stories. Henry James did try to enlighten others as to his stylistic intentions, almost too much so, almost to the point that his explanation became a defense of his own art, and more importantly for James (considering his designated role as spokesman for the integrity of the modern novel), a defense of the art of writing novels. Hemingway believed that great literature need not be explained. "There is a mystery in all great writing," he remarked, and no matter how many different renditions of explanation are offered into the mix, "that mystery does not dis-sect out."
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How did Hemingway view F. Scott Fitzgerald?
The relationship between Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the more interesting literary
relationships and has been the subject of several books: Scott and Ernest: The Authority of Failure and the Authority of Success (Matthew J. Bruccoli, 1978), Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship (Matthew J. Bruccoli, 1994), and
Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship (Scott Donaldson, 2001). Hemingway provides his own take on the relationship in his 1964 book, A Moveable Feast, in a sketch appropriately titled, "Scott Fitzgerald."
Hemingway and Fitzgerald first met in the Dingo Bar in Paris in 1925. At the time of this meeting, Fitzgerald was the more recognized and successful writer. His 1920 novel, This Side of Paradise had been a great success. His pieces regularly appeared in the widely read Saturday Evening Post, and two weeks before his meeting with Hemingway, readers were introduced to The Great Gatsby (today, a literary classic). Hemingway, too, was publishing during this time, but in lesser known magazines and with less ambitious presses. Despite Hemingway's relative obscurity, Fitzgerald had sent a favorable letter to his editor Maxwell Perkins at Scribner's. In it, he wrote:
"This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemmingway, who lives in Paris, (an American) writes for the transatlantic Review & has a brilliant future. Ezra Pount published a a collection of his short pieces in Paris, at some place like the Egotist Press. I havn't it hear now but its remarkable & I'd look him up right away. He's the real thing."
Fitzgerald, a notorious misspeller, doubled the "m" in Hemingway's last name. This misspelling has survived to the present day.
The early Hemingway respected the early Fitzgerald. This is probably best illustrated in the fact that he was willing to accept Fitzgerald's editorial advice. Fitzgerald, renowned for his editorial astuteness (but poor spelling ironically), suggested to his friend that the original opening of The Sun Also Rises be omitted because of its "elephantine facetiousness." Hemingway swallowed his authorial pride and took Fitzgerald's advice, but in a June 1926 letter to Max Perkins, he somewhat took credit for suggesting the necessary cuts, stating twice that Fitzgerald "agrees," while it was actually he who agreed with Fitzgerald.
After Hemingway achieved monumental fame with the publication of A Farewell to Arms (1929), his relationship with Fitzgerald changed. In their letters, Hemingway now took on the role of advisor and Fitzgerald the advisee. Fitzgerald developed a certain idolatry for his confidant and though Hemingway enjoyed having his ego stroked, with Fitzgerald, the compliments soon became tiresome. Hemingway often attacked Fitzgerald claiming that he was more preoccupied with producing a good critical reception than a good piece of writing. He also believed that Fitzgerald's mentally unstable wife, Zelda, was ruining his talent as a writer. It was a talent that expired on December 21, 1940, when F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at the age of 44.
In 1950, Hemingway wrote frankly of Fitzgerald in a letter to Arthur Mizener. He was respectful and sympathetic of his dead friend in a way only Ernest Hemingway could be. A more critical and unforgiving portrayal of Fitzgerald would appear fourteen years later in A Moveable Feast.
