Said Gertrude Stein to Ernest Hemingway, quoted in
"A Moveable Feast," which I'm reading after someone (who?) mentioned it in the comments recently. Here's the larger context, all of which I really liked:
I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
To keep my mind off writing sometimes after I had worked I would read writers who were writing then, such as Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence or any who had books published that I could get from Sylvia Beach’s library or find along the quais.
“Huxley is a dead man,” Miss Stein said. “Why do you want to read a dead man? Can’t you see he is dead?”
I could not see, then, that he was a dead man and I said that his books amused me and kept me from thinking.
Aldous Huxley was not actually dead at the time. Huxley had the distinction of dying on the same day JFK was assassinated. Hemingway, who died in 1961, did not live one single day when Huxley was not also alive.
“You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.”
“I’ve been reading truly good books all winter and all last winter and I’ll read them next winter, and I don’t like frankly bad books.”
“Why do you read this trash? It is inflated trash, Hemingway. By a dead man.”
Stein's idea seems to be that there's a special harm in exposing yourself to things that are only
somewhat good. Better to read outwardly trashy things than trash that has been inflated. And then there's also the idea that those who inflate trash are
dead.
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72 comments:
Along the quais? If that was ever a word the Interwebs says it is dead. OED?
I read Hemingway until one day i told myself, "Frankly, this is pretty bad writing."
Ah, a wharf parallel to the shoreline. I get it...
For a hack like Gertrude Stein to denigrate the writing of Aldous Huxley is laughable in the extreme.
it's subjective if it's praised in the guardian or the times, it's probably not that good, like William vollman's Europa central was great, but some of his follow up work has been substandard,
Brigid Brophy wrote, in "Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without" that Hemingway was a footnote to the minor art of Gertrude Stein.
The book, available you-know-where, is a fine compendium of hatchet jobs administered to Great Books.
I have never read anything by Gertrude Stein and do not intend to. She is dead after all. In fact, I resolve never to read anything written by anyone named Gertrude who is dead.
Stein's advice is to an aspiring writer.
I agree with Hemingway. Most men do because he faces the same reality we face.
The good stuff is stuff they didn't force you to read in school.
Brave New Wold style wise is not as Literary as some Great Novels.
But it is very insightful. Hemingway has good style. So did Faulkner. They are Literary. They were not very insightful.
Ideas matter.
What alanc709 said. People who have only read Brave New World need to reed more Aldous Huxley. He was my favorite author when I was in my early 20s.
If you're reading to become a better writer, reading excellent and terrible books can hone your critical judgment. The errors (in your eyes) are easier to spot, and and you should learn from those you accept as your masters.
As for Hemingway, he's now a historical writer. I read "The Sun Also Rises" recently alongside "Reading 'The Sun Also Rises'" which annotated the novel chapter by chapter. A lot of what Hemingway was writing would be familiar only to American and European Catholics (such as the walk around Paris that Jake Barnes took is a mirror of an actual Catholic pilgrimage path).
It was akin to lifting Hem's iceberg and pointing out the beauty of the fissures and crevasses.
Currently reading “Neuromancer” for the first time, but I’m having trouble getting through it and have even taken a break from it. I think there are some nice descriptions and turn of phrases, but it’s hard for me to really get into the plot and characters, and a lot of it strikes me as the kind of thing I would have enjoyed more had I read it back in high school (but I didn't read in high school, so boo-hoo).
There is a lot writing that I freely enjoy that I think most people (especially serious literary types) would hate. Same is true of movies, music, etc. These are not guity pleasures, even though most people think I should feel guilty for enjoying.
Stein was speaking metaphorically about Huxley. Hemingway knew Huxley wasn't actually dead.
C.S. Lewis also died the same day.
I have read Island in addition to Brave New World. I have read some of his short fiction. I didn't like the two novels enough to read more, but maybe I should.
I love A Moveable Feast.
I spent a fun afternoon alone in Paris walking to find the places and homes mentioned in the book. I think Hemingway's apartment and maybe even Stein's home are gone now. But I loved walking past Closerie des Lilas and saying to myself "Did I *cut* him."
But how does one know what is "good" or "bad" in advance?
Stein wrote fiction. Does anyone read it, anymore?
Orwell's 1984 is more relevant than Huxley's Brave New world. I suppose Stein disliked Huxley because his novels were read more for their ideas than their good writing. As a novelist, Huxley was a great social critic.
Huxley belongs in the same class with Upton Sinclair or H.G. Welles, mediocre writers who had interesting ideas.
I think Hemingway's apartment and maybe even Stein's home are gone now.
Hemingway's apartment from his poor early period was there when I looked it up.,. He had described a shop below but when I was there 30 years ago, it was a nightclub.
I had a book that I was always loaning to friends called, "Hemingway's Paris≥" which doesn't seem to be listed on Amazon anymore. I bought it in 1982. I still have it.
I don't anyone really cared about Stein's work. Without her connection to Stein and a few more famous American Expats she'd be forgotten. Its annoying how art always attracts parasites. Publishers, academics, critics, wanna-be-critics, agents, art dealers, mediocre artists "pushing their schools", etc. All trying to live off the artists or shape his art for their own gratification, politics, or self-interest.
I don’t like frankly bad books
By definition of "frankly bad". The wisdom of these popular scribblers never fails to astound.
Hemingway's writing about Stein or Fitzgerald or anyone else has to be taken with a grain of salt. He loved to make himself look good by making others look bad. I can't think of many Hemingway anecdotes or stories that show him in bad light. Usually, they implicitly or explicitly show himself in a good light and his "Friends" as inferior to good Ol'Papa who's usually the bravest, smartest, wisest man in the room.
"You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad."
What an exciting, courageous outrageous idea. Smart AND sassy at the same time!
"The Alice B.Toklas" cook book is fun. Available at Amazon.com
Ms.Toklas lived with G. Stein. She met, and cooked for Hemingway, Fitzgerald and other artists.
"A Rose is a Rose is a Rose...
Yes you have."
Well I'll be darned. I also liked her ditty along that same genre that was very deep and moving:
A horse is a horse
Of course of course . . .
Rcocean:
"Hemingway's writing about Stein or Fitzgerald or anyone else has to be taken with a grain of salt. He loved to make himself look good by making others look bad. "
The posthumous True at First Light, published by his painfully Oedipal offspring, makes Hemingway and his wife look like rancid drunks.
some foreign writers like the the Jamaican marlon james, whose posse game of thrones, seven killings was nearly impenetrable, largely because of his use of the local idiom,
"Orwell's 1984 is more relevant than Huxley's Brave New world."
I've read 1984 twice but have never read BRAVE NEW WORLD. From what I'v read about it, itsounds highly relevant to today's society, where we numb ourselves to reality through drugs (in all forms), pleasure-seeking, trash entertainment,and superficial diversions.
largely I found it very tedious, the tv and film adaptations have been uneven at best,
I gave on him after the 60s series, precisely the cool 600
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/30/this-storm-james-ellroy-review
Went to google "does Catch 22 get less annoying," and while typing it the suggestion popped up, "does Catch 22 get better." Good enough. Many people wonder the same thing. Other readers assure that the answer is yes.
I had a book that I was always loaning to friends called, "Hemingway's Paris≥" which doesn't seem to be listed on Amazon anymore. I bought it in 1982. I still have it.
********
Gobs of them containing that phrase in the title are available at abebooks.com.
Some bits and pieces here:
* Hemingway fans can look up the documentary Michael Palin did, where he visited Hemingway sites around the world. Great fun.
* I read "Catch-22," but I don't think it does get any better. His later books were worse.
* I received the Stein volume from the Library of America and found it impenetrable. Since I was able to work my way through Henry James (ugh) and Nabokov (yah!), I'm comfortable in knowing I don't have to read her anymore.
* Not that it matters to her work, but soon after the war she financed the escape of a friend who as a Vichy official helped round up and send to the concentration camps thousands of Masons. She sold some of her paintings to bribe the guards.
is this the one:
http://www.hemingways-paris.com/order.html
the thing is catch 22, wasn't even about heller's war time experiences, it was about his animus with McCarthy and the 'red scare' this is clear because of his focus on army cid, and a character named clevinger,
tell you what cannot be satirized at all:
https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/d-c-theater-fbi-lovebirds-threat/
"I read "Catch-22," but I don't think it does get any better. His later books were worse."
Yep. It gets worse and more repetitive as it goes on.
"The thing is catch 22, wasn't even about heller's war time experiences, it was about his animus with McCarthy and the 'red scare'"
According the left, every movie and novel from 1948-1964 was about Joe McCarthy.
Here's something Althouse might consider: Hemingway and Dylan are more alike than not. Both upended their contemporary artistic worlds like Jesus in the temple. Altouse commenters may scratch their heads and wonder what all the fuss was about Hemingway, as they may do so about Dylan, but, oh what a bright light he burned! Do not dismiss him lightly. Hemingway said all modern American literature came from Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Well, all post-modern American literature, good or bad, comes from Hemingway. You can only dream about doing the same in your field of work, no matter how noble your work might be.
Frankly bad I take as no pretension to goodness, or without literary pretensions. Say, genre stuff and other entertainments. I find these much more rewarding than most self-conscious attempts at literary fiction. But then I also have enjoyed the he’ll out of Elmore Leonard books, even though eventually there’s such a sameness to them that they all blend together in memory. See? Better than pretentious literary mediocrities because it doesn’t even take up much memory space.
That is what he has said in interviews, ellroy mentioned above the bad boy novelist tries the Jim Thompson swagger.
Ellroy is entertaining, including in his memoirs, even with his pretensions. He's a show off.
I read some of his shorter work and even bought the second volume of American quartet, the cool six thousand, the last one didnt imoress.
"Catch-22." I'll reread it. No book has changed my life but it definitely nudged something in my 18 y.o. one, the summer before college, in the draft pool (though in truth not in much danger from that). Heller served earlier, in the same theater in the same aircraft type that my father flew in the last six months of the war--even from the same base in Corsica.
Heller has a memoir volume in which he makes it clear (for the thick) that it is not about the war or the military, it's about humans' propensity to trap themselves in systems. He liked and admired the men he served with. So he says.
Stylistically, it's parody and pastiche . . . bits Twainian, Faulknerian, Fitzgeraldian, Hemingwayesque . . . others forgotten or unrecognized.
I used to always run into people who insisted that, "It's great, man! It's all about how fucked up the Vietnam War is!" I'd say, "Not bad for a book published in 1961."
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That was when it was widely read
Donald E. Westlake. Hilarious writer.
Narr
The late
In the story, it's the island of pianosa what was his experience in a similar cirxumstance.
is this the one: No.
This is it.
I picked up a paperback of catch 22, because they've been running the Mike Nichols film on Pluto TV. Crossing streams Heller had a very subversive take on biblical history that was interesting, also probably unfilmable
I switched the stores at 74 Rue de Cardinal Lemoine,. It was a dance hall when Hemingway lived there. It was a sawmill when I was there in 1982.
The Black Dahlia is my favorite book of the few I read, and Bucky is a very memorable character. Ellroy's memoirs were the most interesting.
John Gilmore covers territory similar to Ellroy, even more burned/drugged out, but with way more celebrity stuff.
I cant say I've read him,
Don Winslow who has become the George rr Martin of Mexican mafia has tried to grab wllroys mantle, with a soup on of tds.
I prefer the hardboiled/noir stuff when it's set in LA.
In more recent period noir there is this:
https://oneworld-publications.com/guy-bolton.html
Awful stories, beautiful weather. Awful stories in awful weather, I don't know.
The gangster squad had much gloss but too much darkness. There was a TNT series that did it better with a young William parker.
The posthumous True at First Light, published by his painfully Oedipal offspring, makes Hemingway and his wife look like rancid drunks.
What that book showed was that it wasn’t ready to be published and his son was no match for him polishing a work. Shakespeare took existing plays and made them sublime, but, as they say in Hollywood, Bill Shakespeare’s kid never made it either.
The posthumous Islands in the Stream, on the other hand, was pretty good. But it was probably much closer to ready.
"You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad."
That sounds like a rule, and, as they say, rules are for idiots and Hemingway was no idiot.
[Hemingway was] not very insightful.
He didn’t rub your nose in it, if that’s what you mean. But if you meant that literally: LOL.
I did have a prof who said you could learn more from bad writing that great writing because great writing was so good at hiding what was actually going on. Somebody mentioned The Black Dahlia above, even though the blurb said it broke all the rules, it actually followed the important rules slavishly, which made it a great read and hard to put down, but it broke no new ground as art. That’s fine for the vast majority of readers, and it’s not “frankly bad” but it’s not great art, and it is probably a good read for an aspiring writer.
narciso, if you're asking about Catch 22 and my father, not enough data to compare. My father wasn't a reader, and by the time the book was out he was gathering photos and memorabilia from his air force days for some scrapbooks, for his sons, who did not know he would die so soon.
Here's an interesting slang item: there are some b&w photos out the window of one of my father's billets, and he has labeled the peasant on his cart, a "gook." Early 60s scrapbook--was the term used in the mid-40s already, for non-Asians?
The Nichols adaptation is pretty good. Arkin is great.
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and Paula Prentiss . . . raerrrrr
Although Stein is a writer that no one reads, a couple of her sayings have made Bartlett's. "There's no there there" --that's one of hers. There are a lot of worthy writers whose books have disappeared and who have not left behind a single phrase to be remembered by. I think Yogi Berra has her beat for memorable quotes though.....SDaly, above, points out that her brother was the one with the shrewd eye for art. Well, however it came into her possesion, her art collection would probably be worth billions today....That portrait of her by Picasso will assure her lasting fame. Then some people will look her up and decide that she wasn't very nice.
I dont believe so, and he wasnt stationed anywhere in Asia was he?
How about Suzanne Benton, referred to in the book at general dreedles nurse, he wasnt lenay who was he supposed to be.
CATCH-22: a great book! I can't imagine any way a film of the book could do the book justice or could actually convey it's meaning or essence accurately, so I won't bother watching the current tv adaptation, (or go back to watch the Nichols film).
I don't know. It doesn't even make Art Garfunkel's top 170, and he starred in the film adaptation.
No Asian service, all stateside as a pilot instructor, and then to the Med 11/44 to bomb in and around Northern Italy, Yugoslavia, the Brenner Pass.
Can't recall that particular actress's face clearly.
Garfunkel isn't much of an actor, and wasn't really the star. Nately, wasn't he, the one who coped with the Big D by spending all his time with people he didn't like because it made the time go slower?
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He would have loved blogs
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