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"I 've seen every sunrise in my life, " he (Heimingway) said. "I rise at first light, and I start by reading and editing everything I have written to the print where I left off. That way I go through a book several hundred times in manuscript and worked it over thirty times in prof, trying to get it right."
For Qin and Beth who decide to focus on Hemingway's writing style, I think it's an interesting point to address. I used to think masters, like Hemingway and Shakespeare, are born to be writers. They have the entire story in their minds. Writing is merely a physical process dumping the words on papers. However, Hemingway develops his style through hundreds times of editing. Style is not something we are born to have. It gets mature through our practices.
Ernest Hemingway was an original man. No one else's word was good enough. He had to taste, smell, see, hear for himself. And what he saw and heard and experienced he wrote about in a way that made a reader feel himself a part of it.
When we read Heimingway, we sometimes feel that it all happened, happend in front of us. We rarely think about how Hemingway does it. I think A . E. Hotchner, a friend of HEmingway gives us the answer here. Hemingway plays a role of his reader's eye. He was the one standing by the danger, the excitement, the happiness and the sadness. He conveyed his feelings precisely to the readers.
Posted by Jane Qi on 3/3/04; 2:16:53 PM
from the dept.
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