Philip S. Rader - Faulkner & Hemingway

There is a sentence in one of William Faulkner's stories that runs for thirty-five pages without a period. The story is called "The Bear," in the book of stories, Go Down Moses, which Faulkner later declared was a novel. Why are there no periods in thirty-five pages? Because he is Faulkner, some would say. He pushed himself in ways that never even occurred to other writers. Once he said, "I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing." The rules were not his concern.

In a little more than a decade, 1929 to 1942, Faulkner artistically accomplished more than most writers do in a lifetime--a man with no high school diploma, living in a small town in Mississippi, supporting a family, often on the brink of financial ruin. During the Great Depression, he wrote a series of southern novels that would one day be known as the greatest American literature of all time.

To appreciate and understand Faulkner, one should know history. A Southerner, who lived in a small town, inclined to the conventions and mores of a gentlemen, Faulkner straddled two worlds. He also sought his artistic autonomy in attacking unpopular social issues-the injustices of race, class, politics, religion, and sex. Faulkner, the historical scribe, sought continuity and linkage between the ages, and he did not spare the words or commas to do it.

Faulkner had stints as a screenwriter in 1933 and again in 1942 when his book sales were in a slump. There were failed projects in this endeavor. But during a seven-year contract at Warner Brothers, the pinnacle of his screen writing career was three film adaptations: Chandler's The Big Sleep, a collaboration with Jean Renoir on The Southerner and ironically enough, Hemingway's To Have and Have Not.

Faulkner and Hemingway butted heads in 1947 when Faulkner, in a Q&A with students at Old Miss made this candid statement about Papa. "...he has no courage, has never climbed out on a limb...has never used a word where the reader might check his usage by a dictionary." Hemingway was deeply wounded by the 'lack of courage' charge, and had a friend inform Faulkner of his heroism as a war correspondent. Faulkner eventually apologized. But it pointed out the contrast of styles in the men and their vulnerabilities, as well as in their writing.

Hemingway had his own failures, particularly when health problems and alcohol abuse took hold in his last years. Hemingway said, "When I read Faulkner I can tell exactly when he gets tired and does it on corn (whiskey) just as I could when Scott (Fitzgerald) would hit it, beginning with Tender Is the Night."

Fumes of gin and vermouth hover above the pages of Across the River and Into the Trees too, but Hemingway had already established himself as a giant of American literature.

The two men are as diverse in their styles as summer and winter. Ernest Hemingway brings us to the moment with speed. He does it as quickly as the plunge of the dirk that drops a wounded bull that can no longer fight. In contrast Faulkner gently leads, involves and seduces, and then overwhelms.

Many of us adored Hemingway before we appreciated Faulkner. Those of us who tired of endless literary pedants, how we embraced the terse sentences, the tight exchanges of Papa's dialogue! It was magnificent to strip the world to essentials, bare it down to sex, wine, and death, a la punta, with no long breaths after commas. The man could say more in six words or a metaphor of action than we could learn in an afternoon of reading an encyclopedia. His stories and novels dealt with straightforward things and ideas, with great symbolism that told of: "death riding in pairs on bicycles" or "the frozen carcass of a leopard" mysteriously appearing on top of Mount Kilamenjaro, the vultures hovering like death over the man on his cot on the Veldt, his leg rotting from septicemia, while the hyenas move restlessly around the perimeter of the camp. Even the trout lurking in the shadows of a bridge in "The Big Two-Hearted River" become omens of tragedy and death. For the most part, Hemingway deals with the tragedy of the moment or immediate past, sometimes trimmed down to a whimper, sometimes with the clash of cymbals. It is always done with stark economy.

Later, in the autumn of our reading, when an extra breath is welcomed, we read Faulkner's "The Bear," and "The Old People," and we travel into the "bottom." We are privileged to see the darkness and the mystery of the forest, the buck with the rocking-chair rack on his head, and hear the old Indian, Sam Fathers, call the buck "Uncle" in the ancient tongue. We see that brevity has to give way to continuity.

When the great bear with two toes dies with magic and dignity, symbolically representing the death of all the forests and the native lands, he dies the only decent way he can. Killed by the Indian who loves him most of all, wielding a pocket knife, his arm up to his elbow in the heart of the great bear, and we realize that the story of the world can not always be told in short sentences. The voice of Faulkner bridges the distance between white man, black man, Indian, the old, the youths, women, children and the stunning natural world of the South. It symbolizes in its entirety the terrible losses and pain that we witness as human beings admixed with the victory and endurance of mankind.

From 1925 to 1929 Hemingway produced some of the most important work in twentieth century fiction. Hemingway's aesthetic theory stated that omitting the right thing from a story could strengthen it. His analogy was that 1/8th of an iceburg could be seen above the water while the 7/8th's of it under the surface provided the dignity of motion and contributed to its momentum.

It is said that Hemingway's bluster and ego got in the way of truth in his non-fiction, and if you wanted the truth of the man, you should turn to his fiction. Hemingway had a love-hate relationship with nature. Whether the symbolic struggle with the toros de Plazas or the sharks in The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway fought a huge personal and artistic struggle using the crisp, written word.

Faulkner loved recording that all humans and animals are eternally fighting to the death, enduring the impossible to preserve what will inevitably perish in spite of the efforts.

Both men did it their way. Both blessed us with Pulitzer Prize class writing and illuminated the world as we know it with their amazing work.

Faulkner and Hemingway:
A Contrast of Styles

by

Philip Scott Rader

Faulkner and Hemingway: A Contrast of Styles

by

Philip Scott Rader

Faulkner and Hemingway:
A Contrast of Styles