Ernest Hemingway
In your letter to your editor, Maxwell Perkins, dated November 19, 1926 You write about some of your short stories. You speak to the fact that what you are paid for articles is all over the place. You mention a story for The New Republic that was 1200 words in length and for which you were paid $50.
Hem, your honesty in your writing and your pursuit of what is, rather than what we wish was, leaves you, at times, at a disadvantage. You speak to the fact that, “The Sun Also Rises could have been and should have been a better book.” Regarding The Sun Also Rises, you write of this literary work, “I figure it is better to write about what you can write about and try and make it come off than have epoch making canvasses etc.”
I really admire that about you, Ernest: being accepted or lauded takes a back seat to what you feel contributes to the quality of your work. It’s easy to understand why you were usually battling with editors over your writing as the demands of perceived marketability came up against your creative freedom to write your truth as you saw it.
There is so much that you are continuing to learn as you wrestle with your prose, “Also have discovered that most people don’t think in words - as they do in everybody’s writing now - and so in the Sun Also Rises the critics miss their interior monologues and aren’t happy - or disappointed. I cut out 40,000 words of the stuff that would have made them happy out of the first Mss - it would have made them happy but it would have rung as false 10 years from now as Broomfield.”
Even as The Sun Also Rises is gaining traction you are busy writing short stories about WWI. I see you’ve sent off In Another Country, Now I Lay Me, and A Simple Enquiry. It’s such a blessing to have Max Perkins working for you, stateside, in getting your stories out to publications as well as publishing your short stories in Scribner’s own Scribner’s Magazine. I love your line from In Another Country, that was in the original manuscript but was edited for publication, “The girls at the Cova were very patriotic, and I found that the most patriotic people in Italy were the whores - and I believe they still are patriotic.”
Your stories are now getting picked up by such noteworthy publications as The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. In many ways, Hem, you have arrived. It’s unfortunate that other aspects of your life will hold you back from being able to embrace and own that feeling. You write to F. Scott Fitzgerald on December 1, 1926, “As for personal life of the noted noteby who, author, Hadley is divorcing me. Have turned over to her all existing finances and all received for British rights.Have been eating one meal a day and if I get tired enough sleeping - working like hell lately - find starting life poorer than any time since I was 14 with an earning capacity of what stories I sell to Scribners very interesting. I suppose everybody’s life goes to hell and anyway have been very healthy and, lately, able to use the head again.”
I fear, dear Hem, that this challenge for you of “being able to use the head” may be something that will continue to dog you throughout the rest of your life. Living fast and hard has its price.
Despite the struggles and challenges, I sense that you feel that your capacity to be published and read is growing and that confidence has allowed you to be OK with having to tighten your belt in order to pursue your heart's desire. I’m wondering how you will balance everything. Time will tell.
I’m looking forward to reading more about your literary connections and how they evolve even as your writing does.
Warm Regards,
Betsy McDowell
