September 17, 1950

Talk With Mr. Hemingway

By HARVEY BREIT

his department has gradually, over a period of seventy-five weeks or so, solidified more or less into a set of conventions. The question is asked, the answer is given; a brief physical description is arrived at; the interlocutor prods, the interlocutee replies by monologue or monosyllable; a brief, very transient sense of the object under surveillance is (it is to be supposed) attained. Let us, then, for this once depart from the conventions. For this week it is Ernest Hemingway who is introduced to the reader, and the tested means are unsuited to presenting that unorthodox, uncompromising figure.

The following opinions--some intense, some relaxed, but all profoundly true of Mr. Hemingway--are extracts from a series of exchanges between Mr. Hemingway and this reporter.

On Big Questions. Honest to God, I don't know the answers to such questions. I am embarrassed by nearly all big pictures--like big questions--except for Tintoretto's "Crucifixion of Our Lord," in Venice. From it I learned principally how to crucify, and how wonderfully the thief on the right behaved. On the right when you look at it. Actually on the left of our Lord.

On Contemporary Themes. That is a lot of deletion. The themes have always been love, lack of it, death and its occasional temporary avoidance which we describe as life, the immortality or lack of immortality of the soul, money, honor and politics. That is an oversimplification. But nobody has employed me to write 150,000 words between covers on any of these themes this morning.

On Country, Culture, Politics, Etc. The country that a novelist writes about is the country he knows; and the country that he knows is in his heart. Culture is good to have. It is like a good 1/10,000 map. But you have to make your own attack, and remember that no classic resembles another.

We work in our own time; which happens to be the worst time I've ever seen or heard about. But you can have plenty fun in it and still know how bad it is. Politics I would rather not be quoted on. All the contact I have had with it has left me feeling as though I had been drinking out of spittoons. The self-confessed patriot, the traitor and the regulator of other people's lives, beliefs, etc., and the Regimentator all run in a photo- finish. The Senate may develop the picture if they can find a photographer who can photograph a photo-finish. Otherwise they could get a seeing-eye dog. Think it might be a good idea if we could provide all our statesmen and several other characters with such dogs.

On Boxing. Anybody could hit Joe Louis who had the guts to try it. Look at the people who had him down. But he was a good getter-upper. Jack Blackburn could never teach him how not to get hit by left hands. After the first Schmeling fight he taught Louis how to avoid a right. (What you learn in kindergarten.) But Louis hit so hard and beautifully with both hands, he never learned to box.

If you fight a great left-hooker sooner or later he will knock you out your deletion. He will get the left out where you can't see it, and in it comes like a brick. Life is the greatest left-hooker so far, although many say it was Charley White of Chicago.

On Poetry. Well, I guess some of us write and some of us pitch, but so far there isn't any law a man has to go and see "The Cocktail Party," by T. S. Eliot from St. Louis, where Yogi Berra comes from. A damned good poet and a fair critic, but he would not have existed except for dear old Ezra, the lovely poet and stupid traitor.

Be a good boy and keep on writing those pieces and maybe they will let you interview the Robert Brownings and the Leigh Hunts and if ever you need relief that will be me you will see moving in from the bullpen with the sorest arm in the world.

On The Novel. Sure, they can say anything about nothing happening in "Across the River," but all that happens is the defense of the lower Piave, the breakthrough in Normandy, the taking of Paris and the destruction of the 22d Inf. Reg. in Hurtgen forest plus a man who loves a girl and dies.

Only it is all done with three-cushion shots. In the last one I had the straight narrative; Sordo on the hill for keeps; Jordan killing the cavalryman; the village; a full-scale attack presented as they go; and the unfortunate incident at the bridge.

Should I repeat myself? I don't think so. You have to repeat yourself again and again as a man but you should not do so as a writer.

In writing I have moved through arithmetic, through plane geometry and algebra, and now I am in calculus. If they don't understand that, to hell with them. I won't be sad and I will not read what they say. They say? What do they say? Let them say.

Who the hell wants fame over a week-end? All I want is to write well.

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