Reviews for Ernest Hemingway on Writing

The average rating for Ernest Hemingway on Writing based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-27 00:00:00 John Breaker Everyone who writes would do well to read this short volume and understand the methods by which Hemingway achieves power, clarity and the trademark rough lyrical beauty of his work. He projected his entire being into his work by seeking simply to write one true sentence after another. If the writing didn't click, then he would re-read and edit after the sentence at which the writing ceased to be true. He was the master of monosyllabic words opting always for clarity and superior realism based upon first-hand experience. He totally immersed himself in living and was highly critical of authors of his day who were academic rather than more existential in their approach. That is, he believed in living life fully and then reporting on the direct experience of his total, passionate immersion in life. He engaged in active, physical pursuits and travelled worldwide in search of vibrant experience that he could translate into compelling narratives. It's intriguing to read his evolution as a writer in his letters like this one in 1927 to Maxwell Perkins: "My own experience with the literary life has not as yet included receiving royalties - but I hope by keeping down advances to some day have this take place." He is always pithy and scant of syntax and believed in ruthless editing sometimes by tossing out tens of thousands of words at a time. "The secret is that it is poetry written into prose and it is the hardest of all things to do." I especially like his letters to F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The good parts of a book may be only something the writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may the wreck of his whole damn life -- and one is as good as the other." He has great respect for Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Faulkner, e.e. cummings, Mann, Fielding, Twain, Turgenev and Dostoyevsky and of the last he wrote: "Dostoyevsky was was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged." His best advice is to write about what you know. He advises always to finish writing when it is going well, to leave writing for the day at a high point and refresh the well so you'll be eager to pick up the writing tomorrow. He claimed that all American writing comes from "Huckleberry Finn." If you love to write, then I encourage you to read this profound and pithy little book by Hemingway on writing.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-23 00:00:00 Arthur Silver A glimpse into the psyche and mental preparation of a writer, and not any writer, but Hemingway himself. Beautiful segments and quotations that make you think about writing, the process, why writers read, etc