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In all the major books risks are taken; life is staked on a
hazard, with skill and luck delicately balanced; death is always imminent. In the
face of death the question of bravery or cowardice becomes important. Interwoven
with this are the problems of loyalty or treachery to a country, a cause, or the
person himself. The essential loneliness of the individual and the search for
fulfillment are revealed. The relationships between man and man, man and woman,
man and the creatures he hunts create conflicts. In an essentially tragic struggle
Hemingway shows his characters meeting challenges, disappointment, and
disillusionment, some going to pieces and others accepting and coming to terms
with their limitations and their lot.
In handling his material, Hemingway has set for himself standards and
restrictions. He writes only of what he knows well and what interests him, since he
believes that only in this way can writing carry conviction. As a craftsman he
values skill, and he makes it his business to know and explain how things are done.
His readers learn much about methods of hunting, fishing, and bullfighting; about
the ways of animals and fish; about the care and handling of equipment; and about
strategy in war. All these involve action, discipline, and a strong element of ritual;
they are activities that have engaged man's attention throughout the ages.
The central figures of Hemingway's novels have been men of action, not given
to discussions of politics, philosophy, or art. The lives and speech of some of his
characters have offended readers who think that in them there is an emphasis on
the primitive in man. It is the writer's privilege, however, to choose his subjects,
and Hemingway's treatment of character is for him a matter of principle:
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not
characters. A character is a caricature. If a writer can make people live there
may be no great characters in his book, but it is possible that his book will
remain as a whole; as an entity; as a novel... People in a novel, not skillfully
constructed characters, must be projected from the writer's assimilated
experience, from his knowledge, from his head, from his heart and from all there
is of him. If he ever has luck as well as seriousness and gets them out entire they
will have more than one dimension and they will last a long time (Death in the
Afternoon, p. 191).
In his task of creating real people, Hemingway's famous dialogue is an effective
device. It is presented in a form as close to the dramatic as possible, with a minimum
of explanatory comment. In The Old Man and the Sea, for example, such
interpolations as "he said" have frequently been omitted; thus the speech comes to the
reader as if he were listening. No writer has captured the immediacy of dialogue more
skillfully or has made economical speech imply more. Hemingway has suggested the
limited speech of inarticulate people almost to the point of parody at times. With other
characters he has shown how speech changes subtly, from the rough and profane to
the tender and gracious, according to the situation.
Though most of Hemingway's people are limited talkers, they are given to
reflection, to memories, and to dreams. Careful reading of these passages reveals their
inner lives. Some critics who think that Hemingway overemphasizes physical detail in
his treatment of love, suffering, and death have accused him of making almost a cult
of toughness. Thus, they say, only certain aspects of the person are revealed; physical
prowess, primitive urges, and speech spattered with oaths seem to be the test of
manliness. Actually, Hemingway's men, inarticulate in company, often reveal
themselves to be surprisingly sensitive in their inner monologues, in recurring dreams,
and in cherished memories. These frequently come close to poetry in their
undercurrent of emotion and in their imaginative precision of language. Sometimes
this inner life seems to focus on symbols-----a mountain peak, a river, or a noble
animal. By these, a very rough or simple man will be deeply moved. Indeed, the more
closely the reader watches, the less rough and simple the people appear. To use a
favorite Hemingway comparison, they are like icebergs, with the weight under the
surface. The old fisherman, Santiago, in The Old Man and the Sea lives as much in
the world of his mind as in the life of action. His reflections and dreams are as
necessary for the understanding of his character as are his preparations of bait, line,
and hooks. In such passages, Hemingway the realist is balanced by Hemingway the
poet.
In all the stories the sense of place, as Hemingway calls it, is important. The
feeling of the main characters for the region in which a story is set or for a place loved
or hated is a clue to their personalities. Landscape or seascape is almost an actor, so
much alive that it sets the mood and provokes a response. Hemingway treats
certain regions with particular affection, the mountains and the drift of the Gulf
Stream, for example. There the characters breathe more freely; in the valleys or
swamps there is a feeling of brooding depression. The description of place is
handled with great care and with the artist's perceptiveness. Sometimes the reader
is made to see contours and landmarks as if he were a gunner appraising a target;
at other times the treatment is suggestive, a series of swift impressions rather than
a complete picture. For this effect Hemingway uses the technique of the
impressionist painters whom he admires— patches of color and light, suggestions
of shape and form that create an atmosphere. Descriptions of place thus add another
dimension to the story.
Each of Hemingway's books has been an experiment. In the speech written to
acknowledge the Nobel prize, Hemingway said, "For a true writer, each book
should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond
attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that
others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed"
(Hemingway: The Writer as Artist, by Carlos Baker, p. 293). In his stories he has
shown young men faced too soon with the prospect of violent death; disillusioned
men, young and middle-aged; men with a tough capacity to take life's blows and
endure; men who evade issues with cheap tricks; men crude and brutal in speech;
and men whose speech is full of quiet dignity. Some readers have complained that
Hemingway's books are immoral, lacking in respect for human values.
Hemingway is not a moralist; he does not preach. Yet certain values become
apparent. It is clear that he admires strength of will as well as of body, courage,
steadfastness, endurance, hard work, simplicity, and skill. He values love, dignity,
self-respect, beauty, nobility, and humility. Not everyone will like his
interpretation of these, but as Hemingway would say, the remedy is simple: no one
need read the books that he dislikes.
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
In The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway presents old age facing life and
death with courage, hope, and wisdom. For all its apparent simplicity it is a work
of consummate art. It was after its publication that Hemingway was awarded the
Nobel prize. It suggests a short story rather than a novel in its limited number of
characters, the economy of treatment, and the unity of its effect. In its emotion, the
rhythm of its expression, its capturing of mood, and its perceptiveness, it is a prose
poem, reminiscent of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. "
Though the book was not published until 1952, the germ or seed of the story was
in Hemingway's mind at least fifteen years earlier. "The book is fiction based on many
actual occurrences," he has said. Among these occurrences may be his own
experiences fishing for marlin in Caribbean waters. He acquired a reputation for
bringing his fish in quickly before sharks had time to damage them, but Life magazine
(September 22, 1952) published a photograph that showed him with a marlin partially
destroyed by sharks. The nucleus of the old man's experience is recorded in an article
by Hemingway in Esquire (April, 1936) and reprinted by Carlos Baker in his study of
Hemingway:
An old man fishing alone in a skiff out of Cabanas hooked a great marlin that,
on the heavy sash-cord handline, pulled the skiff far out to sea. Two days later the
old man was picked up by fishermen 60 miles to the eastward, the head and the
forward part of the marlin lashed alongside. What was left of the fish, less than
half, weighed 800 pounds. 'The old man had stayed with him a day, a night, a day
and another night while the fish swam deep and pulled the boat. When he had
come up the old man had pulled the boat up on him and harpooned him. Lashed
alongside the sharks had hit him and the old man had fought them out alone in the
Gulf Stream in a skiff, clubbing them, stabbing at them, lunging at them with an
oar until he was exhausted and the sharks had eaten all they could hold. He was
crying in the boat when the fishermen picked him up, half crazy from his loss,
and the sharks were still circling the boat (p. 294).
Baker comments that as early as 1939 Hemingway wanted to write the story of
the old fisherman. Baker adds that originally this episode was intended to form a part
of a longer novel, perhaps one that Hemingway spoke of as having for subject the
land, the sea, and the air. In itself, however, The Old Man and the Sea is complete.
The creating of the story from the one-paragraph account in the magazine reveals
many facets of the novelist's integrating art. The paragraph tells the story flatly, giving
all the events equal importance. In the novel there must be what Hemingway calls
architecture: the characters must be involved in a situation that leads through conflict
to a climax of some sort. People must be presented, by a statement of simple facts or
in depth, by probing or revealing. Certain aspects of character or incident will be
emphasized to suit the writer's purpose. None of this must be too obvious.
Hemingway has said, "I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a
real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would
mean many things" (Time magazine, December 13, 1954, p. 72).
The old man's search for his fish, his success, and his loss incorporate many of
Hemingway's favorite ingredients. There is a feat requiring physical strength, skill,
experience, courage, and endurance. Santiago has the qualities that Hemingway
has admired in the best of his men of action. Like them, Santiago is proud, but old
age has mellowed him. He has learned that humility can exist side by side with
true pride. Though failure is bitter, he faces it and accepts its pain, as he has
accepted loneliness. Beyond the suffering and disappointment, the old man sees
hope, "Hope is the duty of man. " In this endurance and hope there is dignity, a
combination of strength and gentleness. In Santiago, Hemingway seems to say, we
see what good old age is like, wise and seasoned, with an indestructible core.
All good novels do more than tell a story. As we watch characters responding
to situations, we have an increasing awareness of life itself. Other dimensions are
added to The Old Man and the Sea by the treatment of the old man's relationships
with the boy, with the sea, with the creatures of the sea, and with himself. In the
construction of the story the old man is seen with the boy at the beginning and at
the end. For the rest of the time he is alone with the sea and its creatures. The very
moving relationship between Santiago and the boy is shown through conversation
that is distinguished by its tact and courtesy. The old man makes the boy feel
mature and responsible. The boy, in turn, is protector as well as pupil, providing
refreshment, companionship, and hope. In a sense, the child is the father of the
man. Without him, however, Santiago is not achingly lonely. Like so many of
Hemingway's men, he finds his mind good company. He relives his experiences
and thinks about the sea, the creatures that travel under it and over it, the successes
and failures of his life, and those baseball players with whose lives he feels an
affinity.
The sea of the story lies out beyond Havana, Cuba. It is vast, majestic, and
timeless, calm for much of the year, feeling the benign influences of the trade
winds and the Gulf Stream. The old man loves its beauty, power, and mystery.
"He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish
when they love her" (p. 21 of the text). Hemingway has testified to his own feeling
about the timelessness and majesty of the Gulf Stream in a passage in Green Hills
of Africa (pp. 148—150). The old man shares the writer's conviction that the things
a man alone with the Gulf Stream finds out about it and about those, that have
always lived in it are permanent and of value.
On this timeless stream the old man spends most of his waking hours. He says,
"It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers" (p. 65). For him most of
the creatures of the sea are brothers; to kill them is justifiable if there is need or if
there has been a fair contest; “…they are not as intelligent as we who kill them;
although they are more noble and more able" (p. 53). This romantic attitude
toward animals is found again and again in Hemingway's writing. There is often
the suggestion that men who hunt noble beasts are turning away from a complex
and corrupt civilization to contact with nobler creatures. Often the beasts seem
nobler than the men. For the old fisherman, this oversimplification seems fitting; it
is the result of his experience. Elsewhere it is Hemingway's form of mysticism, an
attitude like that found in the great cave drawings of splendid animals.
The killing of noble creatures should be done skillfully and cleanly; otherwise,
there is a form of treachery. This feeling is shared by Santiago and all
Hemingway's skilled hunters and fighters. The question of treachery and the
debate about killing and whether or not it is a sin run through Hemingway's books.
There are treacherous men and creatures, treacherous not only toward others but in
the fundamental betrayal of themselves. Often the traitors are beautiful, like the
man-of-war jellyfish with its poisonous sting or the bullfighter who, with slick
grace and theatrical flourishes, cheats while evading danger. Sometimes they are
ugly, like the shark, the squid, or Pablo in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Clean destruction carried out with concentration, skill, and energy does not
usually involve treachery or break the relationship between man and animal or
even man and man. But there may be treachery even in a clean killing if a man
tackles something too far above or beyond him. The old man keeps returning to
the question of sin in killing the noble marlin of the great deep. "I went too far
out," he says repeatedly. Perhaps there is a suggestion here of what the Greeks
called hubris, presumptuous man violating the great mysteries of nature, as
Prometheus did when he snatched fire from the heavens and was punished by the
gods. Coleridge makes use of the idea when his Ancient Mariner kills the albatross,
and the Canadian poet E. J. Pratt in The Titanic points out the presumption of the
builders of the ocean liner in defying the power of the sea.
Whatever the interpretation, Hemingway's treatment of the sea and of the
great fish adds scope to the story. It is almost an allegory on the life of man.
Carlos Baker has called attention to the marks on the old man's hands and to the
posture of a crucified figure as he lies on his bed after his experience. "No good book
has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stack in,"
Hemingway has said, but he points out that a tale truly told can mean many things
(Time, December, 13, 1954, p. 72). It is interesting to note that, as the Ancient Mariner
found release from his agony in telling his story, the old man is soothed by his
conversation with the boy. In the last sentence of the book he returns to his dream of the
lions.
The style of The Old Man and the Sea, so simple on the surface, is subtle and
beautiful. It has the economy of poetry, with every detail contributing to the effect. In
this prose there is a rhythmic quality, created by the strong undercurrent of emotion,
by repetitions in the ritual of the old man's life, and by the refrains in dialogue,
dreams, and memories. Sentences and language give the effect of clean simplicity that
is suitable for the old man. Obviously this is necessary when he speaks, but
Hemingway has seen to it that the narrative passages make no abrupt break to remind
the reader of another presence. Even in the descriptive passages the old man's point of
view is maintained. Words are used with skill. The old man's Spanish is suggested by
occasional words in that language and by the order and cadence of the sentences.
Technical words for the implements of the fisherman's trade give an added touch of
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realism, and the point of view of the experienced fisherman is maintained in the
references to wind and weather, birds and fish.
In the architecture of this short novel there are thus many evidences of careful
craftsmanship. Perhaps the best test of the writer's skill is the reader's acceptance of
these as natural. In unity of design, character-drawing, knowledge, and style lies the
artistry of the book.
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The Old Man And the Sea
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