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Words and Music in the Absence of the Social: Hemingway, Salinger, Fitzgerald
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Extract
I imagine, you imagine, we imagine. And they imagine. This process may not be as simple as it appears to be inviting.
Dwight MacDonald once remarked wittily upon the good and the bad of Ernest Hemingway. He commented on the grace: “The short words, the declarative sentences, the repetition, the beautiful absence of subordinate clauses … It was a kind of inspired baby talk when he was going good”:
And what if she should die? She won't die. People don't die in childbirth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought. Yes, but what if she should die? She won't die. She's just having a bad time. The initial labor is usually protracted. She's just having a bad time. The initial labor is usually protracted. She's only having a bad time. Afterwards we'd say what a bad time and Catherine would say it wasn't really so bad. But what if she should die? She can't die. Yes, but what if she should die? She can't I tell you. Don't be a fool. It's just a bad time. It's just nature giving her hell. It's only the first labor, which is almost always protracted. Yes, but what if she should die? She can't die. Why should she die? What reason is there for her to die? … But what if she should die? She won't. She's all right. But what if she should die? Hey, what about that? What if she should die?
After this passage MacDonald cites another passage from A Farewell to Arms, one that he sees as having far less meaning.
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References
NOTES
1. Macdonald, Dwight, “Ernest Hemingway,” in Against the American Grain (1952; rept. New York: Random House, 1962), 167.Google Scholar
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