Gabriel Garcia Marquez Meets ErnestHemingway
By GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
The New York Times
July 26, 1981
I recognized him immediately, passingwith his wife Mary Welsh on the Boulevard St. Michel in Paris one rainy springday in 1957. He walked on the other side of the street, in the direction of theLuxembourg Gardens, wearing a very worn pair of cowboy pants, a plaid shirt anda ballplayer's cap. The only thing that didn't look as if it belonged to himwas a pair of metal-rimmed glasses, tiny and round, which gave him a prematuregrandfatherly air. He had turned 59, and he was large and almost toovisible,but he didn't give the impression of brutal strength that heundoubtedly wished to, because his hips were narrow and his legs looked alittle emaciated above his coarse lumberjack shoes. He looked so alive amid thesecondhand bookstalls and the youthful torrent from the Sorbonne that it wasimpossible to imagine he had but four years left to live.
For a fraction of a second, as alwaysseemed to be the case, I found myself divided between my two competing roles. Ididn't know whether to ask him for an interview or cross the avenue to expressmy unqualified admiration for him. But with either proposition, I faced thesame great inconvenience. At the time, I spoke the same rudimentary Englishthat I still speak now, and I wasn't very sure about his bullfighter's Spanish.And so I didn't do either of the things that could have spoiled that moment,but instead cupped both hands over my mouth and, like Tarzan in the jungle,yelled from one sidewalk to the other: ''Maaaeeestro!'' Ernest Hemingwayunderstood that there could be no other master amid the multitude of students,and he turned, raised his hand and shouted to me in Castillian in a verychildish voice, ''Adiooos, amigo!'' It was the only time I saw him.
At the time, I was a 28-year-oldnewspaperman with a published novel and a literary prize in Colombia, but I wasadrift and without direction in Paris. My great masters were the two NorthAmerican novelists who seemed to have the least in common. I had readeverything they had published until then, but not as complementary reading -rather, just the opposite, as two distinct and almost mutually exclusive formsof conceiving of literature. One of them was William Faulkner, whom I had neverlaid eyes on and whom I could only imagine as the farmer in shirtsleevesscratching his arm beside two little white dogs in the celebrated portrait ofhim taken by Cartier-Bresson. The other was the ephemeral man who had just saidgoodbye to me from across the street, leaving me with the impression thatsomething had happened in my life, and had happened for all time.
I don't know who said that novelistsread the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believeit's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of thepage: we turn the book around to find the seams. In a way that's impossible toexplain, we break the book down to its essential parts and then put it backtogether after we understand the mysteries of its personal clockwork. Theeffort is disheartening in Faulkner's books, because he doesn't seem to have anorganic system of writing, but instead walks blindly through his biblicaluniverse, like a herd of goats loosed in a shop full of crystal. Managing todismantle a page of his, one has the impression of springs and screws left over,that it's impossible to put back together in its original state. Hemingway, bycontrast, with less inspiration, with less passion and less craziness but witha splendid severity, left the screws fully exposed, as they are on freightcars. Maybe for that reason Faulkner is a writer who has had much to do with mysoul, but Hemingway is the one who had the most to do with my craft - notsimply for his books, but for his astounding knowledge of the aspect ofcraftsmanship in the science of writing. In his historic interview with GeorgePlimpton in The Paris Review, (Hemingway) showed for all time - contrary to theRomantic notion of creativity -that economic comfort and good health areconducive to writing; that one of the chief difficulties is arranging the wordswell; that when writing becomes hard it is good to reread one's own books, inorder to remember that it always was hard; that one can write anywhere so longas there are no visitors and no telephone; and that it is not true thatjournalism finishes off a writer, as has so often been said - rather, just theopposite, so long as one leaves it behind soon enough. ''Once writing hasbecome the principal vice and the greatest pleasure,'' he said, ''only deathcan put an end to it.'' Finally, his lesson was the discovery that each day'swork should only be interrupted when one knows where to begin again the nextday. I don't think that any more useful advice has ever been given aboutwriting. It is, no more and no less, the absolute remedy for the most terriblespecter of writers: the morning agony of facing the blank page.
All of Hemingway's work shows that hisspirit was brilliant but short-lived. And it is understandable. An internaltension like his, subjected to such a severe dominance of technique, can't besustained within the vast and hazardous reaches of a novel. It was his nature,and his error was to try to exceed his own splendid limits. And that is whyeverything superfluous is more noticeable in him than in other writers. Hisnovels are like short stories that are out of proportion, that include toomuch. In contrast, the best thing about his stories is that they give theimpression something is missing, and this is precisely what confers theirmystery and their beauty. Jorge Luis Borges, who is one of the great writers ofour time, has the same limits, but has had the sense not to try to surpassthem.
Francis Macomber's single shot at thelion demonstrates a great deal as a lesson in hunting, but also as a summationof the science of writing. In one of his stories, Hemingway wrote that a bullfrom Liria, after brushing past the chest of the matador, returned like ''a catturning a corner.'' I believe, in all humility, that that observation is one ofthose inspired bits of foolishness which come only from the most magnificentwriters. Hemingway's work is full of such simple and dazzling discoveries,which reveal the point at which he adjusted his definition of literary writing:that, like an iceberg, it is only well grounded if it is supported below byseveneighths of its volume.
That consciousness of technique isunquestionably the reason Hemingway won't achieve glory with his novels, butwill with his more disciplined short stories. Talking of ''For Whom the BellTolls,'' he said that he had no preconceived plan for constructing the book,but rather invented it each day as he went along. He didn't have to say it:it's obvious. In contrast, his instantaneously inspired short stories areunassailable. Like the three he wrote one May afternoon in a Madrid pension,when a snowstorm forced the cancellation of a bullfight at the feast of SanIsidro. Those stories, as he himself told George Plimpton, were ''TheKillers,'' ''Ten Indians'' and ''Today Is Friday,'' and all three aremagisterial. Along those lines, for my taste, the story in which his powers aremost compressed is one of his shortest ones, ''Cat in the Rain.''
Nevertheless, even if it appears to be amockery of his own fate, it seems to me that his most charming and human workis his least successful one: ''Across the River and Into the Trees.'' It is, ashe himself revealed, something that began as a story and went astray into themangrove jungle of a novel. It is hard to understand so many structural cracksand so many errors of literary mechanics in such a wise technician - anddialogue so artificial, even contrived, in one of the most brilliant goldsmithsin the history of letters. When the book was published in 1950, the criticismwas fierce but misguided. Hemingway felt wounded where he hurt most, and hedefended himself from Havana, sending a passionate telegram that seemedundignified for an author of his stature. Not only was it his best novel, itwas also his most personal, for he had written it at the dawn of an uncertainautumn, with nostalgia for the irretrievable years already lived and a poignantpremonition of the few years he had left to live. In none of his books did heleave much of himself, nor did he find - with all the beauty and all thetenderness - a way to give form to the essential sentiment of his work and hislife: the uselessness of victory. The death of his protagonist, ostensibly sopeaceful and natural, was the disguised prefiguration of his own suicide.
When one lives for so long with awriter's work, and with such intensity and affection, one is left without a wayof separating fiction from reality. I have spent many hours of many daysreading in that cafe in the Place St. Michel that he considered good forwriting because it seemed pleasant, warm, clean and friendly, and I have alwayshoped to find once again the girl he saw enter one wild, cold, blowing day, agirl who was very pretty and fresh-looking, with her hair cut diagonally acrossher face like a crow's wing. ''You belong to me and Paris belongs to me,'' hewrote for her, with that relentless power of appropriation that his writinghad. Everything he described, every instant that was his, belongs to himforever. I can't pass by No. 12 Rue de l'Odeon in Paris without seeing him inconversation with Sylvia Beach, in a bookstore that is now no longer the same,killing time until e six in the evening, when James Joyce might happen to dropby. On the Kenya prairie, seeing them only once, he became the owner of hisbuffaloes and his lions, and of the most intimate secrets of hunting. He becamethe owner of bullfighters and prizefighters, of artists and gunmen who existedonly for an instant while they became his. Italy, Spain, Cuba - half the worldis filled with the places that he appropriated simply by mentioning them. InCojimar, a little village near Havana where the solitary fisherman of ''The OldMan and the Sea'' lived, there is a plaque commemorating his heroic exploits,with a gilded bust of Hemingway. In Finca de la Vigia, his Cuban refuge, wherehe lived until shortly before his death, the house remains intact amid theshady trees, with his diverse collection of books, his hunting trophies, hiswriting lectern, his enormous dead man's shoes, the countless trinkets of lifefrom all over the world that were his until his death, and that go on livingwithout him, with the soul he gave them by the mere magic of his owning them.
Some years ago, I got into the car ofFidel Castro - who is a tenacious reader of literature -and on the seat I saw asmall book bound in red leather. ''It's my master Hemingway,'' Fidel Castrotold me. Really, Hemingway continues to be where one least expects to find him-20 years after his death - as enduring yet ephemeral as on that morning,perhaps in May, when he said ''Goodbye, amigo'' from across the Boulevard St.Michel.
Gabriel GarciaMarquez is the author of ''One Hundred Years of Solitude,'' ''The Autumn of thePatriarch'' and other novels. This article was translated by Randolph Hogan ofThe Times cultural news staff.
我一眼就把他認出來了，那是1957年巴黎一個春雨的日子，他和妻子瑪麗·威爾許經過聖米榭勒大道。他在對街往盧森堡公園的方向走，穿著破舊的牛仔褲、格子襯衫，戴一頂棒球帽。惟一看起來跟他不搭調的是一副小圓金屬框眼鏡，彷彿很年輕就當上祖父似的。他已經59歲了，體格壯碩，想不看見都不行，他無疑想表現出粗獷的味道，可惜沒有給人這種感覺，他的臀部很窄，粗糙的伐木靴上方是一雙略顯瘦削的腿。在舊書攤和索邦大學出來的大批學子當中，他顯得生氣蓬勃，想不到四年後他就去世了。
好像總是這樣，在一剎那間，我發現自己被分成了兩個角色，而且在相互競爭。我不知道該上前去請他接受訪問，還是過街去向他表達我對他無限的景仰。但不管怎麼做對我來說都很不容易。當時我和現在一樣，說得一口幼稚園英語，也不清楚他的鬥牛士西班牙語說得怎麼樣。為了不要破壞這一刻，我兩樣都沒做，只像人猿泰山那樣用雙手圈在嘴巴外面，向對街的人行道大喊：“大——大——大師！”海明威明白在眾多學生中不會有第二個大師，就轉過頭來，舉起手用卡斯蒂亞語像小孩子似地對我大叫：“再見，朋友！”以後我再也沒見過他。
當時我28歲，是報社從業人員，在哥倫比亞出版過一本小說，得了一個文學獎，可是仍在巴黎漫無目的地飄蕩著。我景仰的大師是兩位極為不同的北美洲小說家。當年他們的作品只要出版過的我一律沒放過，但我不是把他們當作互補性的讀物，而是兩種南轅北轍截然不同的文學創作形式。一位是威廉·福克納，我一直無緣見到他，只能想像他是卡爾迪埃·布勒松拍的那張著名肖像中的模樣，在兩隻白狗旁邊，穿著襯衫在手臂上抓癢的農夫。另一位就是在對街和我說再見，立刻又消失在人群中的人，留給我一種感覺，曾經有什麼已經出現在我的生命裡，而且從來沒有消失過。
不知道是誰說過，小說家讀其他人的小說，只是為了揣摩人家是怎麼寫的。我相信此言不假。我們不滿意書頁上暴露出來的秘訣：甚至把書翻過來檢查它的接縫。不知道為什麼，我們把書拆到不能再拆，直到我們瞭解作者個人的寫作模式，再裝回去。但這樣分析福克納的小說，就未免令人氣餒，他似乎沒有一個有機的寫作模式，反而是在他的聖經世界裡瞎闖，彷彿在一個擺滿水晶的店裡放開一群山羊。分解他的作品，感覺就像一堆剩下的彈簧和螺絲，根本不可能再組合成原來的樣子。對比之下，海明威雖然比不上福克納的發人深省、熱情和瘋狂，卻嚴謹過人，零件就像貨車的螺絲一樣看得清清楚楚。也許就因為這樣，福克納啟發了我的靈魂，海明威卻是對我的寫作技巧影響最大的人——不僅是他的著作，還有他對寫作方法與技巧的驚人知識。
《巴黎評論》登的那篇他和喬治·普林頓歷史性的訪談中，他揭示了一套和浪漫時期創作理念相反的說法：經濟的不虞匱乏和健康的身體對寫作有幫助；最大難題就是把文字配置妥當；當你覺得下筆不如過去容易，應該重讀自己的作品，好記起寫作從來不是一件容易的事；只要沒有訪客和電話，哪裡都可以寫作；常有人說新聞會扼殺一個作家，其實正好相反，只要能趕快把新聞那一套丟開，倒可以成就一個作家。他說：“一旦寫作上了癮，成為最大的樂趣，不到死的那天是不會停筆的。”最後他的經驗發現，除非知道第二天要從哪裡接下去，否則不能中斷每天的工作。我認為這是對寫作最有用的忠告。作家最可怕的夢魘就是早上面對空白稿紙的痛苦，他這番話無異於一貼萬靈丹。
海明威的作品全都顯現了他如曇花一現般燦爛的精神。這是可以理解的。他對技巧那種嚴格的掌控所建構出的內在張力，在長篇小說廣泛而冒險的範圍中無法維繫下去。這是他出類拔萃的特質，也是他不該企圖逾越的侷限。就因為如此，海明威的余文贅語比其他作家的更顯眼，他的小說就像是寫過了頭，比例不相稱的短篇小說。對比之下，他的短篇小說最大的優點就是讓你覺得少了什麼，這也正是其神秘優美之所在。當代大作家博爾赫斯也有同樣的侷限，但他懂得不要貿然逾越。
弗朗西斯·麥康伯一槍射死獅子，可以說給讀者上了一堂打獵課，但也正是寫作方法的總結。海明威在一篇短篇小說中描寫一頭來自裡瑞亞的公牛，從頭牛士胸前擦過，又像“轉角的貓”似地快速跑回來。容我斗膽一言，我相信這樣的觀察，就是那種最偉大的作家才會冒出來的傻氣小靈感。海明威的作品充滿了這種簡單而令人目眩的發現，顯示此時他已經調整了他對文學寫作的定義：文學創作猶如冰山，有八分之七的體積在下面支撐，才會紮實。
對技巧的自覺無疑是海明威無法以長篇小說著稱，而以較工整的短篇小說揚名立萬的理由。談到《喪鐘為誰而鳴》，他說並沒預先計劃好故事架構，而是每天邊寫邊想。這用不著他說，看也看得出來。對比之下，他那些即興創作的短篇小說卻無懈可擊。就像某個5月天因為暴風雪，使得聖伊西德羅慶典的鬥牛表演被迫取消，那天下午他在馬德里的自助式公寓寫了三個短篇小說，據他自己跟喬治·普林頓說，這三篇分別是《殺人者》、《十個印第安人》和《今天是星期五》，全都非常嚴謹。照這樣說來，我個人覺得他的功力最施展不開的作品是短篇小說《雨中的貓》。
雖然這對他的命運似乎是一大嘲諷，我倒覺得他最迷人最人性的作品就是他最不成功的長篇小說：《過河入林》。就像他本人透露的，這原本是一篇短篇小說，不料誤打誤撞成了長篇小說，很難理解以他如此卓越的技巧，會出現這麼多結構上的缺失和方法上的錯誤，極不自然，甚至矯揉造作的對話，竟然出自文學史上的巨匠之一。此書在1950年出版，遭到嚴厲批評，但這些書評是錯誤的。海明威深感傷痛，從哈瓦那發了一封措詞激烈的電報來為自己辯護，像他這種地位的作家，這麼做似乎有損顏面。這不只是他最好的作品，也是最具個人色彩的長篇小說。他在某一秋天的黎明寫下此書，對過往那些一去不回的歲月帶著強烈的懷念，也強烈地預感到自己沒幾年好活了。他過去的作品儘管美麗而溫柔，卻沒有注入多少個人色彩，或清晰傳達他作品和人生最根本的情懷：勝利之無用。書中主角的死亡表面上平靜而自然，其實變相預示了海明威後來以自殺終結自己的一生。
長年閱讀一位作家的作品，對他又如此熱愛，會讓人分不清小說和現實。曾有許多日子，我在聖米榭勒廣場的咖啡廳看上老久的書，覺得這裡愉快、溫暖、友善、適合寫作，我總希望能再度發現那個漂亮清新，頭髮像烏鴉翅膀一樣斜過臉龐的女孩，海明威用文筆中的那種無情的佔有力量，為她寫道：“你屬於我，巴黎屬於我。”他所描寫的一切，他曾擁有的每一刻都永遠屬於他。每回經過歐德翁大道12號，就會看到他和西爾維亞·畢奇在一家現在早就變了樣的書店聊天消磨時間，直到傍晚6點，詹姆斯·喬伊斯可能正好經過。在肯亞平原，才看了一次，那些水牛和獅子還有最秘密的打獵秘訣就歸他所有了，鬥牛士、拳擊手、藝術家和槍手，一出現就納入他的麾下。意大利、西班牙、古巴，大半個地球的地方，只要提過，就給他侵佔了。哈瓦那附近的小村子寇吉馬是《老人與海》那個孤獨漁夫的家，村裡有塊紀念老漁夫英勇事蹟的匾額，伴隨著海明威的箔金半身像。費加德拉維吉亞是海明威在古巴的避難所，他死前沒多久還在那兒住過，陰涼樹下的房子還保持原狀，裡面有他各式各樣的藏書、打獵的戰利品、寫作臺、他巨大的肖像剪影，還有他周遊列國收集來的小飾品，這些都是屬於他的，但凡曾被他擁有的，就讓他賦予了靈魂，在他死後，帶著這種靈魂，單獨活在世上。
幾年前，我有緣坐上了卡斯特羅的車，他是一個孜孜不倦的文學讀者，我在座位上看到一本紅皮小書。卡斯特羅告訴我：“這是我景仰的大師海明威。”真的，海明威在死後20年依然在最令人意想不到的地方出現，就像那個早晨一樣永恆不滅然而又曇花一現，那應該是個5月天，他隔著聖米榭勒大道對我說：“再見，朋友。”
馬爾克斯1981年7月26日發表於《紐約時報書評》的文章
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