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.
我一眼就把他认出来了，那是1957年巴黎一个春雨的日子，他和妻子玛丽·威尔许经过圣米榭勒大道。他在对街往卢森堡公园的方向走，穿着破旧的牛仔裤、格子衬衫，戴一顶棒球帽。惟一看起来跟他不搭调的是一副小圆金属框眼镜，仿佛很年轻就当上祖父似的。他已经59岁了，体格壮硕，想不看见都不行，他无疑想表现出粗犷的味道，可惜没有给人这种感觉，他的臀部很窄，粗糙的伐木靴上方是一双略显瘦削的腿。在旧书摊和索邦大学出来的大批学子当中，他显得生气蓬勃，想不到四年后他就去世了。
好像总是这样，在一刹那间，我发现自己被分成了两个角色，而且在相互竞争。我不知道该上前去请他接受访问，还是过街去向他表达我对他无限的景仰。但不管怎么做对我来说都很不容易。当时我和现在一样，说得一口幼稚园英语，也不清楚他的斗牛士西班牙语说得怎么样。为了不要破坏这一刻，我两样都没做，只像人猿泰山那样用双手圈在嘴巴外面，向对街的人行道大喊：“大——大——大师！”海明威明白在众多学生中不会有第二个大师，就转过头来，举起手用卡斯蒂亚语像小孩子似地对我大叫：“再见，朋友！”以后我再也没见过他。
当时我28岁，是报社从业人员，在哥伦比亚出版过一本小说，得了一个文学奖，可是仍在巴黎漫无目的地飘荡着。我景仰的大师是两位极为不同的北美洲小说家。当年他们的作品只要出版过的我一律没放过，但我不是把他们当作互补性的读物，而是两种南辕北辙截然不同的文学创作形式。一位是威廉·福克纳，我一直无缘见到他，只能想像他是卡尔迪埃·布勒松拍的那张著名肖像中的模样，在两只白狗旁边，穿着衬衫在手臂上抓痒的农夫。另一位就是在对街和我说再见，立刻又消失在人群中的人，留给我一种感觉，曾经有什么已经出现在我的生命里，而且从来没有消失过。
不知道是谁说过，小说家读其他人的小说，只是为了揣摩人家是怎么写的。我相信此言不假。我们不满意书页上暴露出来的秘诀：甚至把书翻过来检查它的接缝。不知道为什么，我们把书拆到不能再拆，直到我们了解作者个人的写作模式，再装回去。但这样分析福克纳的小说，就未免令人气馁，他似乎没有一个有机的写作模式，反而是在他的圣经世界里瞎闯，仿佛在一个摆满水晶的店里放开一群山羊。分解他的作品，感觉就像一堆剩下的弹簧和螺丝，根本不可能再组合成原来的样子。对比之下，海明威虽然比不上福克纳的发人深省、热情和疯狂，却严谨过人，零件就像货车的螺丝一样看得清清楚楚。也许就因为这样，福克纳启发了我的灵魂，海明威却是对我的写作技巧影响最大的人——不仅是他的著作，还有他对写作方法与技巧的惊人知识。
《巴黎评论》登的那篇他和乔治·普林顿历史性的访谈中，他揭示了一套和浪漫时期创作理念相反的说法：经济的不虞匮乏和健康的身体对写作有帮助；最大难题就是把文字配置妥当；当你觉得下笔不如过去容易，应该重读自己的作品，好记起写作从来不是一件容易的事；只要没有访客和电话，哪里都可以写作；常有人说新闻会扼杀一个作家，其实正好相反，只要能赶快把新闻那一套丢开，倒可以成就一个作家。他说：“一旦写作上了瘾，成为最大的乐趣，不到死的那天是不会停笔的。”最后他的经验发现，除非知道第二天要从哪里接下去，否则不能中断每天的工作。我认为这是对写作最有用的忠告。作家最可怕的梦魇就是早上面对空白稿纸的痛苦，他这番话无异于一贴万灵丹。
海明威的作品全都显现了他如昙花一现般灿烂的精神。这是可以理解的。他对技巧那种严格的掌控所建构出的内在张力，在长篇小说广泛而冒险的范围中无法维系下去。这是他出类拔萃的特质，也是他不该企图逾越的局限。就因为如此，海明威的余文赘语比其他作家的更显眼，他的小说就像是写过了头，比例不相称的短篇小说。对比之下，他的短篇小说最大的优点就是让你觉得少了什么，这也正是其神秘优美之所在。当代大作家博尔赫斯也有同样的局限，但他懂得不要贸然逾越。
弗朗西斯·麦康伯一枪射死狮子，可以说给读者上了一堂打猎课，但也正是写作方法的总结。海明威在一篇短篇小说中描写一头来自里瑞亚的公牛，从头牛士胸前擦过，又像“转角的猫”似地快速跑回来。容我斗胆一言，我相信这样的观察，就是那种最伟大的作家才会冒出来的傻气小灵感。海明威的作品充满了这种简单而令人目眩的发现，显示此时他已经调整了他对文学写作的定义：文学创作犹如冰山，有八分之七的体积在下面支撑，才会扎实。
对技巧的自觉无疑是海明威无法以长篇小说著称，而以较工整的短篇小说扬名立万的理由。谈到《丧钟为谁而鸣》，他说并没预先计划好故事架构，而是每天边写边想。这用不着他说，看也看得出来。对比之下，他那些即兴创作的短篇小说却无懈可击。就像某个5月天因为暴风雪，使得圣伊西德罗庆典的斗牛表演被迫取消，那天下午他在马德里的自助式公寓写了三个短篇小说，据他自己跟乔治·普林顿说，这三篇分别是《杀人者》、《十个印第安人》和《今天是星期五》，全都非常严谨。照这样说来，我个人觉得他的功力最施展不开的作品是短篇小说《雨中的猫》。
虽然这对他的命运似乎是一大嘲讽，我倒觉得他最迷人最人性的作品就是他最不成功的长篇小说：《过河入林》。就像他本人透露的，这原本是一篇短篇小说，不料误打误撞成了长篇小说，很难理解以他如此卓越的技巧，会出现这么多结构上的缺失和方法上的错误，极不自然，甚至矫揉造作的对话，竟然出自文学史上的巨匠之一。此书在1950年出版，遭到严厉批评，但这些书评是错误的。海明威深感伤痛，从哈瓦那发了一封措词激烈的电报来为自己辩护，像他这种地位的作家，这么做似乎有损颜面。这不只是他最好的作品，也是最具个人色彩的长篇小说。他在某一秋天的黎明写下此书，对过往那些一去不回的岁月带着强烈的怀念，也强烈地预感到自己没几年好活了。他过去的作品尽管美丽而温柔，却没有注入多少个人色彩，或清晰传达他作品和人生最根本的情怀：胜利之无用。书中主角的死亡表面上平静而自然，其实变相预示了海明威后来以自杀终结自己的一生。
长年阅读一位作家的作品，对他又如此热爱，会让人分不清小说和现实。曾有许多日子，我在圣米榭勒广场的咖啡厅看上老久的书，觉得这里愉快、温暖、友善、适合写作，我总希望能再度发现那个漂亮清新，头发像乌鸦翅膀一样斜过脸庞的女孩，海明威用文笔中的那种无情的占有力量，为她写道：“你属于我，巴黎属于我。”他所描写的一切，他曾拥有的每一刻都永远属于他。每回经过欧德翁大道12号，就会看到他和西尔维亚·毕奇在一家现在早就变了样的书店聊天消磨时间，直到傍晚6点，詹姆斯·乔伊斯可能正好经过。在肯亚平原，才看了一次，那些水牛和狮子还有最秘密的打猎秘诀就归他所有了，斗牛士、拳击手、艺术家和枪手，一出现就纳入他的麾下。意大利、西班牙、古巴，大半个地球的地方，只要提过，就给他侵占了。哈瓦那附近的小村子寇吉马是《老人与海》那个孤独渔夫的家，村里有块纪念老渔夫英勇事迹的匾额，伴随着海明威的箔金半身像。费加德拉维吉亚是海明威在古巴的避难所，他死前没多久还在那儿住过，阴凉树下的房子还保持原状，里面有他各式各样的藏书、打猎的战利品、写作台、他巨大的肖像剪影，还有他周游列国收集来的小饰品，这些都是属于他的，但凡曾被他拥有的，就让他赋予了灵魂，在他死后，带着这种灵魂，单独活在世上。
几年前，我有缘坐上了卡斯特罗的车，他是一个孜孜不倦的文学读者，我在座位上看到一本红皮小书。卡斯特罗告诉我：“这是我景仰的大师海明威。”真的，海明威在死后20年依然在最令人意想不到的地方出现，就像那个早晨一样永恒不灭然而又昙花一现，那应该是个5月天，他隔着圣米榭勒大道对我说：“再见，朋友。”
马尔克斯1981年7月26日发表于《纽约时报书评》的文章
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