Virgil

I commented back in Aunt Shecky's Word Blog#8 (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?b=9631) that spare minimalism in writing is actually lacking, and that maxmalism (no movement called maxmalism actually exists, but it stands in contra distinction to that often praised prose movement which owes its roots to Hemingway) creates better prose. I want to flesh this out a little more. I'm going to do this by comparing two writers, Hemingway in "A Big Two-Hearted River" and William H. Gass, in "Icicles." Let's look at the first paragraphs of each. Here’s the Hemingway:

The train went on up the track out of sight, around one of the hills of burnt timber. Nick sat down on the bundle of canvas and bedding the baggage man had pitched out of the door of the baggage car. There was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country. The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.

Ok, good clean prose. Six sentences, averaging 18 words per sentence, but more importantly single clause sentences or double clause sentences linked by a “and” conjunction. Two-thirds of the sentences are pure descriptive (“there was”) sentences, in fact three in row to end the paragraph. In fact he uses the pronoun “it” to refer back to the same noun as in the very previous sentence. Certainly he could have linked all those descriptive sentences into a single more complex but he doesn’t. Perhaps a more elegant writing of the last three sentences would have been, “The stone, all that was left of the town of Seney, was chipped and split by the fire, even the surface burned off the ground.” Each sentence is sparse, as if each is trying to hold something back. As we get into the story, we realize that Hemingway is holding something back, the trauma of Nick’s war past and how he is trying to repress that experience. That is the saving grace of this style for the story. Minimalism works when there is a sense of something held back from the forefront. But if there wasn’t such a sense, then frankly it becomes the language of third grade sentences.

Compare the first paragraph from the Gass story. William Gass is possibly the best prose stylist writing today. You may ask who? Read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Gass. Yes, I was surprised to hear that myself and so I searched out some of his work. He’s great. He’s known for rhythmic long sentences that captures modern day Americanism with precision. Here’s the first paragraph from “Icicles.”

It had snowed heavily during the night, but by morning the sky had cleared, deepening the frost. The sun when it rose was dazzling, and at once began to melt the roofs and window edges, power lines and limbs of trees. Icicles formed rapidly. At first they were thick and opaque like frozen slush, but later, lengthening, they cleared and began to glitter brilliantly like pieces of heavy glass. When Fender left his house, he had to duck, sweeping a number of them away with his arm, they were long already, and there were more when he returned at five—a row that formed above his picture window. Multiply like weeds, he thought, kicking fragments from his stoop from the side of his foot. Later he sat in his living room eating a pot pie from a tray on his lap and chewing crackers, his gaze passing idly along the streets in the wheel ruts and leaping the disorderly heaps of shoveling. He was vaguely aware of the ice that had curtained a quarter of his window, and of the light from the streetlamps reflecting by it, but he was thinking how difficult it was to sell property so suspiciously hidden. This time of year the wind blew over the porches of the houses he was showing. His prospects were invariably shivering before he got them in. He’d say it was no day to trade caves, or some such thing, and they’d nod in a determined way that made them realize they meant it. A faint smile might drift to their faces. Inside there were boots and rubbers and the mess of snow and papers, sellers like shabby furniture, their wan and solemn children staring large eyed at the strangers, while in-laws, made fat, no doubt, by their wisdom, held their arms like bundles to their chests and stopped up the doorways. There was always frost on the windows, darkening the rooms, and the attics and basements and enclosed porches were cold and grim, and his prospects had stiff inhuman faces.

Except for the second last sentence, we don’t get any of Gass’s long sentences in this paragraph. Maximalism doesn’t require every sentence to be long, but it does require the rolling of sentences into a rhythmic pattern. Here too, there is something held back. The character Fender is repressing a certain emptiness in his life, and symbolized by the icicles as a controlling metaphor. Notice how powerful this style can be. As a musical piece that varies to accentuate a point, notice how this little sentence “Icicles formed rapidly” stands out because of its distinction. In some respects that sentence is the heart of the story. Gass too uses descriptive “there was” sentences, but notice how modifying prepositions are tagged along to create both a rhythm and imagery: “At first they were thick and opaque like frozen slush, but later, lengthening, they cleared and began to glitter brilliantly like pieces of heavy glass.” Notice the similes (two in that very sentence) that Gass uses to create mental images, but more important I think it extends the sentence to roll further: “Inside there were boots and rubbers and the mess of snow and papers, sellers like shabby furniture, their wan and solemn children staring large eyed at the strangers, while in-laws, made fat, no doubt, by their wisdom, held their arms like bundles to their chests and stopped up the doorways.”

Let’s look at the end of both stories. Here are the last five paragraphs from Hemingway:

Nick did not want to go in there now. He felt a reaction against deep wading with the water deepening up under his armpits, to hook big trout in places impossible to land them. In the swamp the banks were bare, the big cedars came together overhead, the sun did not come through, except in patches; in the fast deep water, in the half-light, the fishing would be tragic. In the swamp fishing was a tragic adventure. Nick did not want it. He didn't want to go up the stream any further today.

He took out his knife, opened it and stuck it in the log. Then he pulled up the sack, reached into it and brought out one of the trout. Holding him near the tail, hard to hold, alive, in his hand, he whacked him against the log. The trout quivered, rigid. Nick laid him on the log in the shade and broke the neck of the other fish the same way. He laid them side-by-side on the log. They were fine trout.

Nick cleaned them, slitting them from the vent to the tip of the jaw. All the insides and the gills and tongue came out in one piece. They were both males; long gray-white strips of milt, smooth and clean. All the insides clean and compact, coming out all together. Nick took the offal ashore for the minks to find

He washed the trout in the stream. When he held them back up in the water, they looked like live fish. Their color was not gone yet. He washed his hands and dried them on the log. Then he laid the trout on the sack spread out on the log, rolled them up in it, tied the bundle and put it in the landing net. His knife was still standing, blade stuck in the log. He cleaned it on the wood and put it in his pocket.

Nick stood up on the log, holding his rod, the landing net hanging heavy, then stepped into the water and splashed ashore. He climbed the bank and cut up into the woods, toward the high ground. He was going back to camp. He looked back. The river just showed through the trees. There were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp.

How many times does he repeat a subsequent sentence with the same noun? “Nick stood up on the log, holding his rod, the landing net hanging heavy, then stepped into the water and splashed ashore. He climbed the bank and cut up into the woods, toward the high ground. He was going back to camp. He looked back.” It's rather unimaginative. Hemingway gets away with this because of the psychological drama going on, but frankly this is on the order of Dick and Jane and see Spot run. I’m not even sure if the psychological drama saves this ending, but many critics endorse it, and I guess it has a certain beauty to it. I do not recommend it though.

Here’s Gass at the end of his story:

The beauty of the icicles was a sign of the beauty of their possessor, Fender thought. They were a mark of nature’s favor like fair skin, fair eyes, blue eyes. Only the icicles mattered. What was lunch when he was nourishing the spirit? If he could grow them inside himself, if he could swallow them like a carnival performer and put their beauty in his body…He dreamed, but he was disturbed, fully, and honestly anxious. The sun itself would destroy them, or they would be torn off in the night by the wind, or fall helplessly in the weight of their armor. But property endures…Pearson doubtless had his cemetery lot all paid for. He would attend first to his last address—that would be like him. This crypt is the site of a great man’s grave. Within, a casket, bronze, with scrolling handles, holds a plastic coffin like a Thermos liner. Rolled a sling of satin, even beneath the earth, in his hallow body cavity, the embalming liquids sway. Momentarily Fender didn’t give a damn; he put a kiss on the glass and saw the paper boy approaching. Ah, god, he would smash—Then Fender went to the door again to greet the boy with his best hypocrisy, but the boy passed sullenly, thank heaven, with scarcely a nod. He, Fender, would not be in the papers. No blue line would pass over him. But on the front page was a picture of a grimacing, pork-cheeked little girl no more than three or four who was the measure of an immensely twisted, knotty, threatening icicle like the root of a tree, and it did what it was meant to do—it engulfed her. SOME PLEASURE IN ICE THAT GRIPS CITY. Egh. Disgusting.

Notice how much we get out of Fender’s psyche. The beauty of the icicles, the casket, the sun, the paperboy, the imagined news item. It’s a piling on of imagery, mental play through Fender’s consciousness, a sort of stream of consciousness, a relishing of language. Notice how he even piles in adjectives, “grimacing, pork-cheeked little girl,” and “an immensely twisted, knotty, threatening icicle,” followed by another simile, “like the root of a tree.” Enjoy this fabulous paragraph from a little further down:

Fender. You have no job. He had no job. He shrugged. So. The weather was lousy, dinner not so hot again, bed would be…as always. But he had an address. My god, those are the world’s worst words, the world’s worst, I mean when you read in the papers where it says that so and so of no fixed address was picked up for loitering or pinching purses or was arrested for drunk and disorderly and it says: of no fixed address. Imagine. Pearson keens; he wails with his arms. Such a person has no place. He can’t be found. He’s like one of those unphysical things they talk about in science now—like one of those things that’s moving, you know, always moving on, but through no space. Jesus. Who can understand? I leave that sort to them like I leave these vagrants to police; but imagine a man without a place to be, a place that’s known, that has a name, is some way fixed; why that’s like being alone at sea without a log to hang on—and the sharks at your toes. Fender shrugged. Fender: you have no job. You lack an occupation, Fender—a position, fender—a spot to Johnny on. He shrugged. Yeah. He lacked. And fender—Charlie Fender—of such and such a number, such and such a road, in such and such a town and state, has quit, is fired, is out, at his age, after so, so many years…Yes, he thought, I do not even occupy myself.

Look at the repetitions. Hemingway would have cut half of that, if not more. Listen to the rhythm. Listen to the internal dialogue he’s having with himself. And that concluding sentence sums up his being. In fact Hemingway could have used that very same epiphany for Nick, but he implies it. Now some may say that leaving it implied might be more powerful, and yes given an unskillful writer it may be the better choice. But notice how Gass builds to it, through stream of consciousness, internal dialogue, and mental play. No, I think it’s more powerful in Gass. And the final two concluding paragraph from Gass are pure beauty:

So finally you’re For Sale, Fender. That’s very funny. I hope you see the humor in it. It makes a fellow’s job a whole lot easier—I mean, if there’s humor in it and the humor’s seen, it’s easier all around. Be happy, eh? Does that check? How long do you plan to stay listed? Well, it was fart smart to stand empty through the winter, that’s all I can say. What I mean, it was dumb—bum dumb. Come to think of it you were vacant longer than that. You’re bound to be badly **** up. Now if I were you, considering your kind of case, what’s best by and large and everything, why I’d try multiple listing. That way, if a good thing turns up, maybe you can close the deal on your own—after all you’re with an agency—Pearson—jesus, he’s piss bliss, Pearson is. Anyway, you can’t expect anybody to make your own concern—I mean, you know, that’s the way it goes, it’s a tough business, and five percent of you—well it won’t run to much. Okay?

There were figures moving at the top of the street, dark spots swimming in his eyes, cinders from somewhere. The light was bad for him—the terrible glare—his whole head was burning. He blinked, and then for a moment he could see plaid lumberjackets, red caps and boots and shining buttons, yellow corduroy. A whole company of children—boys mostly—were milling about, hurling snow and yelling on the hill. You’ve got no right to weep, Fender, whose fault is it? His chair held him; he had no energy; he would never sell again; certainly he was sick. What’ll you do, then, Fender? What’ll you do tomorrow? Tomorrow, he thought, God. The coming hour, the minute following, the second next. Should he sneeze? lift his left hand? laugh? He tried to clear his head for the children. For a time, while he watched, they churned and circled aimlessly on the crest, but gradually their movements grew purposive, and they began uniting more often, then parting regularly, like a pulse. At last they stood fixed for an instant, brightly, in a red knot. He saw them point toward him—point directly—and he heard them shout. In his anguish, groaning, he gripped the arms of the chair that held him, yet he made no attempt to rise and intercept. He was conquering himself for the third time that day. Stripes, boots, buttons, squares, yellow—he stared at them—sleds and plastic pails and metal shovels, tassels, mittens, bells, plaids, furries, the branch of a spruce, clouds of upended snow, catcalls, piercing whistles, a fluttering scarlet-and-dark-green scarf behind a child’s throat like a military banner. Then it was as though, suddenly, a fist had opened, and they came down the hill like a snowfall of rocks.

Notice how Gass is after rhythm at all costs, short staccato sentences with rolling sentences full of free modifying phrases, especially emphasized by phrases like “fart smart,” “bum dumb,” and “piss bliss” that adds sound effects to punctuate the rhythm. Notice the shear enjoyment of pure listing: “Stripes, boots, buttons, squares, yellow—he stared at them—sleds and plastic pails and metal shovels, tassels, mittens, bells, plaids, furries, the branch of a spruce, clouds of upended snow, catcalls, piercing whistles, a fluttering scarlet-and-dark-green scarf behind a child’s throat like a military banner,” followed by a concluding sentence with not one but two wonderful similes! Now that’s great prose.

You can't do that with minimalism. Minimalism is limited in it's effect and unless you have some Hemingway type story (and then you'll only be a second rate Hemingway) being intentionally spase is close to child's writing. I don't recommend it.