Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Higher Grounds Café, San Francisco
Dear Andrew,
I am milking chapter 31 for reasons I’m afraid may depress me, and you. What am I so damn afraid of? I suppose I fear really delving into Jacob. I suppose I fear the end. I suppose I fear my own commitment to this book. Whatever it is, I’ve got to get out of this damn cave. I’m stuck in a cave both literally and figuratively. Yesterday they found themselves a helluva snake – which is what Charles Flint asked for. They found a huge snake but did not manage to catch it. It has escaped into the cave and now they have to go after it because it is THE snake I need. It is the snake that will live in Jacob’s unused coffin, and the snake that, well, now I’m thinking too far ahead.
I need this snake and it won’t come easy to them because it is old and over seven feet long and they have come into its world. If they manage to catch it must be on its terms. I cannot allow one man and one girl to traipse into a den of serpents and just walk away with a huge snake. I simply cannot allow that to happen. This snake must fight. This snake must assert its right to live where it belongs. I am being told by Lane Zachary (my agent at the time) that every chapter is big, every moment is big. I am being told there is too much drama and perhaps there is, but this snake and this cave have their own ideas Andrew. It needs to be as difficult for me to write my way out of it as it is for my characters to get out of it. This is no ordinary cave I have found in the North Georgia Hills, this is a sacred place and will not give up her secrets easily – even to an Indian who knows and respects it. This should be how it always is. We should struggle like mad for what we want. We must fight for what is good.
Now I’ve lost my train of thought. This is the danger of working in a small café. When it gets noisy my ears perk up and I’m in listening mode and then my brain switches away from the work. You must be frustrated by me. I’m a rambling fool.
Must finish (chapter) 31 today. All there is left to do is wrap up the snake hunt and go back for some appropriate bible verses. So today that will be done and there will be no more excuse, I will go back to Jacob and Charles and John, and kill one, elevate another and relegate the third to apostle status. You guess which is which.
Just one more thing. People are always talking about Hemingway’s prose as being terse and lean, and this is true to a point. There are many fine examples of this in his work. But there are also many examples of the exact opposite. I came across a passage today in Green Hills of Africa that would put Cormac McCarthy to shame. I’m talking about a sentence a page and half long – beautiful prose, wonderful writing, but not at all what one would expect from Hemingway. And this is not an anomaly. Nor are his use of adverbs; which the myth claims he abhors. He uses both long sentences and adverbs often, but masterfully, so as not to draw attention to themselves and much can be learned from this.
VLC
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