I have a group of guys that I talk to regularly. Most of them are relatively friendly, and we’ll go for drinks, watch a game, play a round, or smoke a cigar. Our conversations don’t get that deep (this is why some men can hang out with a guy for years and never know his birthday or favorite color); we’re just companions. But I have a few of them that know everything. Our conversations are no holds barred. We deep dive into our sh*t when we need to. Don’t ask how we know; we just know when the other guy is messed up and needs it.
Guys are different. We can be cold. We can be brutal. And we can be painfully honest in our direction. We call each other out, and we don’t mince words when something needs to be said. And, when we see our guys struggling and needing a word, we will give the encouragement with a little bit of gritty motivation. “I hear what you’re saying, and that is a shi**y place to be in…now what the fu*k are you going to do about it?”
Two of the greatest writers in modern history are F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Both were famously fond of the drink. And it was the drink that killed them. But before that, the two contemporaries shared a friendship, and a rivalry, that defined the ages. In the 1930s, Hemingway reviewed one of Fitzgerald’s novels and gave honest feedback and some advice on his life.
You’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write – Ernest Hemingway
Words from a friend
Key West
28 May 1934
Dear Scott:
I liked it, and I didn’t. It started off with that marvelous description of Sara and Gerald (goddamn it, Dos took it with him so I can’t refer to it. So if I make any mistakes—). Then you started fooling with them, making them come from things they didn’t come from, changing them into other people, and you can’t do that, Scott. If you take real people and write about them, you cannot give them other parents than they have (they are made by their parents and what happens to them); you cannot make them do anything they would not do. You can take you or me or Zelda or Pauline or Hadley or Sara or Gerald, but you have to keep them the same, and you can only make them do what they would do. You can’t make one be another. Invention is the finest thing, but you cannot invent anything that would not actually happen.
That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best—make it all up—but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.
Goddamn it you took liberties with peoples’ pasts and futures that produced not people but damned marvellously faked case histories. You, who can write better than anybody can, who are so lousy with talent that you have to—the hell with it. Scott for gods sake write and write truly no matter who or what it hurts but do not make these silly compromises. You could write a fine book about Gerald and Sara for instance if you knew enough about them and they would not have any feeling, except passing, if it were true.
There were wonderful places and nobody else nor none of the boys can write a good one half as good reading as one that doesn’t come out by you, but you cheated too damned much in this one. And you don’t need to.
In the first place I’ve always claimed that you can’t think. All right, we’ll admit you can think. But say you couldn’t think; then you ought to write, invent, out of what you know and keep the people’s antecedents straight. Second place, a long time ago you stopped listening except to the answers to your own questions. You had good stuff in too that it didn’t need. That’s what dries a writer up (we all dry up. That’s no insult to you in person) not listening. That is where it all comes from. Seeing, listening. You see well enough. But you stop listening.
It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.
You can study Clausewitz in the field and economics and psychology and nothing else will do you any bloody good once you are writing. We are like lousy damned acrobats but we make some mighty fine jumps, bo, and they have all these other acrobats that won’t jump.
For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. You feel you have to publish crap to make money to live and let live. All write but if you write enough and as well as you can there will be the same amount of masterpiece material (as we say at Yale). You can’t think well enough to sit down and write a deliberate masterpiece and if you could get rid of Seldes and those guys that nearly ruined you and turn them out as well as you can and let the spectators yell when it is good and hoot when it is not you would be all right.
Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.
About this time I wouldn’t blame you if you gave me a burst. Jesus it’s marvellous to tell other people how to write, live, die etc.
I’d like to see you and talk about things with you sober. You were so damned stinking in N.Y. we didn’t get anywhere. You see, Bo, you’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write. Of all people on earth you needed discipline in your work and instead you marry someone who is jealous of your work, wants to compete with you and ruins you. It’s not as simple as that and I thought Zelda was crazy the first time I met her and you complicated it even more by being in love with her and, of course you’re a rummy. But you’re no more of a rummy than Joyce is and most good writers are. But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvellous. You know I never thought so much of Gatsby at the time. You can write twice as well now as you ever could. All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is.
Go on and write.
Anyway I’m damned fond of you and I’d like to have a chance to talk sometimes. We had good times talking. Remember that guy we went out to see dying in Neuilly? He was down here this winter. Damned nice guy Canby Chambers. Saw a lot of Dos. He’s in good shape now and he was plenty sick this time last year. How is Scotty and Zelda? Pauline sends her love. We’re all fine. She’s going up to Piggott for a couple of weeks with Patrick. Then bring Bumby back. We have a fine boat. Am going good on a very long story. Hard one to write.
Always your friend
Ernest
There are some amazing moments of clarity and advice in this letter. First off, he tore his friend’s work apart for multiple paragraphs. Then he backs off with a statement that sums up his friendship: “It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.” This is the crux of modern masculinity. We acknowledge our friends’ shortcomings (and expect it in return). It will be harsh, maybe too harsh, but it comes from a place of love and admiration. He knows he is better. He has seen it. He then addresses his struggles. He calls him out for his drinking, and he gives wonderful guidance. Amounting to: we all struggle; use it, don’t cheat it, sit with it, and turn it around to use it.
I read once that years of therapy can feel the same as years of sitting with a good friend and talking. Take your moments with your buddies. Have the drink, smoke a cigar, check in, and call them out and be called out. Brutal accountability with true belief in one another to get better. There is no better way to define masculinity in today’s age.
