How Did Ernest Hemingway Influence American Literature?海明威是如何影響美國文學(xué)的？

史蒂文·休梅克

Before I get to the question of influence， I’m going to talk about the strangeness of Hemingway’s “reception history，” which is more complicated， and more genuinely complex， than that of any writer I have encountered. Here are a few of the ways he has been read over the years.

As a journalist and sometime war correspondent who led an exciting life and wrote down what happened.

As a consummate literary artist dedicated to the craft of writing. In this guise， he is also known for what the Nobel Prize committee called his “powerful， style-forming mastery of the art of modern narration.” He saw himself as searching for a new mode of expression， even a new language， working along the same lines as other modernist innovators like James Joyce， Ezra Pound， and Gertrude Stein. （But the fresh new style he forged was so striking， and yet so apparently “simple，” that he was frequently imitated， and eventually parodied.）

As a frivolous expatriate， decadent and rootless， who engaged in a popular form of travel writing.

As a representative of the manly life， capturing manly pleasures like hunting， camping， fishing， and boxing， for an audience of men， and writing frequently about male “code heroes1，” who exhibit “grace under pressure.”

As a deeply Romantic writer， committed to exploring the depths of love between men and women， often against a backdrop of rapidly evolving customs and morals.

As a confronter of the existentialist void， writing profoundly about the experience of “nada.” （“Our nada who art in nada…”2）

As， in Wyndham Lewis’s3 phrase， a sort of “dumb ox，” with nary4 a brain in his head， who somehow manages to speak.

As a misogynist， most of whose female characters are “bitches” whose main goal is to destroy men.

As a feminist writer， questioning masculine and feminine roles， and writing strong female characters， some of them feminine “code heroes” in their own right5.

As an artist of gender exploration and even transformation， anticipating recent ideas about gender fluidity.

His influence on American literature has not yet caught up with the range of possibilities to be found in his work， and his popular reception as a “manly” writer is still dominant in many people’s minds. I wouldn’t be surprised， though， if we eventually see some new fiction writers who are influenced instead by the shape-shifting Hemingway I have described here. But I suspect that direct imitation of the style has played out about as far as it goes. An earlier answer mentions Hemingway’s direct influence on male American writers like Raymond Chandler and Norman Mailer. Through writers like Chandler， Hemingway definitely helped to shape the prose of hard-boiled detective fiction6， though he didn’t write it himself （he comes closest to the sort of hard-boiled writing that involves actual gangsters in his short story The Killers and his novel To Have and Have Not）. Mailer took the “manly” style and further explored its existentialist edge， as well as building on Hemingway’s fascination with violence and death. Short story writers like Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff learned a lot from Hemingway， and many of Hemingway’s own short stories are masterpieces， constituting his best work. The best of these stories have a distilled， poetic quality and it may be that quality that has had， and will continue to have， the most influence.

在談到影響問題之前，我想先談?wù)労Ｃ魍嫣氐摹敖邮軞v程”，那比我所接觸的任何作家的接受歷程都更加復(fù)雜，也著實更加匪夷所思。以下便是多年來人們對海明威的幾種解讀：

他是個記者，一度還當過戰(zhàn)地記者，過著頗為刺激的生活，并將之記錄下來。

他致力于寫作藝術(shù)，是個造詣極深的文藝家。在這方面，他又以諾貝爾獎委員會評價其“精湛有力、獨樹一格的現(xiàn)代敘事藝術(shù)”而著稱于世。他自認是在摸索一種新的表達方式，甚至是一種新的語言，是在與其他的現(xiàn)代主義先驅(qū)——如詹姆斯·喬伊斯、埃茲拉·龐德、格特魯?shù)隆に固┮虻取M行同樣性質(zhì)的探索。（但是，他所創(chuàng)造的風(fēng)格如此鮮明獨特，令人耳目一新，卻未免流于“簡單”，以致經(jīng)常有人故意模仿他，甚至嘲弄他。）

他去國離鄉(xiāng)、不務(wù)正業(yè)、頹廢墮落、無根無基，作品屬于流行文類的旅行寫作。

他是男性生活的代言人，為男性讀者描寫男性喜聞樂見之事，例如狩獵、野營、釣魚和拳擊等，并經(jīng)常塑造在“重壓之下不失優(yōu)雅”的男性“準則英雄”。

他致力于探討男女兩性之愛所能達到的深度，是位極其浪漫的作家，并經(jīng)常將愛情故事置于快速變化的風(fēng)俗和道德背景中。

他直面存在主義的虛無，作品深刻反映了“虛無”的體驗。（例如“我們在虛無中的虛無……”）

借用溫德姆·劉易斯的用詞，他是一頭“愚蠢的公牛”，沒有長一丁點兒腦子，卻不知怎么居然學(xué)會了說話。

他憎恨女性，作品中的大多數(shù)女性角色都是“婊子”，其主要目標就是摧毀男性。

他是位女性主義作家，挑戰(zhàn)男女的性別角色，塑造了強大的女性形象，她們有些僅憑自身便是女性版的“準則英雄”。

他是位探討性別問題甚至性別變化問題的藝術(shù)家，預(yù)見了近年來關(guān)于性別流動性的看法。

海明威對美國文學(xué)的影響目前還沒有充分反映出其作品解讀的寬度。在許多人看來，他主要還是作為一個“硬漢”作家被接受的。不過，假如將來出現(xiàn)一些新的小說家，他們受到的影響來自我上文描述的海明威的各個方面，我絲毫不會感到吃驚。但是我懷疑，對海明威風(fēng)格的直接模仿已經(jīng)基本到頭了。之前有人指出海明威對雷蒙德·錢德勒和諾曼·梅勒等美國男作家產(chǎn)生的直接影響。通過影響錢德勒等作家，海明威的確幫助塑造了那種硬漢派偵探小說的行文風(fēng)格，雖然他本人并沒有寫過此類小說（海明威的短篇小說《殺手》和長篇小說《有錢人和沒錢人》比較接近那種涉及真正犯罪集團的硬漢派偵探小說）。梅勒吸收了海明威的硬漢風(fēng)格且進一步探討了其存在主義邊際，還將海明威對暴力和死亡的迷戀有所發(fā)揮。包括雷蒙德·卡弗和托拜厄斯·沃爾夫在內(nèi)的短篇小說作家從海明威那里學(xué)到了很多。海明威本人的許多短篇小說都稱得上經(jīng)典，是其作品的精華所在。這些短篇中的最優(yōu)秀作品都精簡凝煉，具有詩意，而這正是海明威已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生并將持續(xù)產(chǎn)生其最大影響力的所在。

（譯者單位：北京外國語大學(xué)英語學(xué)院）