In
La Democracia
Monday May 3, 2021
Finding Rhythm
We were watching the Ken Burns’ PBS show on Hemingway. Both Shelby and I found it inspiring.
The show concentrated on his writing. Other writers described passages from his work and why it was so good. Hemingway seems simple in his sentence construction, yet it is compelling. There is a rhythm to it. A repetition. Then it stops. One beat short. And that is what makes it so compelling.
Kerouac worked on his rhythm. He wanted to capture the jazz of the time in which he wrote. It had to be hot. Cool. Mad. Sweaty, rub your belly, shake your head from side to side. Madness.
Hunter S. Thompson had a vibe that described being on the edge of drug madness. His description in the Curse of Lono of driving on the road in Maui between the two volcanoes; the road that rental car companies forbid you from driving on, in a Ferrari with the owner of the car in the passenger seat white knuckled, screaming, but Thompson can’t hear him because of the wind and his concentration. “There’s a reason why they make cars that can hold the track at one hundred miles an hour in a hairpin turn in the rain” or some such line. Classic.
Bolano who wrote “2066” had a style that made it easy to go from one sentence to the next. So did Clavell.
Finding the rhythm. That’s what they did. They found their rhythm. In that there is great beauty.
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