“
… prose in itself does not describe at all. The words rely very much on what the reader brings to them. In fact, it is the associative power of words rather than their “meaning” that makes prose work on its ultimate level. It seems to me that Hemingway’s achievement, whether calculated or instinctive, was to get his effects by making the reader do the work. This was not a completely original perception (as readers of HUCKLEBERRY FINN must know), but if one tries to write like Hemingway without understanding that, as I did 20 years ago, one ends up with merely a Hemingway gloss.
Tom Stoppard’s “Reflections on Ernest Hemingway.”
