Are descriptions of what people do physically that suggest mood or attitude no more than padding, or do they really help to fill out a narrative? If I were to answer this in a thriller, I might raise my shoulders an inch or two and display my hands, palms upward, either side of my chest, while cocking my head slightly to one side and raising my eyebrows. Instead, I invite you to imagine me blowing out my cheeks.
Hemingway, famously, did not get bogged down in little things like nuance. Men did what they had to, and women were men, too. Nobody frowns in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The only "gesture" made by any of his characters is a "formal gesture of triumph" by a torero moments after he has dispatched his bull.
But there is one "sigh," which changes everything for hero Robert Jordan. Lying in bed with Maria, he turns towards her, causing her to sigh in her sleep. Seconds later, her lips are against his, "firm and hard and pressing". Next thing we know, they are "together". The scene that follows, which would never have happened if Maria hadn't sighed, joins straining codpiece to cod-philosophy and makes you wonder if Hemingway might not have deserved the 1940 Bad Sex Award.
"This, that they were not to have, they were having. They were having now and before and always and now and now and now. Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is they prophet. Now and forever now. Come now, now, only now. Yes, now. Now, please now, only now, not anything else only this now, and where are you and where am I and where is the other one ..." etc etc.
Hemingway was obviously deeply moved as he wrote this passage. I hope he washed his hand afterwards.
The Bad Sex Award was, of course, started by the late Auberon Waugh. The even later Waugh - Evelyn - knew better than to get down and dirty. In Brideshead Revisited, which is suffused with sex, the only mention of breasts refers to slices of chicken, breast pockets and Lord Marchmain's breast as he makes the sign of the cross. The solitary reference to thighs is when a man breaks one of his on board ship after falling over while drunk.
There is no mention of underwear in Brideshead, in which everyone is routinely well turned out and no one has to do any laundry. "Stockings" are right out. The word "skirt" features just once. "I caught the glimpse of a white skirt against the stones." Whatever Waugh's characters may get up to in private, they are not about to parade it in front of their readers.
In fact, the only reference to sex, as such, in the book, is when it is disclosed by Sebastian that Mr Samgrass of All Souls likes to discuss sex "seriously" while drinking cocoa in the evenings.
Not an inviting prospect...
Away from the sexual arena, Julia Flyte sighs just once. Two pages later, Anthony Blanche sighs deeply. Nobody grimaces. At one point, Julia gives a "tiny, sad shrug". Later, she "frowns" at a tortoise. Later, Celia Mulcaster, sister of "Boy," opens the hands on her lap "with a little eloquent gesture". Lord Marchmain, toward the book's end (and his) makes "a small, weary gesture of greeting".
Neither Hemingway nor Waugh would get away with such paucity of, er, expression today. At the very least, they would have to make a gesture towards the tell-all, reveal-all school of popular fiction. Otherwise the moneymen would frown and their publishers would give a telling shrug of their shoulders.
In Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernières is not afraid to reveal how his characters look and behave. One of the male characters, Carlo, "flushes" on one occasion and looks "angrily" at another character. Seconds later, Corelli joins in. "[He] flushed with anger and stood up abruptly." From this it is but a step to full-blown gesturing. "[They] exchanged glances and Carlo made a grimace that mockingly expressed fear and trembling."
Body language is one thing' foreign languages are something else. A little after the unfortunate "bathroom incident," de Berniéres come up with an example of something else that has been giving me problems - how to render the fact that people are from different countries and speak different languages without lapsing into the written equivalent of Inspector Clouseau.
"'Aira!' cried the exhilarated Greeks, and 'Figlio di puttano di stronzo d'un cane d'un culo d'un pezzo di merda!' cried the soldiers."
Well, quite - and what a foul-mouth bunch of so and so's they are, to be sure. A minute or so after, following a horrendous blast, the same Carlo from the previous example, now flushed with success, remarks: "It was a real sporcaccione of an explosion."
But you see what I mean? Or do I have to spell it out? Well, that's the problem. I once wrote a scene in which a Spanish border guard calls out "Halt!" in a bid to arrest an intruder. I then add that he has shouted it in Spanish (although he obviously hasn't). Elsewhere, I differentiate between a New Yorker when he is speaking Spanish, then English, by having him, in the latter case, drop his -g endings. An example of this might be: "I think so, Señora.' [more properly, 'I theenk so'] followed by, "Hey, what's goin' on?"
And you thought coming up with a bestseller was all about fancy writing, sexed-up characters and a strong story line!
But it is time, dear reader, for me to tap twice on the upper part of my left wrist with the index and middle fingers of my right hand, while nodding meaningfully in the direction of the door. And, by the way, I said that in French.
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