"Hemingway, Ernest - Green Hills of Africa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemingway Ernest)

they must write masterpieces. The masterpieces the critics said they wrote.
They weren't masterpieces, of course. They were just quite good books. So
now they cannot write at all. The critics have made them impotent.'
'Who are these writers?'
'Their names would mean nothing to you and by now they may have
written, become frightened, and be impotent again.'
'But what is it that happens to American writers? Be definite.'
'I was not here in the old days so I cannot tell you about them, but
now there are various things. At a certain age the men writers change into
Old Mother Hubbard. The women writers become Joan of Arc without the
fighting. They become leaders. It doesn't matter who they lead. If they do
not have followers they invent them. It is useless for those selected as
followers to protest. They are accused of disloyalty. Oh, hell. There are
too many things happen to them. That is one thing. The others try to save
their souls with what they write. That is an easy way out. Others are ruined
by the first money, the first praise, the first attack, the first time they
find they cannot write, or the first time they cannot do anything else, or
else they get frightened and join organizations that do their thinking for
them. Or they do not know what they want. Henry James wanted to make money.
He never did, of course.'
'And you?'
'I am interested in other things. I have a good life but I must write
because if I do not write a certain amount I do not enjoy the rest of my
life.'
'And what do you want?'
'To write as well as I can and learn as I go along. At the same time I
have my life which I enjoy and which is a damned good life.'
'Hunting kudu?'
'Yes. Hunting kudu and many other things.'
'What other things?'
'Plenty of other things.'
'And you know what you want?'
'Yes.'
'You really like to do this, what you do now, this silliness of kudu?'
'Just as much as I like to be in the Prado.'
'One is not better than the other?'
'One is as necessary as the other. There are other things, too.'
'Naturally. There must be. But this sort of thing means something to
you, really?'
'Truly.'
'And you know what you want?'
'Absolutely, and I get it all the time.'
'But it takes money.'
'I could always make money, and besides I have been very lucky.'
'Then you are happy?'
'Except when I think of other people.'
'Then you think of other people?'
'Oh, yes.'
'But you do nothing for them?'
'No.'