All language subtitles for Masterclass Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story - 11.The Writer’s Workshop “Indian Camp”

This is Lindsay and this is Corey. And

each of them has written a story for

today. We'll be taking up Lindsay's

story first and I'll take up Corey's

story. But first, we're going to talk

about a classic famous American story by

Ernest Hemingway called Indian Camp. So,

this story has all the the

quintessential elements of a of a

classic Hemingway story. The u nature of

the style, the movement of the story,

the pacing, what is put in and

particularly what's left out, what is

implicit, what's implied. Um just a

minimum of characters. no last names,

characters who are related to one

another in ways that might be a little

bit mysterious, but if you read it

carefully, you can figure it out. So

people who are used to reading a story

by Henry James, let's say Edith Wharton,

reading this story, a Will Cather

reading this story, the average reader

might barely have really wondered what

it was about. And the average reader at

that time would have felt the ending was

just

totally

almost shocking because it's so abrupt.

And readers at that time were used to a

more rounded ending. Readers were used

to being told what to think.

And in a story by most of Hemingway's

contemporaries,

the characters in the story, at least

one of the characters, would have

certain thoughts that would tell the

reader what to think. Now, Hemingway

leaves all that out. He leaves a lot of

things out. Therefore, though he wrote

the story a long time ago, it still is

very contemporary. In some ways, it

seems completely contemporary of our

time. So, um, just anything you want to

say about the the story as a as a

reading experience?

Just in general, it just makes me think

about how much Himmingway trusts um his

reader uh to

kind of co co-create the story along

alongside him. Um, which is true of most

of his stories that I've read. And uh it

it strikes me that that takes a lot of

like confidence in uh in your in your

reader because and you have to

relinquish some control there and leave

room for misinterpretations and things.

I think maybe as young writers, I know

this is a problem for me,

uh you want to have you want to direct

somebody's emotional response very

closely. Um and if you write in this

style, that's just not a possibility or

it's less of a possibility, I would say.

Yeah, that's a very good point that he

trusts readers to read carefully. So,

you really have to read the story more

more than once. Hemingway is Hemingway

is easy to read, but he's not easy to

understand.

And the famous Hemingway dialogue seems

as if it's natural, but it's really

stylized, and people don't don't

actually talk that way at all. It's it's

a very

a sort of almost like a post-modernist

sort of appropriation of how people

talk, but it's not really literal.

Then we notice the vocabulary is scaled

down. So it could be the vocabulary of a

boy about eight or nine. I think that's

how how old he is. I love that

beginning. At the at the lake shore

there was another rowboat drawn up.

Period. The two Indians stood waiting.

It's just a beautiful opening because it

just sets that scene that first little

paragraph. And then Nick and his father

got in the stern of the boat and Indian

shoved off. And then uncle George sat in

the stern of the camp rowboat. So there

are two boats and these different

Indians who are who are rowing them. But

the first paragraph sets that scene

which is impersonal. And then the next

one brings us immediately that intimacy

of Nick. And then Nick heard the orlocks

of the other boat away ahead of them. So

we know we're going to be in Nick's

head. The second paragraph we don't know

that yet. But the third paragraph we're

in Nick's consciousness. Then Nick lay

back with his father's arm around him

which is so touching and again it's very

unusual in Hemingway this sort of

physical presence. So we know that he's

a little really a little boy. We will

wonder later why on earth the father

brought the little boy out with him and

and we wonder like what kind of judgment

was that to bring a little boy to

attend a child birth basically

especially at a time in history when men

went nowhere near a delivery room and

you know men were not not welcome and to

bring a nine-year-old boy there seems

really uh really really strange.

So, what else about the story strikes

you?

Tell me what you think Uncle George is

doing there.

Yeah, I think how I read it is it seems

like George is the father of the baby

who's being delivered. And that's kind

of played upon where he's lighting

cigars and this kind of celebratory,

you know, Labor Day sort of, you know,

she's delivering a child, but it's

almost a parody.

Yeah.

of it

kind of vulgar. Yeah. And Corey, did you

have any thoughts?

Um, yeah, that's a that's a theme I've

seen in other Hemingway stories as well.

The idea of the sort of um I guess

cuckled man comes up a lot in Hemingway.

And um in this case, it's interesting

because he's going into an indigenous

community, which is this. So, it's this

very kind of colonial violence where not

only is he like extracting resources

possibly, we're not sure why he's there,

but also he's

now like extracting populations from

this community. It's a very uh

disturbing possibility.

I think in the 21st century, the story

is even more disturbing than it was at

the time because, as you said, it's like

colonizing and they're logging. They're

they're cutting down the logs and

they're they're exploiting and, you

know, raping the women and so forth. So

we read it with much much more um

judgmental eyes I think than the people

who who are the contemporaries.

Mhm.

But what I love about this story is the

sparness and then the beautiful ending.

It's such it's such a thrilling ending.

The sun is coming up over the hills.

It's like this new day. A bass jumped

making a circle in the water. Nick

traded his hand in the water. It felt

warm in a sharp chill of the morning. So

the ending is very carefully written

after this this dramatic dialogue and we

feel that the story is now coming to an

end with some meaning. So what do you

make of the last two paragraphs? Yeah, I

think it's um we also have this sort of

very kind of sensual like his hand is in

the water and the sun is coming up over

the hills. There's a lot going on with

nature there. It almost seems like it's

going to be uplifting,

but then this last paragraph, it ends on

sort of this very delusional note.

It's very beautifully written, isn't it?

It's sort of like the camera is moving

out now and they're they're moving

along. Corey, did you have any any

thought?

Well, just it's worth pointing out the

strength of the dialogue obviously,

right? I mean, as you mentioned earlier,

there's no tags. It's just line line and

to pull that off is very, very hard. and

you're right there the whole time. Um, I

don't think Hemingway very often gives

you the sort of uplift after the the

downturn. So, it's kind of nice to see

the boat scene.

Um, despite the fact that it's

delusional is this kind of scene of of

as you said, censuous beauty.

That's such a wonderful sensuous

observation that you would only know if

you were somebody who spent time on the

water. The the morning air is is cool,

but the water still feels a little warm.

And the idea of this the fish jumping.

It's like new life is coming and the sun

is coming up. Now this is I think a

wonderful ending. In an early morning on

the lake sitting in the stern of the

boat with his father rowing comma he

felt quite sure that he would never die.

Now that's the most unusual Hemingway

sentence because it has all these uh

parts to it. Most of the sentences are

short and declarative. here in the early

morning on the lake sitting in the stern

of the boat with his father rowing,

he felt quite sure that he would never

die.

And you can really unpack that sentence

has so much meaning like the idea that

the father is rowing the boat and he's

safe and protected by his father. The

little boy feels quite sure that he

would never die. So it's almost as if

there's an emphasis on the word he that

that he felt sure that he would never

die or he would never die but he feels

protected by the father in our time as

one of these great works of American

literature. When it came out people

didn't know how to read it. I mean there

were a few people who who read it of

course and he got great reviews but the

average reader I think would been quite

puzzled by it. So the typical Hemingway

story and this is very famous and I'm

sure you all know this but Hemingway

talks about literature being um an

iceberg and you see only the visible

part which is a small fraction. So the

iceberg goes beneath the surface of the

water and all of Hemingway's short

stories especially these early ones they

have this dark

uh enigmatic quality to them. So what's

under the water is implied, but you

don't know it, you know. So it's the the

acknowledgment of death that Nick

is rejecting and he thinks he's not

going to die. The father and uncle

George are much closer to the actual

experience of the death and they know

that somebody has been driven, the

Indian man has been driven really to

commit suicide. So, just one last thing

about why the story is important to to

read. First of all, it's a masterpiece

of brevity. There isn't anything that's

that's um ex extraneous. I've seen an

early part of an early draft of this and

it's so shocking. Right on the first

page, there was a little paragraph, Nick

remembered church the week before.

And I thought, "No, that's not

Hemingway." You know, like he he wrote

that paragraph like Nick remembered when

he was church previous Sunday and then

he obviously when he read it, he he

crossed it out and it seems so important

that he took that out because there's no

backstory

and Hemingway almost never has a

backstory. The characters move very

swiftly and you don't you don't get

dragged down or there's no accumulation

of the past. So that's sort of the

feeling of modernism and in the 20th

century and moving moving quickly. Now

just one final thing. When Hemingway was

this young writer, he he went away to

live in Paris and he was uh writing in

longhand and he would write about his

memories of being in Northern Michigan.

And so he would write maybe for a couple

of hours he would be writing just

writing.

And then he said, "And then I wrote my

first true sentence."

Now that could be an hour later or two

hours, maybe it could be the next day.

So the first true sentence of this story

is the one that's here.

So we don't know everything he threw

away. So I think that's so exciting and

such a great idea for for a writer to

know that Hemingway would sit and write

like preliminary, you know, just writing

and writing and writing. But then at one

point he'll write a sentence that's the

my one true sentence and that's the

beginning of the story. I feel that's

sort of triumphant.