James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway - Who Helped Them?

It has always interested me (perhaps because ofPound, James Joyce would never have made the
my background in psychology), how men andgrade. Ulysses, was gone over by Mr. Pound, and
women are made, from the days of youth, toJoyce took all the information he was willing to
the days of just prior to death. It is nevergive to heart, made his changes as needed: Joyce
because one man stood alone against all the oddswas not dumb, just not skilled, and thus he
in the world. It is because he took opportunityproduced a best seller, he learned on the job; and
when it came by. He saw it, grabbed it, and thus,the Dubliners, well, he kept what he learned and
waited, or polished, or whatever it took he or shelife went on.
did, to make it to the next step, and so I justAs for Hemingway, he had help on three sides or
wanted to take a quick view of two famousfour. One, it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who got the
writers, whom would not have been famous hadpublishers to look at his stuff. Second, it was
they not done what I just said, or so I believe,Shakespeare And Company that became his
and been at in the right place at the right timesecond home, and where he got his books to
(and I think I can say, they went to the rightread, and study free. Third, he got Ezra Pound to
place, hoping to find what they did find, as I did intake him under his wing, and teach him the art, as
1968, when I went to San Francisco, againstdid Anderson take Hemingway under his wing, and
many odds, and wrote a book about it, called,introduced him to his publishers as well, and Stein,
"Romancing San Francisco".she introduced him to the writers and artist, and
What made these two people I will bring to light inpoets of Paris; in addition, he came from a pretty
a moment, good writers? Somewhere, along thewell off family, other than that, he was a reporter
line, everyone gets a little help. James Joyce waswith a rough way of writing, that would not have
a very bad writer, I have a few of his Firstsold a book, had he not taken advantage of what
Edition poem books, he wrote a few of them,came his way. And yes, in time he turned out to
they are not all that great either. But why was hisbe a fairly good writer, too much dialogue for me,
book, number one throughout the 1930s, if heyet I have most, if not all his books, first editions,
was not so hot? Some people have good skillsso nonetheless, he was a good writer (some
and imagination, others have one or the other,psychological problems in the head, but most
and seldom do they have both. Joyce had a goodwriters got them, he just could not control them).
imagination, but stunk on skills, if it wasn't for Ezra