Bei Autoren wie Heming­way ist es ziem­lich schwer zu demons­trie­ren wor­in die lite­ra­ri­sche Qua­li­tät sei­ner Tex­te besteht, denn sie zeich­nen sich in ers­ter Linie durch die ABWESENHEIT tra­di­tio­nel­ler lite­ra­ri­scher Mit­tel, wie z.B. beschrei­ben­der Adjek­ti­ve und Adver­bi­en aus.

Leich­ter wird es, wenn man einen Text nimmt und dar­aus alle „inter­es­san­ten“ Adjek­ti­ve, Adver­bi­en und Ver­ben ent­fernt bzw. durch lang­wei­li­ge­re ersetzt. Hier z.B. der Beginn einer Night­hawks Geschich­te mei­ner frü­he­ren Schü­le­rin Eli­sa Gra­na­to:

Gang war­fa­re in some distant coun­try. 200 vic­tims. Wea­ther will be fine. The voice of the news­cas­ter could be heard across the room, bare­ly noti­ced by the three figu­res sit­ting at the bar while the bar­kee­per was clea­ning some glas­ses. He loo­ked at the guest that had been sit­ting the­re for at least two hours and orde­red not­hing but a glass of water and a beer coas­ter. An elder­ly man in a grey suit … His fea­tures didn’t move, and if it wasn’t for his occa­sio­nal ner­vous twit­ches, you couldn’t tell if he wasn’t alre­a­dy dead. Poor man, reminds me of my old grand­fa­ther … I won­der what he’s thin­king of. Per­haps I should talk to him, he looks real­ly trou­bled. But pro­ba­b­ly it would just annoy him …

Und hier der­sel­be Text nochmal:

Gang war­fa­re in some distant coun­try. 200 vic­tims. Wea­ther will be fine. The feeb­le voice of the news­cas­ter floa­ted across the room, bare­ly noti­ced by the three figu­res at the bar that sat sil­ent­ly while the bar­kee­per was bois­te­rous­ly (hef­tig) clea­ning some glas­ses. He glan­ced at the guest that had been sit­ting the­re for at least two hours and orde­red not­hing but a glass of water and a beer coas­ter. An elder­ly man in a grey suit … His sharp fea­tures didn’t move, and if it wasn’t for his occa­sio­nal ner­vous twit­ches, you couldn’t tell if he wasn’t alre­a­dy dead. Poor guy, reminds me of my old grand­fa­ther … I won­der what he’s thin­king of. Per­haps I should talk to him, he looks real­ly trou­bled. But pro­ba­b­ly it would just annoy him …

Im Ver­gleich kann man dann her­aus­ar­bei­ten, war­um die zwei­te Fas­sung bes­ser ist.