Ernest Hemingway

[Songbird]

But if you're just doing one, go with For Whom the Bell Tolls.

 

[Boom_70]

Was Hemingway a member of The NRA?

 

[Point of Order]

It took me six months to plow through For Whom the Bell Tolls. I was in college at the time. I wondered why I continued to read it. By the time I finished, though, I was incredibly happy I stuck with it.

 

[YankeeFan]

The Old Man and the Sea -- 128 pages

The Sun Also Rises -- 251 pages

A Farewell to Arms -- 332 pages

For Whom the Bell Tolls -- 480 pages

Each of the first two can be banged out in one sitting.

 

[Buck]

I'm just not a fan.

I admire the man's technical proficiency, his craftsmanship, but I don't enjoy the work.

I guess I'm the opposite of Vers. I expect to enjoy myself - reading, listening to music, watching a movie.

Enjoyment doesn't mean the material should be mindless. Quite the opposite.

I enjoy material that is emotive and/or illuminating in some way. I expect to feel something or learning something about myself, the world, the author, etc.

I want to analyze the technique and creative choices, but technique and creative choices are not ends within themselves. They are means to a greater end - moving the audience in some way, emotionally or intellectually.

For me, Hemingway fails in that artistic end.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Well, I do read for enjoyment, but I gain that enjoyment more out of dissecting the writing and analyzing the writer's choices in diction and pacing and plot twists. It's not about a good story for me.

You must dislike most non-fiction work.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

I've met the man's nephew.
I've had a drink in three of his favorite bars.

I have family in a city that hosted a Hemingway symposium last year. A lot of scholars came into town for it, most of whom had written many, many words about the man, and not all of whom completely understood him. For instance in the Nick Adams stories there is a reference to black squirrels. One woman thought it was a squirrel who represented evil. Nope. Black squirrels are a real thing and are native to northern-lower Michigan, the area from which Hemingway drew inspiration for those stories.

I still love some of the stories about him more than his stories (even though I did like everything of his I've read). For instance in "Is Paris Burning" there are several Hemingway stories, like how he recruited a French Resistance unit in the span of about 48 hours and 'liberated' a Paris bar.

One of the greatest nights of my life was partying like a VIP with his grandson John Hemingway in Pamplona during the bullrun a few years back.

 

[User 11148]

I'm with Boom in that I must not have the proper mindset or requisite brainpower to enjoy Hemingway. Since so many hold him in high esteem, I've always considered this some sort of personal deficiency.

I'm willing to give it another try, though. Anyone have suggestions on where I should start?

Are you a hunter? http://www.amazon.com/Hemingway-Hunting-Ernest/dp/0743225295/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Do you fish? http://www.amazon.com/Hemingway-Fishing-Ernest/dp/074321918X

Are you a writer? http://www.amazon.com/Ernest-Hemingway-Writing-Larry-Phillips/dp/0684854295

Those are all collections that are easily digestible. But if you're just doing one, go with The Sun Also Rises.

I have found these short stories of his to be very, very powerful:

"The End of Something"

"Fifty Grand"

"Big Two-Hearted River"

"Soldier's Home"

"My Old Man"

They're all very approachable, beautifully written ... but there's a lot going on there, too.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

 

[Point of Order]

I usually can't read more than 50 pages in one sitting. No matter how not-tired I am I'll fall asleep. How many pages can you read at a time?

 

[Boom_70]

Possible that the Hemingway narrative is better than the books

 

[Versatile]

Well, I do read for enjoyment, but I gain that enjoyment more out of dissecting the writing and analyzing the writer's choices in diction and pacing and plot twists. It's not about a good story for me.

You must dislike most non-fiction work.

I don't read non-fiction books. Thanks for your concern.

 

[YankeeFan]

I'm with Boom in that I must not have the proper mindset or requisite brainpower to enjoy Hemingway.

After reading some posters' comments, I'm starting to think I'm not sophisticated enough to properly dislike Hemingway.

 

[Versatile]

YankeeFan, my personal message box contains zro items from you.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

I love Hemingway because I would love to have lived the life he did ... right up until that whole pesky shotgun incident. You can't do what he did in today's world.
Hemingway's work is simple and straight forward. Maybe there are some underlying themes there that I never get out of any (author/book,song, movie, etc.). For instance, if someone is writing about black squirrels, I don't search for a hidden meaning. I take it to mean he is talking about tree-dwelling rodents with black fur.

So Moby **** is just a giant, white sperm whale? It doesn't represent anything else?

I didn't say I liked Melville. ;D
Don't even get me started on Billy Budd. Actually, I couldn't get started on Billy Budd. I think I read about 10 pages and quit.

 

[H.L. Mencken]

Chances are, some of you are lying about having read Papa anyway.

62 Percent of People Lie About Having Read Classic Novels

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10286930/More-than-half-of-us-lie-about-reading-classic-novels.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly&utm_campaign=5340a4f5dc-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-5340a4f5dc-304505657

I enjoy the man's work. I've never masturbated over it like some. But I actually do enjoy it, and think that several of his books are quite beautiful in their sparseness. The Narrative of the man's life has become this thing of its own, and the people who say "I would love to live like Hemingway lived" fail to realize he was, for much of his adult life, a miserable alcoholic with a giant hole inside him he couldn't fill, no matter how many women he married or big game he slayed, and a lot of people wonder if he was constantly overcompensating to hide the simple fact that he wanted to make love to dudes and was tortured by this for much of his life.

I've never quite bought into the last part, but he wasn't exactly a happy fellow for many of his years on earth. It was no accident he killed himself. It was essentially his destiny. His father killed himself, his younger brother killed himself, two of his sisters may have killed themselves, he was in all kinds of physical pain throughout his life from two plane crashes he was in, fires he'd been burned in, falls he'd taken, etc., he was paranoid as **** that the FBI was trying to kill him, his eyesight was bad, his liver a mess, his joints wrecked. He thought Fitzgerald was a hen-pecked *****, yet he was jealous as hell of his friend's talent, even though Fitzgerald never experienced a fraction of the critical or financial success Hemingway did while both were alive.

Much of the "legend" is bull****. But he wrote some beautiful sentences. The Short Unhappy Life of Francis McComber has one of the great opening lines of any short story ever.

 

[Songbird]

I've never read a Stephen King book. I've never read a Michael Crichton book. Dan Brown or Flan O'Connor.

Hemingway (3 books, several short stories), Steinbeck (3 books), HST (3 books) and Taibbi (3 books) I've read.

I also read the Charlie Brown Dictionary several times. Totally underrated.

That all being said, I chose MTV over books and that is my greatest mistake in life.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Chances are, some of you are lying about having read Papa anyway.

62 Percent of People Lie About Having Read Classic Novels

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10286930/More-than-half-of-us-lie-about-reading-classic-novels.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly&utm_campaign=5340a4f5dc-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-5340a4f5dc-304505657

I enjoy the man's work. I've never masturbated over it like some. But I actually do enjoy it, and think that several of his books are quite beautiful in their sparseness. The Narrative of the man's life has become this thing of its own, and the people who say "I would love to live like Hemingway lived" fail to realize he was, for much of his adult life, a miserable alcoholic with a giant hole inside him he couldn't fill, no matter how many women he married or big game he slayed, and a lot of people wonder if he was constantly overcompensating to hide the simple fact that he wanted to make love to dudes and was tortured by this for much of his life.

I've never quite bought into the last part, but he wasn't exactly a happy fellow for many of his years on earth. It was no accident he killed himself. It was essentially his destiny. His father killed himself, his younger brother killed himself, two of his sisters may have killed themselves, he was in all kinds of physical pain throughout his life from two plane crashes he was in, fires he'd been burned in, falls he'd taken, etc., he was paranoid as **** that the FBI was trying to kill him, his eyesight was bad, his liver a mess, his joints wrecked. He thought Fitzgerald was a hen-pecked *****, yet he was jealous as hell of his friend's talent, even though Fitzgerald never experienced a fraction of the critical or financial success Hemingway did while both were alive.

Much of the "legend" is bull****. But he wrote some beautiful sentences. The Short Unhappy Life of Francis McComber has one of the great opening lines of any short story ever.

Those falling into the "overcompensating due to hidden homosexuality" camp have twisted the position of Comley and Scholes by reading the title of their essay, but not the whole thing.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

Hemingway wasn't gay, although, I did have to explain to a book store cashier once that "Men Without Women" wasn't about that.

 

[YankeeFan]

Chances are, some of you are lying about having read Papa anyway.

62 Percent of People Lie About Having Read Classic Novels

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10286930/More-than-half-of-us-lie-about-reading-classic-novels.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly&utm_campaign=5340a4f5dc-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-5340a4f5dc-304505657

I love this:

With the exception of “The Catcher in the Rye,” all those books have been made into films. Salinger famously refused during his lifetime to sell the film rights, therefore condemning millions of people to looking stupid and having blank looks on their faces when the book is a topic of serious conversation.

http://lat.ms/165LEBR