Short Story Club: The Battler by Ernest Hemingway

[King Mob]

This first half of november we will be reading and discussing The Battler by Ernest Hemingway.

[Virgil]

Oh cool. I'll read it tonight if I get the chance and comment tomorrow. This is such a great story.

[Sapphire]

I just finished reading it. I couldn't help but hearing this song when I read that Ad Francis was a Boxer
Speaking of that, why is the title "Battler" and not "Boxer"... Battle of life?!?

[keilj]

this seems to fit the theme quite a bit:

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/TheHitter.html

[Rores28]

can I get this free on the interenet? can anyone post a link?

[Virgil]

can I get this free on the interenet? can anyone post a link?

I have never been able to find it. I read it last night. I'll put some comments out later tonight if I get free time.

[Sapphire]

I guess the first half of November is over...

I don't really know what to say about this story, appart from "I liked it" Not much of a discussion, is it?

One thing which did strike me as slightly odd, is in the last part of the story:

"You better take a sandwich," all this in a low, smooth, polite nigger voice.
"Good. Well, good-bye, Mister Adams"

So I assume Nick consciously takes a sandwich here, but a few sentences later we read

Nick climbed the embankment and started up the track. He found he had a ham sandwich in his hand and put it in his pocket

So much for being aware of the sandwich... aparently he managed to completely forget about it while walking away, listening to the boxer waking up AND during the climbing of the embankment.

Maybe it is put there to signify how much he is lost in thought at this moment in time?

[keilj]

this story had a very Steinbeck feel to it - so I automatically liked it

thinking like some of my old lit teachers - I can see where the boxer and his camp-mate could represent a couple of "types"

[Virgil]

I just love this story. It strikes me as perfection in structure and characterization. Let’s look at the structure. This is how I would divide the story up.

I. The opening event where Nick is punched off the train and he walks to the campfire.
II. The dialogue between Nick and Francis, where the characters are contrasted.
III. The addition of Bugs to now form a three way dialogue.
IV. The conflict between Francis and Nick comes out leading to where Bugs has to knock Francis out to prevent a fight.
V. Dialogue between Nick and Bugs illuminating Francis’s life and condition, and Nick finally walking off.

Like many of Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories, the central theme is Nick, a young man, becoming educated on the ways of life. The punch he receives in what I labeled part one contrasts with many punches Ad Francis has received, the black eye simultaneously connecting and contrasting to the deformities of Francis’s face. The dialogue of part II creates a tension between Nick’s inexperience with Francis’s experience. Bugs’s entrance and the cooking scene contrasts the brutality of Francis’s life with the civility and brotherhood that can exist between men. Finally when Francis goes off on his crazy delusion and challenges Nick, experience and inexperience come to a head. And in the final section, Nick comes away with a life lesson. What is that lessen? Look at these passages. The first is from part I when Nick picks himself off the ground:

Nick rubbed his eye. There was a big bump coming up. He would have a black eye, all right. It ached already. That son of a crutting brakeman.

He touched the bump over his eye with his fingers. Oh, well, it was only a black eye. That was all he had gotten out of it. Cheap at that price. He wished he could see it. Could not see it looking into the water, though. It was dark and he was a long way from anywhere. He wiped his hands on his trousers and stood up, then climbed the embankment to the rails.

And then this passage from part V where bugs explains Francis’s life. Remember Francis is an ex-prize fighting champion.

“What made him crazy?” Nick asked.

“Oh, a lot of things,” the negro answered from the fire. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Mister Adams?”

He handed Nick the cup and smoothed the coat he had placed under the unconscious man’s head.

“He took too many beatings, for one thing,” the negro sipped the coffee. “But that made him sort of simple. Then his sister was his manager and they was always being written up in the papers all about brothers and sisters and how she loved her brother and how he loved his sister, and then they got married in New York and that made a lot of unpleasantness.”

“I remember about it.”

“Sure. Of course they weren’t brother and sister no more than a rabbit, but there was a lot of people didn’t like it either way and they commenced to have disagreements, and one day she just went off and never come back.”

He drank the coffee and wiped his lips from the pink palm of his hand.

“He just went crazy. Will you have some more coffee, Mister Adams?”

“Thanks.”

“I seen her a couple of times,” the negro went on. “She was an awful good-looking woman. Looked enough like him to be twins. He wouldn’t be bad-looking without his face all busted.”

He stopped. The story seemed to be over.

“Where did you meet him?” asked Nick.

“I met him in jail,” the negro said. “He was busting people all the time after she went away and they put him in jail. I was in for cuttin’ a man.”

He smiled, and went on soft-voiced:

“Right away I liked him and when I got out I looked him up. He likes to think I’m crazy and I don’t mind. I like to be with him and I like seeing the country and I don’t have to commit no larceny to do it. I like living like a gentleman.”

“What do you all do?” Nick asked.

“Oh nothing. Just move around. He’s got money.”

“He must have made a lot of money.”

“Sure. He spent all his money, though. Or they took it away from him. She sends him money.”

From the first quoted passage, notice the phrase, “Cheap at that price. “ And from the second passage, notice that Francis “made a lot of money.” Nick’s black eye and Francis’s life are viewed through monetary value. The lessen that Nick learns is that life is earned through hardships and beatings, whether they be physical (the beatings), from societal (the brother/sister unpleasantness), or from love (she went and left him). The beatings and fighting become a metaphor for life’s lessons.

[Virgil]

One other thing I wanted to point out about this story is that I think it owes a little to Sherwood Anderson. Anderson is mostly known for his short story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a fictional town. The stories revolve around the theme that the characters are altered physically by life, the physical alteration reflecting the psychological changes. Well a similar thing happens in this story. Here’s an extended quote to highlight this point, but also to appreciate the Hemingway dialogue and ability to present characters without extensive authorial comment.

The man sat there looking into the fire. When Nick stopped quite close to him he did not move.

“Hello!” Nick said.

The man looked up.

“Where did you get that shiner?” he said.

“A brakeman busted me.”

“Off the the through freight?”

“Yes.”

“I saw the bastard,” the man said. “He went through here ‘bout an hour and a half ago. He was walking along the top of the cars slapping his arms and singing.”

“The bastard!”

“It must have made him feel good to bust you,” the man said seriously.

“I’ll bust him.”

“Get him with a rock sometime when he’s going through,” the man advised.

“I’ll get him.”

“You’re a tough one, aren’t you?”

“No,” Nick answered.

“All you kids are tough.”

“You got to be tough,” Nick said.

“That’s what I said.”

The man looked at Nick and smiled. In the firelight Nick saw that his face was misshapen. His nose was sunken, his eyes were slits, he had queer-shaped lips. Nick did not perceive all this at once, he only saw the man’s face was queerly formed and mutilated. It was like putty in color. Dead looking in the firelight.

“Don’t you like my pan?” the man asked.

Nick was embarrassed.

“Sure,” he said.

“Look here!” the man took off his cap.

He had only one ear. It was thickened and tight against the side of his head. Where the other one should have been there was a stump.

Ever see one like that?”

“No,” said Nick. It made him a little sick.

“I could take it,” the man said. “Don’t you think I could take it, kid?”

“You bet!”

“They all bust their hands on me,” the little man said. “They couldn’t hurt me.”

He looked at Nick. “Sit down,” he said. “Want to eat?”

“Don’t bother,” Nick said. “I’m going on to the town.”

“Listen,” the man said. “Call me Ad.”

“Sure!”

“Listen,” the little man said. “I’m not quite right.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m crazy.”

He put on his cap. Nick felt like laughing.

“You’re all right,” he said.

“No, I’m not. I’m crazy. Listen, you ever been crazy?”

“No,” Nick said. “How does it get you?”

“I don’t know,” Ad said. “When you got it you don’t know about it…”

That I just find that fabulous. Three times Nick says “no” in that passage. It’s almost an interrogation, and those “no’s” establishes the contrast between them. I especially like that first “no” where Nick is asked if he’s tough. Notice how Nick bounces back and forth from saying he’s tough and not. That “no” just reflects his insecurity. That’s Hemingway at his best. And I think you can see what I mean about owing to Anderson.

[Sancho]

So, what made Ad Francis crazy? Was it the funny business with his manager/sister/wife or was it that he just got too many overhand punches to the noggin?

[Virgil]

So, what made Ad Francis crazy? Was it the funny business with his manager/sister/wife or was it that he just got too many overhand punches to the noggin?

I think it was all those things, though a good punch in the head does more damage than a broken heart.

[Sancho]

I think it was all those things, though a good punch in the head does more damage than a broken heart.

So true and I had a feeling you were going to say something like that, Virgil.

I suppose what made that story so powerful for me was the immediate and irrational change in Ad Francis’s demeanor over the pocketknife. I’ve had a few instances (mostly in bars) where I’d be chatting it up with somebody, and the conversation seems to be going swimmingly, and then I say something wrong, and the mood turns ugly. And I wind up ducking a punch and shucking and jiving towards the door. Weird. Probably it’s me.

I also liked the way Nick got to apply his newly learned lesson from the school of hard knocks. I mean he had his guard up when dealing with Francis, but he’d just been sucker-punched by the train conductor: “Come here, kid. I got something for you.”