Ernest Hemingway

[Robert Jordan]

It would be great to have an Ernest Hemingway subforum. I'd say he's just as prolific most of the other authors that you guys have subforums for. Thank you

[optimisticnad]

Yep he is really good. I loved 'Hills like white elephants'

But I prefer Raymond Carver (the American Chekhov, cant get a better compliment than that!)

[Logos]

He doesn't (and won't) have his *own* forum here because only those authors with works in the public domain get them.

[optimisticnad]

Logos, I don't understand, I mean could you explain what you mean by 'works in the public domain' ?

[Logos]

Basically anything published post-1923 is not pd.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17769

[Tuesday]

He doesn't (and won't) have his *own* forum here because only those authors with works in the public domain get them.

Good to know, I've already wondered why he didn't have one.

[Robert Jordan]

Then why does F. Scott Fitzgerald have one? He published works post 1923. Right?

[Brendan Madley]

Quite frankly, I haven't really experienced Hemingway apart from the other day when I picked up FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS from the school library. Incidentally I found it hideous and quickly swapped for Jeffrey Archer's short story collection.

[Logos]

Then why does F. Scott Fitzgerald have one? He published works post 1923. Right?
You've missed the point. Yes F. Scott has works that were pub. post-1923 but he also has lots in the pd (http://www.online-literature.com/fitzgerald/). Hemingway doesn't.

[NickAdams]

Gentlemen! Fill the wineskins and avoid all rows, we have ourselves a thread!

[Nossa]

I love E. Hemingway...it doesn't matter if he has a subforum, as long as we can always discuss anything related to him here.

[byquist]

Well, feminist criticism can justifiably and thoroughly nail him, and with good reason.

[Morten]

Is anyone actually going to say something about Hemingway?

I think he was one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. He changed the art of writing and, as someone I once read said, there has only been two types of writers since: those who tried to copy him and those who tried not to. OK, a little harsh but then there you have it. His impact on literature and writing is almost unparalleled in the 20th Century.

I love his brutally honest writing and his understatements.

[Sancho]

I dig E.H. too. And reading his stuff makes me want to go out and do Man-things, in a Manly Manner, with other Men. Aaarrrhhgg.

You know though, he could be petty and vindictive at times. Since someone mentioned his friend Scott Fitzgerald earlier in this thread, does anyone want to speculate about why E.H. found it necessary to write an entire short story about his friend’s self doubt and self conscientiousness over the size of his manliness?

(Zelda Fitzgerald could be wickedly brutal to a Man’s delicate ego)

[closea]

I agree that Ernest Hemingway has been very influential in modern literature, but so have many other authors. I love his writing, it is very expressive and deep. Some of his works, though, I do have problems with. For example, in the Sun Also Rises, all the characters do is drink and party. While this is very telling of the Lost Generation, those reading in his time would not have read it as a social commentary, they would have read it as a semi-autobiographical memoir, or as an entertaining read, like many read Tom Clancy or John Grisham novels today. In fact, in comparison to other "Lost Generation" authors of the time, Hemingway's seem the least artistic- F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is much more of a criticism of the time, and is unfortunately not regarded as highly.
These Hemingway criticisms aside, I do love reading his novels and think that his writing is extremely powerful and illuminating.

[Woland]

Hemingway's seem the least artistic- F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is much more of a criticism of the time, and is unfortunately not regarded as highly.


Ive never thought Fitzgerald to be held in less regard than Hemingway.

I could never get into Hemingway though. His writing is too pumped up with testosterone for my taste but I still think hes an excellent writer, just not my thing.

[audiobahn53]

I thoroughly enjoy Ernest Hemingway's works, The Old Man and the Sea was the first literary enriched book I read out of class in middle school. I enjoyed it so much I started to piick up other books and read other authors at his level i.e. Plato, Orwell, Dostoevsky ect. Hemingway really got me into reading fine literature.

[NickAdams]

Well, feminist criticism can justifiably and thoroughly nail him, and with good reason.

I implore you to elaborate.


In fact, in comparison to other "Lost Generation" authors of the time, Hemingway's seem the least artistic- F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is much more of a criticism of the time, and is unfortunately not regarded as highly.

Fact or opinion? Does criticism constitute art? What kind of artist compromises their work for money? The last question generalizes the ethics of an artist, which is in question itself.

This iceberg is sinking! Be diligent.

Trivia: How many plays does Hemingway have published?

Short stories: What do you think of in our time? If you haven't been able to get a copy, it's the interchapters of In Our Time.

I think he makes great use of such a short form. They're sensational, but that makes it interesting.

Least favorite story: One Trip Across, which was incorporated into To Have and Have Not, it's so formulaic.

[Morten]

Regarding the Fitzgerald case:

Although it is very clear that Hemingway at times mistreated or behaved disrespectful towards Fitzgerald, up until Scott's death he and Hemingway were still friends. Hemingway expressed in letters to Max Perkins the years before Scott's death how much he had enjoyed Tender is the Night and how much he hoped that Scott was doing better.

What I didn't understand was why Hemingway lied in A Moveable Feast about Fitzgerald.

[willq9]

Well, feminist criticism can justifiably and thoroughly nail him, and with good reason.

For what exactly? Not being a feminist?

[NickAdams]

With Brett Ashley, from The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway has done more for the sexual liberation of women than Jane Austen could with all her works.

[willq9]

With Brett Ashley, from The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway has done more for the sexual liberation of women than Jane Austen could with all her works.

Indeed. But then again, the only reason Austen is considered 'feminist' in some circles is because she wrote about women during a period when values concerning gender were very different from what they are today. She effectively portrays femininity in a sympathetic light (and no, that doesn't mean she felt sorry for anyone), but she wasn't a reformer at all.

And the only reason Hemingway would rub feminists the wrong way is his pervasive hyper-masculinity. But does hyper-masculinity automatically gurantee the presence of sexism or misogyny? Heh? I don't think so. But I'd like to know exactly what those "feminist critics" said...

[NickAdams]

I'm curious myself. 'Til byquist responds, I will say as the Milgram experimentors did: "Treat no answer as a wrong answer."

[Cervan]

I went forty years pretty much ignoring Hemingway. I tried to read "A Farewell to Arms" once, a long time ago, but didn't care for it. At that time I was heavily into Joyce and Herman Melville. Recently I purchased a volume of Hemingway's complete short stories, and I can't believe I lived so long without coming to terms with such a powerful writer.

That being said, I think I still prefer Steinbeck. The opening of "The Grapes of Wrath" is, for me, the perfect benchmark for good, solid English prose.

[Virgil]

I went forty years pretty much ignoring Hemingway. I tried to read "A Farewell to Arms" once, a long time ago, but didn't care for it. At that time I was heavily into Joyce and Herman Melville. Recently I purchased a volume of Hemingway's complete short stories, and I can't believe I lived so long without coming to terms with such a powerful writer.


Hemingway's short stories are some of the best ever written. I think his reputation rests on his short stories. When I was young I was enamored with some of Hemingway's novels, but as I re-read them as I've grown older, I find them rather shallow with very simple characters. His female characters are practically two dimensional cartoons. The Sun Also Rises stands out as a good novel, but I find it hard in myself to say great. He was an excellent prose stylist, one that I very much admire. I think his style and the compact form of a short story was ideal for Hemingway. There is a short story called "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" which exemplifies what's great about a Hemingway short story and why that doesn't transfer to a novel. The characters in the story are are relatively simple without great depth of past: the gambler is a gambler and the nun is a nun and both have some ideosyncrasies, but no real past or three dimensional features. The situation is tight and intense. It makes a fine if not great short story. But if this were to be expanded into a novel, the situation loses its intensity because of the length and the characters become repetative. The shortness of a short story keeps Hemingway intense.

[Nossa]

Hemingway's short stories are some of the best ever written. I think his reputation rests on his short stories. When I was young I was enamored with some of Hemingway's novels, but as I re-read them as I've grown older, I find them rather shallow with very simple characters. His female characters are practically two dimensional cartoons. The Sun Also Rises stands out as a good novel, but I find it hard in myself to say great. He was an excellent prose stylist, one that I very much admire. I think his style and the compact form of a short story was ideal for Hemingway. There is a short story called "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" which exemplifies what's great about a Hemingway short story and why that doesn't transfer to a novel. The characters in the story are are relatively simple without great depth of past: the gambler is a gambler and the nun is a nun and both have some ideosyncrasies, but no real past or three dimensional features. The situation is tight and intense. It makes a fine if not great short story. But if this were to be expanded into a novel, the situation loses its intensity because of the length and the characters become repetative. The shortness of a short story keeps Hemingway intense.

I'm a HUGE fan of Ernest Hemingway's works...but you don't want to know my first reaction towards the first short story I read. I was like "what the...? you call THIS a short story?" lol..it was called "Hills like white elephants"...It was more of describing a conversation between two people, and the only feeling I had while I listened to my professor in the lecture explaining it, was that it's been WAY over analysed...but then I read it on my own and I did find many of these things she was talking about in the lecture and really understood the beauty of the story. I actually liked it so much that I got a collection of his short stories right after that, so that I can read it duting summer...lol

[NickAdams]

a short story keeps Hemingway intense.

That is evident in his flas-fiction.


The characters in the story are are relatively simple without great depth of past: the gambler is a gambler and the nun is a nun and both have some ideosyncrasies, but no real past or three dimensional features.

He was too romantic about his iceberg principle. It was not as universal as he thought and it can not sustain a novel.

But, I do think that The Sun Also Rises is a strong novel.

[Virgil]

But, I do think that The Sun Also Rises is a strong novel.

Yes, I agree. I also think A Farewell To Arms is a fairly good novel. I used to think it great, but it came down somewhat for me. Actually it was the Book forum Novel one month last year and had a great discussion on it. You might want to read through it: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15203

[Geoffrey]

The Sun Also Rises is actually one of my favorites, second only to whom the bell tolls. His writing strikes many chords within me and his descriptions really make my heart pitter patter.

as for he and F. Scott. Fitzgerald, I read that they were friends at a time and than had a falling out. Bad Blood I do suppose. I know he was a fiercely competitive man.

[NickAdams]

Virgil,

Thank you. I read a few post on the thread. I haven't finished Farewell and too much was being revealed in the post.

Hemingway thought Scott was one of the best living writers and would be better if he wasn't such a 'whore'.

Rise thread! Rise!

What are your thoughts on his incomplete works being published posthumously?

As a writer and a fan I am happy to see what his stories are like before completion. As someone who respect him as a writer. I think his name has been tarnished.

[Jolly McJollyso]

Virgil,

Thank you. I read a few post on the thread. I haven't finished Farewell and too much was being revealed in the post.

Hemingway thought Scott was one of the best living writers and would be better if he wasn't such a 'whore'.
A little hypocritical for Hemingway to call anyone a whore, hahaha.

[Scheherazade]

That being said, I think I still prefer Steinbeck. The opening of "The Grapes of Wrath" is, for me, the perfect benchmark for good, solid English prose.Hear, hear! :)

[byquist]

Several of you are singing the praises of Hemingway, and no question he was an honored professional writer, and in possession of that artistic concentration and fervor. Also, there's a great personal interview of him that reflects his sense of wit and humor, and seriousness like reading King Lear regularly.

But Linda Wagner-Martin (2002: "The Romance of Desire in H's Fiction") says, "Women are never central to any Hemingway work on their own terms." They are objects existing "in relation to the male." Would you like to be an object? (Well, maybe if it was like Bill Wither's Use Me Up" but eventually being an object is insulting.) W-M coins him an "inventive writer of erotica." One of his wives said that patience and courtesy were not "his most familiar qualities."

In "Islands in the Stream", Thomas Hudson (aka Hemingway) admits that "he had been undisciplined, selfish, and ruthless ... many women had told it to him ... he had finally discovered it for himself." Oooow, such genius! He has vowed to never quarrel again, but in the second section he reverts to the nasty. Hey, I like the novel, but there's a lot of surface rot to wade through. And, as I mentioned, the female of our species (well, some at least) can easily find him a cad.

Plus he didn't even live up to his ideal of masculinity. Look at some of those pictures, he's boozed-up overweight; life is done at a mere 60; ill, grumpy, memory loss, shock treatment, suicide. Evidently the Hemingway hero didn't survive when it came to the longer-term.

Again, I like some of his stuff (like "Soldier Home" is a gas), and some about the stuff I don't personally cater to, plus have to read further. If he's your man, have at it. But still, be nice to females, never taking his unkind position if you can avoid it.

[quasimodo1]

Alas, a Hemmingway hater? I have studied the man, read his stuff and he is no Marc Twain or Abe Lincoln. Still, every writer has an apogee and his was early. Oscar Wilde died at forty, did alot worse stuff and hardly anybody gets on his case. If Hemmingway only did "For Whom the Bell Tolls" it would have been enough. This period he lived in was definitely pre-Gloria S. But still your point is good. quasimodo1

[byquist]

That's the whole point; this is old stuff. So, why put him so high on your pedestal? Call a spade a spade. He cared about, "Me, Myself and I."

[Jolly McJollyso]

That's the whole point; this is old stuff. So, why put him so high on your pedestal? Call a spade a spade. He cared about, "Me, Myself and I."
Well, I think we'd all agree that Hemingway was, to use the parlance of our times, a bag of douche. He was violent, full of rage, and not very kind to women (possibly due to his sexual frustration/confusion).

I will say, though, that I'm impressed with any minimalist who can write effectively, and Hemingway (though he was often hit or miss with the power of the style) did manage to do it occasionally.

As with Eliot and Pound, we have to look past these personal issues and look at the art itself.

I put his art fairly high on my pedestal because I feel it deserves a place there. I don't like Hemingway, I don't like him as a person and I don't particularly like many of his writings. He's a hypocritical chauvanistic rage-monger. I do, however, think of him as an important and influential writer; his art is great, even if I don't personally enjoy it or him.

If we stop respecting Hemingway's art for Hemingway's person, we end up repeating the same mistake that was made with Paul DeMan's post-structuralist work. These literary minds are human beings, and, beyond that, geniuses. Of course they will be flawed, even extremely flawed, but that should have no bearing on the value of their work.

[byquist]

Points well taken, and the issue may be more of a philosophic/moral one: the separation, or non-separation, of the person from the artist. Picasso, likewise, was not nice to women, so I've read or heard. Strindberg perhaps even worse still.

It really shouldn't be asking too much of an artist to be at least half-humane, but artsy-types are too often given the "pass." Unless his less suave side is out there sufficiently as a perpetual reminded, folks can end up idolizing a reprobate, as they no doubt do at yearly conventions in his honor.

Let's drop it. And remember, I like a portion of his writing. I respect fire, but get tired of decadence, whether my own or anybody else's.

[NickAdams]

Hemingway was cruel to both men and women. He was a compulsive liar. Islands in the Stream was published after his death, so what you read may not have been his final resolve. He saved Pounds life, so he wasn't always a douche. He had mental problems, but I don't know if they were physiological. Does he get a pass? That's not what we're discussing. I thought we were talking about his work. The Sun Also Rises only exists because of Brett Ashley. And all female author's male characters are center to the story on their own terms? A feminist made public her dislike of Hemingway and it dominos. Most people approach an author's work knowing their reputation. They only notice what has been suggested and neglect the rest. I'm not saying it's done by everybody, but it's group polarization, reference group ... Would you constantly bring up Woolf's infedelity or her suicide? Take out Bingley and Darcy and replace them with anyone you please and you still have a conflict; take out Brett Ashley and The Sun Also Rises falls, pun intended. :nod:

[obesechicken13]

His inconsistency is more than made up for by how much people seem to admire his books now. I don't really know, reading my first book by him A Farewell to Arms.
I like Hemingway because he felt this sort of invincibility. He'd been in close encounters with death so many times and didn't die. Seems pretty cool.

[quasimodo1]

To NickAdams: I get it, jeez, good argument still the suicide in the family and all, makes you wonder about genetic stuff, not as excuse but as cause and effect. Something about his style has always got me, is brevity still an asset of wit. How about economy of word. Minimilism and yet, long, interesting sometimes riveting books. So there's the fence. RJS

[Nemessis]

hi everyone,
on Thursday i have a presentation on critical interpretations of THE SUN ALSO RISES. The professor asked to me talk about the article "the death of love in the sun also rises", by Mark Spilka. The article is nowhere to be found! Please, if anyone can sort me out with this I would be extremely grateful.
thank you very much!

[quasimodo1]

To Nemessis: Have you tried the University of Nebraska at Lincoln or Omaha. The U. of Nebraska press. quasimodo1

[NickAdams]

In his earliest months his mother dressed him like a girl and treated him as a sort of twin to his sister Marcelline, who was eighteen months his senior.

Hmmm ...

[Geoffrey]

Yeah, so anyways, The Garden of Eden by Hemingway is one of his unfinished novels correct? Knowing this I've always avoided the book, even after starring at it for long minutes on my fathers book shelf.

I love his writing, so should I read something of his that he never finished? I've just avoided the book I guess. Is it anygood?

[ennison]

I think it was Solzhenitsyn who had one of his female characters dismiss Hemingway as writing from the point of view of 'heroic' supermen central characters and having female ciphers as their counterparts. Well to some extent this is true, the male central characters are pretty close to the parodies of masculinity found in hard-boiled fiction but I still enjoy him.

[Sancho]

Nick, have you read E.H.’s A Movable Feast? I found it fascinating on several levels but since you mentioned that you’re a writer, you may find it interesting to see a young, vulnerable Hemingway, sort of working out his style, and learning his craft, and not really too sure if he had any talent.

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about his work is that I knew he was speaking from experience. Whether it was ambulance driving during WW-I or taking a road trip to Spain for the Bull fights or reporting during the Spanish Civil War or sub-hunting in the Caribbean during WW-II or getting rip-roaring drunk and obnoxious during any of the above…he lived it. He was definitely not some egg-head sitting in a darkened room alone and writing deep, abstract, experimental gobbledygook that nobody except for a few professors of interpretive literature would truly understand (or read).

[Geoffrey]

Sancho, I agree.. because
aren't the best things always real?!
There is no doubt a reason that fantasy fiction has it's own *separate* section on the board... :-)


anyways, sorry all you scholars...

[NickAdams]

Nick, have you read E.H.’s A Movable Feast? I found it fascinating on several levels but since you mentioned that you’re a writer, you may find it interesting to see a young, vulnerable Hemingway, sort of working out his style, and learning his craft, and not really too sure if he had any talent.

I've had it for some time now, in a lock-box with the rest of my Hemingway collection, but I haven't read it yet. But I never knew Hemingway doubted his talent. I'm reading Light in August now and then Beckett's trilogy, but feast is definitely after that. Thanks.

I wanted to share Hemingway's reading list, for aspiring writers, if anyone is interested.


Tolstoy, Leo:
War & Peace
Anna Karenina
“was a prophet.”

Captain Marryat:
Midshipman Easy
Frank Mildmay
Peter Simple

Flaubert:
Madame Bovary
L’Education Sentimentale

Mann, Thomas:
Buddenbrooks

Joyce, James:
Dubliners
Portrait of the Artist
Ulysses

Fielding:
Tom Jones
Joseph Andrews

Stendhal:
Le Rouge et Le Noir
La Chartruse de Parme

Dostoevsky, Fydor:
Brothers Karamazov, The
“Any other two”

Twain, Mark:
Huckleberry Finn

Crane, Stephen:
Open Boat, The
Blue Hotel, The

Moore, George:
Hail and Farewell


Yeats, William Butler:
Autobiographies

De Maupassant:
“All the good”
“was a professional”
Kipling, Rudyard:
“All the good”

Turgenev:
“All”
“was an artist.”

Hudson, W. H.:
Far Away and Long Ago

James, Henry:
“Short Stories, especially Madame de Mauves, and The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady, The American-”

Poe, Edgar Allen:
“is a skillful writer.”

Melville, Herman:

“Emerson, Hawthorne, Whittier and Company…”

“The good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain”

Pound, Ezra:
Stein, Gertrude:
Making of American, “is one of the very greatest books I’ve ever read.”
Anderson, Sherwood:
Lawrence, D.H.:
Cummings, E.E.:
Enormous Room, “was the best book published last year that I read.”


Lowndes, Belloc:
Lodger, The

Shakespeare, William:

Cervantes:



Chekov, Anton:
“was an amateur.”
“wrote about six good stories.”
Balzac:
“a professional”

Gogol:

Hamsun, Knut:
Growth of the Soil, The

Boyd, Thom:

Eliot, T.S.:

Wolf, Thomas:

Dos Passos:

Conrad, Joseph:

Faulkner, William:
Fitzgerald, F. Scott:

[quasimodo1]

I'm sure Mr. Hemmingway would feel complimented that you keep his works in a lockbox. Yes to the Moveable Feast question. As for the trilogy, you might want to consider reading "Murphy" first if you havn't allready. The first line can really get you into it. It went something like "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new". Sounds a bit down but in many ways he is hilarious in a desperate kind of way. You know he won the Nobel Prize for Lit. for ...best describing the desperation of modern man...almost verbatim. So many writers are read like heavy tomes when their authors were really quite into the humor. Kafka for example used to roar at his own stuff. quasimodo1

[NickAdams]

I'm sure Mr. Hemmingway would feel complimented that you keep his works in a lockbox. Yes to the Moveable Feast question. As for the trilogy, you might want to consider reading "Murphy" first if you havn't allready. The first line can really get you into it. It went something like "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new". Sounds a bit down but in many ways he is hilarious in a desperate kind of way. You know he won the Nobel Prize for Lit. for ...best describing the desperation of modern man...almost verbatim. So many writers are read like heavy tomes when their authors were really quite into the humor. Kafka for example used to roar at his own stuff. quasimodo1

I read Molloy. Not only is it the funniest book I've read, but it's the best book I've read. I did feel like I missed the impact of one line, when previous characters are mentioned. I plan on reading all of his novels starting with Murphy. I love that first line.

I read some chapters of A Moveable Feast, and loved it. Its a nice light read. I enjoy how a lot of the chapters begin with second-person narration and then there's a smooth transition into first. I'm not sure when the study of NLP (neuro-language programming), but Hem uses it well. There are also a lot of great anecdotes.

I will open my Kafka collection and read a short or two. Any suggestions?

[Tabula_Rasa]

I remember reading this short story by Earnest Hemingway, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place... written in his usual minimalist style... echoing the theme of disillusionment and alienation.. like most if his work... individuals trying to cope up the horrors of an insane, irrational universe...(war in his case) and then their failed attempts to fit back into society...

In "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" .. Hemingway hasnt named the characters..and there is no plot basically... probably to foreground his subject of meaninglessness of life...

There is a deaf old man...who visits a Spanish cafe every evening, gets drunk and stays there until the cafe closes... The story centres around the conversation between two waiters about this old man...

It is as if the old man has nothin to look forward to, no pleasure in life except the comfort of being able to spend a little time in a clean,well-lighted place...

Unlike the younger waiter.. the older waiter understand this and can relate to the plight of the old man.. There is a mention of an attempt by the old man to kill himself which fails... and which the younger waiter cannot comprehend since he can't imagine what might drive a man to kill himself except for a shortage of money... (the old man being quite well off.)

While the younger waiter is seen as in hurry to return to his home.. the older waiter as well as the old man.. are the last to leave an dare seen in no hurry to return to whatever they have to turn to...

The story perhaps dramatizes the quest to find meaning in life... (reminds me of sartre and his existentialism philosophy!)

The light plays a significant role.. in the story.. Hemingway mentions that the cafe is lit using an electric bulb which sort of conveys a conscious effort to fight the vast darkness outside... "Light" perhaps symbolizes the maintaining of order..

In a shattered post war , it is the impotence felt by an individual.. that Hemingway portrays... resulting from the realization that perhaps no positive action is possible.. and that the only certain order possible sadly was that of "cleanliness."

The story concludes with the older waiter as dismissing the whole situation as insomnia and drawing comfort from the belief that "many must have it!"

[quasimodo1]

To Nick Adams: As for Kafka, I would recommend "the Trial" or "Metamorphosis" quasimodo1

[Tabula_Rasa]

to monsieur Adams...

i have read almost all of kafka's short ones... except for "the trial" and "amerika"
where all the prose texts under "meditation" does seem like mere observation... very precise for that matter... not a single speck of detail could escape.. and while one reads it.. one can literally see.. i mean.. it goes like an abstract.. where one is continously making sense of it at the same time... There are obviously the never-ending sentences... but one gets used to them.. for it is not the end that is aimed for anywhere... (or perhaps its just me...)

if you come across "a country doctor" by chance or by will... for I did recently and read it not once but twice and still cannot grasp the images in it.. cant grasp it at all.. Would you if you could.. help me there... ?

I have no recommendations to make... I think.. they all must be read at one point or the other... and doesnt matter which one you begin with...

what is important.. is.. if one could go on with it...

(i think i'm just crazy)

*excusez-moi*

[NickAdams]

Thanks quasimodo1. I will take a look. With such short works, there should be little time taken from my greater commitments.

Tabula_Rasa:
J'essayerai d'aider. I have two different translations of his complete works, so with will I intend to read A Country Doctor. I'm not sure how well I grasp images and symbols, but I'll try. There is Jung's universal symbols, the surrealist's individual symbols and Bloom's thoughts on misreading. Is any right?

[Tabula_Rasa]

*sourire*

thankyou.

[Robert Jordan]

Sorry that I can't do a full fledged reply at the moment, but, I think that Hemingway treated almost all his characters, male and female, with courage and conviction to their own standards. Look at For Whom The Bell Tolls, and in the character of Pilar, who one would argue is vindictive and stubborn, is also very wise and has seen the wickedness of the world. Brett Ashley, as written in a reply already, drove all of Sun Also Rises. Catherine, in A Farewell To Arms was a wonderful character and the main character of that story was willing to try and sacrifice his life of war and brutality(or manliness,if you will) just so that he could be with her.
I see Hemingway as writing of cruel and kind alike, man or woman, in all their naked rotteness and spendor.

[Poppy]

Nick, if you haven't read it yet, there is a great article concerning Hemingway in this month's Smithsonian Magazine about his days in Cuba. Its written by one of his assistants who eventually married one of his sons.

[quasimodo1]

http://www.americanwriters.org/writers/hemingway.asp Part of C-span's book tv series. [C-span is > or < than a sedative]

[NickAdams]

Nick, if you haven't read it yet, there is a great article concerning Hemingway in this month's Smithsonian Magazine about his days in Cuba. Its written by one of his assistants who eventually married one of his sons.

Thank you. I'll pick it up.


http://www.americanwriters.org/writers/hemingway.asp Part of C-span's book tv series. [C-span is > or < than a sedative]

Thank you.

[quasimodo1]

http://www.pbs.org/hemingwayadventure/cuba.html ...within this link is audio of Hemingway acceptance of Nobel for literature, his most recent work was "The Old Man and the Sea".

[Tuesday]

I'm currently on a total Hemingway reading spree, having just finished both The Sun also Rises and his Complete Short Stories in the last 10 days. While I sit here writing this A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls are sitting on the shelf to my right.

I've been interested in reading him for a few months now, though I somehow never came around to actually picking up one of his novels or nonfiction books at the store. It may have something to do with the season...summer seems to be the appropriate time of the year to read accounts of fishing and hunting and running away from home and getting drunk in Spanish villages on the way to the great fiesta ;)

Really enjoyable ride so far. I feel almost guilty for enjoying it so much...after all, isn't it supposed to be...Literature?! ;)
But jokes aside, there's something about him that makes reading highly enjoyable. I guess it's a combination of his famous minimalist style and the themes he writes about...you know, those manly things his protagonists do out there in the wilderness or on the battlefield. By the way, I'd really like to have an opinion from some of our female members here on his body of work. I could easily imagine that women might be turned off by all the machismo going on in his stories.

Another thing I really like about his way of writing is his iceberg technique. I guess the best example of this might be his short story Hills Like White Elephants. You don't get to know much about the characters or their lives or their problems. You just know there's something wrong. But what exactly is it? So shallow and yet so deep.

Hemingway had a great gift for writing this sort of vignettes, even though he uses the same settings over and over again (he really must have spend a lot of his time in cafés) :D

Some of the more obscure stories I highly enjoyed were:

The Short Happy Live of Francis Macomber (especially when the narrator turns away from the hunters and describes the scene from the lion's view - something you don't see very often)

Big Two-Hearted River (there's something about the title...two-hearted river...that's a great phrase)

An African Story (poor elephant, poor boy - I guess the ethical outlook of this story is similar to the one in 'The Old Man and the Sea')

One Trip Across (nothing really deep or important here...just a great story about danger, friendship and adventure...very manly!)

Summer People & The Last Good Country (sooo romantic)

So far, I'll write again as soon as I've finished my next novel :)

[NickAdams]

Really enjoyable ride so far. I feel almost guilty for enjoying it so much...after all, isn't it supposed to be...Literature?! ;)
But jokes aside, there's something about him that makes reading highly enjoyable.

What suprised me most was his humor. Sun Also Rises was an extremely funny book.


I'd really like to have an opinion from some of our female members here on his body of work. I could easily imagine that women might be turned off by all the machismo going on in his stories.

There's are a few post by the female members of Lit a few pages back on this thread. There are more strong women in his work than some might think.

[Tuesday]

I just finished reading A Farewell to Arms and I quite enjoyed it. I definitely like it better than The Sun also Rises, also that one was by no means not enjoyable. It's just that I find the the themes of war, loyalty, love and betrayal more interesting than endless accounts of decadent feasting ;)

However, I'm still baffled by the endless amounts of alcohol Hemingway's characters always consume. It doesn't matter whether it's breakfast, lunch or supper - cognac, wine and beer are omnipresent. I really wonder if this is an authentic portayal of the roaring twenties :D

One scene that stood out to me was the escape from Italy by boat. I really didn't see that coming, but the scene could be straight out of a James Bond movie: the night is dark, there's a storm raging and the wounded protagonist with his girlfriend have to brave the furious waters in order escape the evil villains. Very exciting!

There aren't many things that I'd like to mention that haven't already been talked about in the discussion of the novel in the Book Club. But still there's one thing I'm very curious about and which I'd like to hear some other opinions on.

Does the way in which the narrator speaks and thinks remind anybody else of Holden Caufield from The Catcher in the Rye? Don't wonder, of course I'm perfectly aware that Salinger's novel was released long after most of Hemingway's novels, it's just my personal history that shapes the question in this way, because I read The Catcher before I touched anything by Hemingway.

Somehow their voices seem so similar. Both have this ironic and cynic timbre, that bleak and uncaring attitude of the defeated. And they use certain expressions or phrases over and over again. Just think how Holden constantly uses "old" when referring to persons, or how Hemingway's narrator seems so fond of the adjective "swell".

I haven't really looked it up and compared it, so it's just a feeling. But still I wonder if anybody else in here feels the way I do.

[quasimodo1]

Just started to re-read this great book (and partial autobiography?). It is great. In reference to the characters fleeing in a boat...guess what artist did that a bit more recently? Samuel Becket, upon hearing that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, also fled Italy in a boat with his wife. Apparently the public praise and press attention was too much for this very private writer. quasimodo1

[mortalterror]

Frankly, I think about as much of feminist criticism as I do of freudian or queer theory. They are all a bunch of garbage, cooked up by silly post-modern theorists to make a name for themselves. Why can't people analyze a work of literature based on it's plot, conflict, themes, narrative style, characters, and dialogue? They always have to bring ideology into a book and ruin it. Hemingway has his flaws, and he comes by them honestly. Making up new ones is unfair. His shortcomings would primarily be in the area of plotting. His novels tend to be sort of extended versions of his short stories. Hemingway never studied literature in a structured college environment, and so frequently he shows hints of an inferiority complex. He has the tendency to name drop famous authors he's read, and when he tries to innovate like Joyce or other contemporaries in To Have and Have Not his work suffers as a result. He wasn't into originality like Faulkner. He was a perfectionist, and he perfected his unique style and narrative voice perhaps beyond the level of any English language author. I think he was aware of this limitation of his. He mentions that Turgenev was his favorite writer, but War and Peace was the best book, and he wished that Turgenev could have written it. That's how I feel about Hemingway. He's the greatest writer I've ever seen, but he didn't write the greatest books. The Great Gatsby is superior to everything he wrote except possibly The Old Man and the Sea.

Some people in the forum have mentioned that they did not like the way Ernest poked fun at Fitzgerald. They obviously do not understand the relationship the two men had. If you read their correspondence you will find a lot of rough humor. Hemingway even begins one letter to Fitzgerald, "Greetings from a fellow pedophile." That's just the manner of horseplay Hemingway would engage in with anybody he felt truly close to. If you look at the other stories in A Moveable Feast, particularly the other stories about his contemporary acquaintances they are almost all ridiculous. For instance, he has a humorous scene where he implies he slept with Gertrude Stein, her lesbian lover Alice returns inopportunely and he plays the comedic cliché "man in the closet." Or how about the hilarious episode with Ford Maddox Ford where he discusses what it is to be a gentleman? I'm not saying that there isn't some serious matter in the book, or that it isn't still autobiographical, but there are frequent touches of satire throughout, just as in The Torrents of Spring. Hemingway had a very good relationship with Fitzgerald, although he had a much better one with Ezra Pound or James Joyce. I think what's throwing people is that they don't expect Hemingway to be funny.

The first time I read the opening to A Farewell to Arms I didn't realize that the men were sitting in a brothel and beckoning for the priest to come inside. And then later,

"Not true?" asked the captain. "To-day I see priest with girls."
"No," said the priest. The other officers were amused at the baiting.
"Priest not with girls," went on the captain. "Priest never with girls," he explained to me. He took my glass and filled it, looking at my eyes all the time, but not losing sight of the priest.
"Priest every night five against one." (p.7)

Or how about the scene in For Whom the Bell Tolls where the hard swearing of the renegades is artificially cleaned up, and they converse about how they'd like to defecate in the engines of the fascist bombers while flying at five thousand feet? Rest assured, Hemingway had nothing against Fitzgerald except he thought that Fitzgerald had compromised himself as an artist. I think that had more to do with Fitzgerald writing bad Hollywood screenplays than it did his later books and short stories after The Crack Up, because The Crack Up contains some excellent essays and I know Hemingway liked Tender is the Night. Who he didn't like in the end was Dos Passos and Gertrude Stein. Dos Passos had turned against the Spanish Republicans after they shot his chauffer, and I believe Stein said some negative things about Hemingway in her autobiography. While I personally love T.S. Eliot, I enjoy hearing Hemingway run the man down. Those two never got along, I suppose because of a tempermental mismatch. He owes a fair debt to Sherwood Anderson, who taught him so much of what would become his early style, and introduced him to the expatriots. But we have to remember that Faulkner owed him just as much and Faulkner parodied Anderson as well.

If you don't like Hemingway's characters because they can be two dimensional, or cliché, then you have to write off everything Charles Dickens ever wrote. Hemingway didn't do much with any character besides his own authorial persona, unless you count how beautiful his descriptions were. He mastered the art of narrative observation, and his landscapes are as good as paintings, which he admits to studying. He said at one point that the heroes of his novels are always the earth, the soil, the streams, the fish, the bulls, the trees. Land is always a character in his work; so you can say he has a great number of well developed characters in his oevre. I think that where To Have and Have Not fails is where he stopped writing based on life and tried writing from art instead. You can hear the ring of falseness to some of the characters and encounters. He had a disdain for certain types of artists, but in showing it, he became self-conscious and unnatural. He also fails in his characterization of the general in Across the River and Through the Trees because he bases the character on himself again as he imagines he would have been if he'd been a soldier and not upon the soldiers he has met in his travels.

Good list of Hemingway's reading NickAdams. I once tried to make one of those myself. By the way, Hemingway read the Constance Garnett translation of War and Peace if you want to read the same version and experience it as he did. I find that whenever I read Hemingway's favorite works I genuinely dislike them. Turgenev, James, Tolstoy, Crane do nothing for me. I hated The Red Badge of Courage. But they do give me an insight into Hemingway himself, and I relish that. You might also add Izaak Walton's The Complete Angler to your list as well.

What's really remarkable about his influences is when you read Sherwood Anderon's Winesburg, Ohio it reads like a lost Hemingway short story collection but it came before him and he modeled his work on that. However, I believe that he assimilated what could be learned from there and moved beyond it. Many people have this idea that Hemingway was a man who wrote laconically in short declarative sentences but that's really only true of his early work. Once he'd gotten the hang of things his sentences could be long and fluid. Later in life, you see him using long and short sentences to create a sense of rhythm to his language, like a composer would use long and short notes, pauses and clamors in music. One of the worst misrepresentations of Hemingway's work has been to declare that The Sun Also Rises is his best book, and Hills Like White Elephants is his most important short story. This inaccurately portrays the man's work, for which For Whom the Bell Tolls is his best novel and The Snows of Kilimanjaro is his best short story. They weren't his most original and innovative, but as I've said before he was more about perfectionism than originality and if you care about his writing then you must take that into account.

[JBI]

From what I have read, the only really enduring works, I find, meaning works that are enjoyable by everyone, not just the Charleston Heston type, are The Sun Also Rises, and of course his monumental short stories.

As for influence and time period, Faulkner would be the biggest American name of that time, especially for prose, followed probably by Eugene O'neal.Nevertheless, Hemmingway's contribution, especially in terms of influence, is clearly there.

[JBI]

For the poster above me, have you read any Queer Theory or Feminist critical literature? Feminism as an approach to understanding texts is highly beneficial, and unlocks many neglected areas. Feminism as a canon interpretation is another story.

As for Queer Theory, I am less knowledgeable in this field, but I will say contributers like Judith Butler have uncovered things in language that before seemed oblique.

All approaches to reading a text are beneficial. All approaches for judging a text have their own merits. Who is to say that Feminist theory is the wrong approach? Who's to say that pragmatism is the right approach. There is more to literature than just plot, characters, themes, devices, motifs, style, and setting.

[mortalterror]

From what I have read, the only really enduring works, I find, meaning works that are enjoyable by everyone, not just the Charleston Heston type, are The Sun Also Rises, and of course his monumental short stories.

As for influence and time period, Faulkner would be the biggest American name of that time, especially for prose, followed probably by Eugene O'neal.Nevertheless, Hemmingway's contribution, especially in terms of influence, is clearly there.

That's a commonly held misconception among people who don't like Hemingway's writing. Almost none of the people I've talked with in the eight years since I've started reading Hemingway consider The Sun Also Rises his greatest book, unless they were taught that in a class somewhere and didn't read much else. I like The Sun but I place it way below The Old Man and the Sea, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Sun is even slightly below A Farewell to Arms, although slightly better than The Green Hills of Africa. To Have and Have Not has too many flaws to rank with Sun, and Death in the Afternoon is a little garbled and lacks too much focus to be a good non-fiction book. The Dangerous Summer should be considered with the rest of his journalism, though he wasn't much of a journalist, and his reports frequently sound like short stories. The Garden of Eden, True at First Light, and Islands in the Stream are next to worthless because they remained unfinished at the authors death. However, A Moveable Feast deserves credit for being an interesting autobiography and a compelling portrait of its time.

You don't have to be the "Charlton Heston type" to enjoy Hemingway. I've met many women, and all different types of men who've enjoyed Hemingway. The only requirement to enjoy reading Hemingway's writing is that you have to be a person who likes good literature.

I do agree that Faulkner can be marvelous, but he wrote just as much that could be considered trash. It's not all The Sound and the Fury, or Absalom, Absalom!. This is my personal opinion, but I think that Faulkner gets taught wrong in the schools as well. A Rose For Emily and Barn Burning are not his best short stories. Reading Go Down, Moses will show anyone that. At some points in his books, I believe that he is on the same level as Ernest Hemingway, and he frequently captures the same power and grandeur of hunting, or like activities as Hemingway. But he experiments a bit too much to ever perfect any one style of writing, and I think that is why he is only slightly less influential. Also, his page long sentences can seem a little pretentious, and silly. Joyce has some of the same failings. You can want to read them. You even can like some of their stuff, but if you try then they're going to fight to stop you. You say Eugene O'Neil, whom I like, is the next most influential but I don't think Steinbeck gets enough credit for the work he's done.

[mortalterror]

For the poster above me, have you read any Queer Theory or Feminist critical literature?

Yes, I had to take several critical theory classes to get my B.A. in English Literature. Since then, I've read quite a bit more criticism, and while I do not agree with most critical opinions, the work of T.S. Eliot, Harold Bloom, Walter Pater, Ezra Pound, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold, and Aristotle all reason closer to the observable facts than I've observed the majority of modern critics do.

[JBI]

When I said the most enduring work, I was commenting on what I experienced reading them. I think it is a fair criticism to say at least some of his work isn't really as enduring as the rest. I was speculating on the works which I found most enduring. And by comparing him to his contemporaries, I was just trying to outline the influence he had on literature. And yes, much of his work is the Charlton Heston type of fiction. It is not unfair criticism to say some of his works are of lesser quality, and some of them really don't need to be read by modern audiences.

In addition to this, I think it is fair to say that "The Old Man and the Sea" is a book that appeals mostly to older males (That being the subject). I think it is fair to assert that many of Hemingway's books appeal to certain types of people.

[JBI]

Yes, I had to take several critical theory classes to get my B.A. in English Literature. Since then, I've read quite a bit more criticism, and while I do not agree with most critical opinions, the work of T.S. Eliot, Harold Bloom, Walter Pater, Ezra Pound, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold, and Aristotle all reason closer to the observable facts than I've observed the majority of modern critics do.

Not just talking the theoretical here, also talking the applied theory and interpretation. I don't think anyone can argue against the notion that new approaches help to uncover secrets in even our oldest work. I know for a fact that Shakespeare criticism has benefited hugely from feminist inquiry, especially surrounding plays like Hamlet, with an extra focus on female characters.

[mortalterror]

I'm not saying that there is no value in new interpretations. I will say that there is very little value in them, and that they are frequently works of fiction in their own right. Mankind has been writing literary criticism for about three thousand years, and to think that you can come up with something entirely new that everyone before you just never thought of is a leap of hubris. There's usually a reason why nobody came up with such wildly original interpretations before, and that's because they are often wildly and originally incorrect. I am adamantly opposed to the theories of Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes, and the rest of their ilk. But I have no idea what Hemingway would have thought of them and that sort of discussion really belongs on a different thread.

[JBI]

I'm not saying that there is no value in new interpretations. I will say that there is very little value in them, and that they are frequently works of fiction in their own right. Mankind has been writing literary criticism for about three thousand years, and to think that you can come up with something entirely new that everyone before you just never thought of is a leap of hubris. There's usually a reason why nobody came up with such wildly original interpretations before, and that's because they are often wildly and originally incorrect. I am adamantly opposed to the theories of Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes, and the rest of their ilk. But I have no idea what Hemingway would have thought of them and that sort of discussion really belongs on a different thread.
Theory as I know it is less than 2500 years old in the West (I would say that the first theorist was Aristophanes, but some would argue Plato). The Frye school of criticism is also a 20th century invention. By your logic, structuralism too is useless since no one thought of it until the 20th century. You have no way of saying which approaches are the best, or which are the worst.

Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes, as you mention, all had huge contributions to thought. Who is to say that deconstruction is the wrong approach, or who is to say psychoanalysis is the wrong approach. I would think the Jungian reading to be one of the strongest. Freud is perhaps a special case, being that he was too absorbed in his own theories to accurately judge works, but he didn't completely miss, and he did uncover some great things.

Even Shakespeare's contemporary, and critics immediately after him had problems with his work. He was actually severally under fire after his death for not adhering to the Aristotelian diagram in all his plays. The most famous of this coming from Voltaire;

"He was a savage [...] who had some imagination. He has written many happy lines; but his pieces can please only at London and in Canada. It is not a good sign for the taste of a nation when that which it admires meets with favor only at home."

As you can see, it wasn't until later theories of literature were invented that the acceptance of Shakespeare became almost unanimous.

Just look at Lyrical Ballads, published at the beginning of the 19th century. The introduction is loaded with new concepts of theory, which eventually laid the foundation for
English Romanticism. New theories have been invented constantly through history.

To say some are better than others is silly. To say you like your approach is fine. It is important as a critic to probe most angles, therefore Feminist theory is hitting texts at a completely new angle. To say you do not agree with their forceful pushing to have more classical female authors instituted into the curriculum, and Western Canon is another argument, and one that I mostly support you in.

You cannot prove the worth or lack of worth in this critical approach. Therefore, it is best left said that these approaches are good, but not the only approach.

And it is also fair to say that Hemingway should be looked at from other angles besides the school you seem to be proposing. Why shouldn't he undergo feminist criticism? Is he an exception because he wrote good prose? That's ridiculous. He should undergo all criticism, and then let the readers decide if they like him or not. I for one know many of my female friends dislike his literature. Many critics from all school have also remarked on the masculinity of his writing, and his male appeal. To state the facts about someone, regardless of how it hurts their reputation, is not a bad critical approach, but a new one. Why shouldn't a misogynist be hailed a misogynist? because he writes good prose. Not a chance.

[JoanS]

I will always keep on saying the Hemingway´s masterpiece is his short story called Soldier´s home...

[Eric Cioe]

I'll let the critics do what they will with Hemingway. I'll enjoy what he had to write and instead of calling him this or that kind of person, I'll read his books and be a better person for doing so.

[Oomoo]

Hemingway was a bad influence on literature. He has some good short stories, but he spawned so many awful writers after him...

Have you read all of Faulkner's work? Which "non famous" book would you recommend?

[JBI]

Hemingway was a bad influence on literature. He has some good short stories, but he spawned so many awful writers after him...

Have you read all of Faulkner's work? Which "non famous" book would you recommend?

For Faulkner, non famous, but excellent, go with Light in August.

[Eric Cioe]

Hemingway was a bad influence on literature. He has some good short stories, but he spawned so many awful writers after him...

What? You think Hemingway was a bad influence? Who was a good one? Please don't say Faulkner. They have different styles, and lucky for us, we live in an age where there are enough publishers and enough readers to have a choice in the matter.

Besides, a writer should not be responsible for his followers. Well, whoever inspired Annie Proulx should be put to death, but other than that, no.

[Virgil]

Nick, have you read E.H.’s A Movable Feast? I found it fascinating on several levels but since you mentioned that you’re a writer, you may find it interesting to see a young, vulnerable Hemingway, sort of working out his style, and learning his craft, and not really too sure if he had any talent.

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about his work is that I knew he was speaking from experience. Whether it was ambulance driving during WW-I or taking a road trip to Spain for the Bull fights or reporting during the Spanish Civil War or sub-hunting in the Caribbean during WW-II or getting rip-roaring drunk and obnoxious during any of the above…he lived it. He was definitely not some egg-head sitting in a darkened room alone and writing deep, abstract, experimental gobbledygook that nobody except for a few professors of interpretive literature would truly understand (or read).


I've had it for some time now, in a lock-box with the rest of my Hemingway collection, but I haven't read it yet. But I never knew Hemingway doubted his talent. I'm reading Light in August now and then Beckett's trilogy, but feast is definitely after that. Thanks.


Oh read A Moveable Feast. It's a great little work. Although I suspect Hem was lying throughout. But it's well written.

[Virgil]

Frankly, I think about as much of feminist criticism as I do of freudian or queer theory. They are all a bunch of garbage, cooked up by silly post-modern theorists to make a name for themselves. Why can't people analyze a work of literature based on it's plot, conflict, themes, narrative style, characters, and dialogue? They always have to bring ideology into a book and ruin it.

I absolutely agree with you. It's critics who are trying to supercede the work of art. They can't write so that have to feel important somehow.

[JBI]

I absolutely agree with you. It's critics who are trying to supercede the work of art. They can't write so that have to feel important somehow.

Criticism exists outside of literature. It is in the criticizing that literature gains its importance. You are a critic as well, everyone who reads, or views art is. You just aren't paid to do it.

[Oomoo]

Light in August is famous. It's very high quality Faulkner. The non famous Faulkner is the early works before The Sound and The Fury and post-Go Down, Moses.

I like Hemingway, but it seems like his style his easy to imitate; it isn't. Thus we are graced with second rate minimalist "masculine" prose of lazy writers.

[Oomoo]

Critics don't need to feel important. Excellent literary critics who are truly fascinated with literature, such as Harold Bloom, write out of love and I immensely respect them. Don't throw cheap psychological observations on the people who tell us what is worthy and what's not. Would you say the same about musicologists and art critics too? Or about literary critics such as Nabokov who were great writers in their own right?

[kandaurov]

Critics don't need to feel important. Excellent literary critics who are truly fascinated with literature, such as Harold Bloom, write out of love and I immensely respect them. Don't throw cheap psychological observations on the people who tell us what is worthy and what's not. Would you say the same about musicologists and art critics too? Or about literary critics such as Nabokov who were great writers in their own right?

Hear, hear!

[Virgil]

Criticism exists outside of literature. It is in the criticizing that literature gains its importance. You are a critic as well, everyone who reads, or views art is. You just aren't paid to do it.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I thought the context of my statements referred to the recent types of criticism that's going on: deconstruction, new historicism, and all this type of criticism that focuses on the ideology rather than the work of art. That type of criticism is mostly crap. Criticism that stries to understand the work is noble work.

[Lambert]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I thought the context of my statements referred to the recent types of criticism that's going on: deconstruction, new historicism, and all this type of criticism that focuses on the ideology rather than the work of art. That type of criticism is mostly crap. Criticism that stries to understand the work is noble work.

Ahem

Ideological Theory: Marxism, Feminism, New Historicism
Linguistic Theory: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism (Deconstruction), Russian Formalism, Stylistics, Narratology.

Ideological theorists uses linguistic theory in some of their work, but on its own, Linguistic theory is apolitical.

[Virgil]

Ahem

Ideological Theory: Marxism, Feminism, New Historicism
Linguistic Theory: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism (Deconstruction), Russian Formalism, Stylistics, Narratology.

Ideological theorists uses linguistic theory in some of their work, but on its own, Linguistic theory is apolitical.

Yeah, but even the focus of linguistic theory is outside the work rather than explaining and appreciating the work as a work of art.

[Lambert]

Yeah, but even the focus of linguistic theory is outside the work rather than explaining and appreciating the work as a work of art.

You can't be saying that absolutely aesthetic approach, which quickly descends in idle, ponderous literary shop-talk in nearly all cases, somehow makes an attempt at objective analyses of texts by getting into the nitty-gritty of what makes up a narrative and what makes it work completely unnecessary? At least linguistic theory gives a reader a broad perspective in which to give their aesthetic views more focus.

[Virgil]

You can't be saying that absolutely aesthetic approach, which quickly descends in idle, ponderous literary shop-talk in nearly all cases, somehow makes an attempt at objective analyses of texts by getting into the nitty-gritty of what makes up a narrative and what makes it work completely unnecessary? At least linguistic theory gives a reader a broad perspective in which to give their aesthetic views more focus.

Ok, some elemnts are worthy. But only some.

[Oomoo]

Perhaps the irony is lost on me??

[Jozanny]

Sorry that I can't do a full fledged reply at the moment, but, I think that Hemingway treated almost all his characters, male and female, with courage and conviction to their own standards. Look at For Whom The Bell Tolls, and in the character of Pilar, who one would argue is vindictive and stubborn, is also very wise and has seen the wickedness of the world. Brett Ashley, as written in a reply already, drove all of Sun Also Rises.

I agree with Robert about this. Although I believe Fitzgerald and Faulkner were more grounded in both regionalism and style-- indeed, Fitzgerald almost serves as a precursor for mass media saturation which now dominates most of the free world and beyond, I am rereading For Whom The Bell Tolls, and find myself much more charitable to this novel now, at 45 in a post-9/11 world, than I was as a young turk in university with a chip on my shoulder.

The story has its flaws, certainly. Too much larger than life, stagey, with a Hollywood studio quality to it, but what strikes me with a raw immediacy as I am rereading the book, is the price exacted on people by ideological mind sets. What still haunts Spain today about Franco's regime built on the bodies of fallen partisans, haunts other countries as well, including the U.S., which I believe will have fresh layers of pyschic guilt for years to come, once we extract ourselves from current predicaments. Hemingway is adept at tapping into this guilt through Jordan's personal convictions about the Republic contrasted with what might have been his otherwise normal American life.

[JBI]

Theory isn't as bad as people pretend it to be, in my opinion. The rhetoric some of those feminist critics write is actually quite beautiful, in my opinion. Of course, one must distinguish between basic culture criticism, and French culture criticism. French culture criticism seems the most extreme form, where they pretend the goal of the critic is literally is destroy the canon, and not to preserve it, and anyone trying to recreate it is seen as a bad critic (this is my observation from reading extensively into French post-modern and feminist criticism).

As for different readings, the readings themselves are all valuable. The problems arise when the cuts need to be made to the canon. That is when people start yelling and shouting, such as the (in)famous Harold Bloom, who seems to be an exaggerator of the so called 'damage' of criticism, and can't seem to get his mind off of bashing culture criticism, in literally every introduction, book, and article he has writes.

Any reading of a book, in itself can be useful. The so called 'evilness' of culture criticism has to do with saying a book is good or bad, in which true, culture criticism can perhaps be harmful. But I do not see these critics as having done much damage anyway. The canonical works are still taught, and there are plenty of good writers that to keep a so called canon, as Bloom has it, with 3000 works is somewhat ridiculous. No body but someone set out to read those books can possibly do it. The average reader does not read even 100 books a year, so how in gods name can they read, and reread, 3000 books, and then judge for themselves.

[terrygar]

Hello I'm an artist working on a selection of Postcards to Ernest Hemingway, they are to be shown in Key West Feb 2011 and I would like to get some feedback from you good people.
Here is the link:
http://www.swflorida4u.com/hemingway.html

Thanks,
Terry Gardiner

[kelby_lake]

Frankly, I think about as much of feminist criticism as I do of freudian or queer theory. They are all a bunch of garbage, cooked up by silly post-modern theorists to make a name for themselves. Why can't people analyze a work of literature based on it's plot, conflict, themes, narrative style, characters, and dialogue? They always have to bring ideology into a book and ruin it.

Analysis is inherently subjective. How you view a book is influenced by so many things- there's no formula. Everybody has an ideology, just not on the scale of uber feminists.

Good literary criticism is opinionated, passionate and actually based on the texts as opposed to how the critic thinks the texts will fit into their dubious political leanings.