Hemingway, a true great?

[burntpunk]

Haven read Fiesta and Old Man and The Sea I deeply enjoyed them and can see why many regard Hemingway as one of the Literature Gods.

Other than the obvious, I've struggled to pinpoint what quantifies his brilliance. Any ideas?

Don't state the obvious.

[NickAdams]

Hemingway the man is ninety percent responsible for the success of Hemingway the writer. There are many factors that brought Hemingway to prominence, which go beyond his skill as a writer. Accessibility can account for his broad appeal, at least at the time. Mark Twain once said (and I've seen many variations and the following one is not my particular favorite): "My works are like water. The works of the great masters are like wine. But everyone drinks water." Hemingway was like water. His career as a journalist may have contributed to his prose of "life". News papers were widely read at the time and it wasn't much of a leap between newsprint and Ernest.

Personally, I like the precision of his prose. His details are exacting and he has a wonderful sense of humor that goes beyond his use of irony.

[Noisms]

Communicating emotion and beauty through sparse prose is a difficult skill that not many people can master - Hemingway is probably the best of all when it comes to that. (Gene Wolfe and Raymond Carver spring to mind as other examples.)

Think of the scenes in Fiesta/The Sun Also Rises where the main character is alone and despondent about the injuries he sustained in the war. Incredibly powerful stuff, with barely a sentence long enough for a comma.

[WICKES]

Never liked him. That world weary pose...ugggh. He has a reputation as a macho writer- the great writer on war. Yet the man never fired a gun in anger. If you want to read about war, read Robert Graves, read Sassoon, read T.E Lawrence, read Orwell's Homage to Catlonia.

[Modest Proposal]

I thought I didn't like Hemingway. Each time I read his books I remembered this and asked myself why I picked up another. But always, slowly, I started thinking about them. In stages. It usually happened a few days later. The books would creep into my thought before sleep. I would be in class and find myself wondering why something happened the way it did in his books. His haracters would manifest themselves in those around me. Or I would push people into his casts.
Then I realized I liked him.

[NickAdams]

Never liked him. That world weary pose...ugggh. He has a reputation as a macho writer-

He had the reputation of being macho and he was a writer, but reputation is nothing when the prose is in front of you. I found A Farewell to Arms a bit too romantic for my taste.


the great writer on war. Yet the man never fired a gun in anger.

Known for war settings, but conflict is key. Orwell's characters don't rival Hemingway's. The not firing a gun in anger would confirm the stoic aspect of his work, but who could confirm the feeling that pulled the trigger of that shotgun.

[DanielBenoit]

To me, Hemingway is a great because of his disiplined well thought out prose. He knows how the readers mind works and thus leaves a lot of description to the imagination. His sentences work like pictures in that one thing he says is worth or can mean multiple things. Hills Like White Elephants is a great example.

[neilgee]

I've only read two Hemingway novels, and I wouldn't have read a second if it hadn't come as part of a series I was collecting back in the 90s because I thought the first one I read - A farewell to Arms - was pretty awful. The protagonist swaggers through the novel drinking Vermouth like there's no tomorrow [you've got to remember that John Wayne style hard-drinking was considered macho in Hemingway's culture] before taking up boxing...I thought it was just silly, macho fantasy stuff unrelated to the real world.

Yet when I came to read The Bell also Tolls I found the later novel was in a different class altogether and that's why I would disagree that Hemingway somehow manufactured his own success through his life. There's a real pulse to this novel, it had me gripped from beginning to end. It's true I havn't rushed out to read a third one but I wouldn't mind reading The Sun also Rises in the hope that it's nearer the standard of Tolls than Arms.

[Eryk]

I think his writing style is overrated. The masters of pure unadorned prose are Kafka and Orwell. Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy are just irritating.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I don't particularly care for Hemingway's novels, but his short stories are another matter. In my humble opinion, A Clean Well-Lighted Place is the best short story ever written.

[Virgil]

There is some very good Hemingway (most of his short stories, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea), and there is not so good Hemingway if not even really bad Hemingway (Green Hills of Africa, For Whom the Bell Tolls), and so I would say overall he's good but not great.

[dfloyd]

since he first published in the 1920s. The truth is, he wrote some very good short stories, four pretty good novels (The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and To Have and Have Not), a good fish novella - if you like fish stories - some interesting autobiogrphical books, some pretty bad novels, a play, and a bunch of prose concerning bullfighting and Africa. His lifetime output to date is twenty volumes. I say to date because I don't know if another posthumous work will be published. Anyone interested in 20th century literature should read at least his four novels mentioned above and the short stories. The autobiographical stuff - Islands in the Stream and A Moveable Feast - are good reads, but not great. Let's face it: Hemingway was a very controversial character. But he lived life his way and died in his way at what is now a youg age, 61. I have found that he grows on you. The Sun Also Rises, like The Great Gatsby, is an almost perfect novel for its paucity of words and the visual images it serves up. In the long run, he has had such an impact on literature of the 20th century, that all who study the era bewteen the two great wars should read him, then make up their own mind about his greatness. But he will be remembered long after all who post here are gone and forgotten.

[Modest Proposal]

I think his writing style is overrated. The masters of pure unadorned prose are Kafka and Orwell. Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy are just irritating.

So you can only read the two best? How depressing.

I live in the land where I can read LOTS of degrees of greatness (though I try not to stray too far from the epicenter--Shakespeare, of course--).

Interestingly, I've always believed Orwell's fiction to be very overrated. I still love his work but think it cannot stand next to any of the great prose stylists. Not to suggest I find it irritating or anything...

[G4C Chiodos]

I loved The Old Man And The Sea. I couldn't really get into A Farewell To Arms or For Whom The Bell Tolls. They didn't progress quickly enough for me.

[mortalterror]

The truth is, he wrote some very good short stories, four pretty good novels (The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and To Have and Have Not), a good fish novella - if you like fish stories - some interesting autobiogrphical books, some pretty bad novels, a play, and a bunch of prose concerning bullfighting and Africa. His lifetime output to date is twenty volumes. I say to date because I don't know if another posthumous work will be published. Anyone interested in 20th century literature should read at least his four novels mentioned above and the short stories. The autobiographical stuff - Islands in the Stream and A Moveable Feast - are good reads, but not great.
What a very odd take on Hemingway. I've never met anyone who thought To Have and Have Not was a great novel. It's almost as bewildering as Virgil saying that he didn't like For Whom the Bell Tolls. A couple of years ago, I whipped up this diagram for a couple of friends I was trying to explain Hemingway to, and it pretty much explains how I continue to feel about the man today.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h268/Saliari/HemingwayTier.jpg
He's my favorite writer of all time. I can't explain the way he moves me. Intellectually, I can say that Shakespeare or Dante are better, and I can see how they are, but then I'll open up a simple short story like "A Day's Wait," this little piece of nothing, that will just break my heart. The ending of For Whom the Bell Tolls made me weep, and I'm a grown *** man. I can't explain it.

[Noisms]

Something has to be said for Death in the Afternoon. The epilogue is just about the most beautiful thing ever written in the English language, in my opinion.

[dfloyd]

This is how arguments get started on this forum! Nowhere did I say anything about a great novel. You picked that up on your own. If you reread the post, you'll see that I said Hemingway wrote four pretty good novels, and I further said The Old Man and the Sea ia a novella. The four novels listed are his best, which most agree on. Garden of Eden and Across the River and into the Trees are not his best work. Islands in the Stream and A Moveable Feast are more biographical. Snows of Kilmanjaro, Francis Macomber etc are long short stories. So that leaves the four I listed. We have no argument. You were not paying attention to my post!

[Virgil]

What a very odd take on Hemingway. I've never met anyone who thought To Have and Have Not was a great novel. It's almost as bewildering as Virgil saying that he didn't like For Whom the Bell Tolls. A couple of years ago, I whipped up this diagram for a couple of friends I was trying to explain Hemingway to, and it pretty much explains how I continue to feel about the man today.


Well, it's been decades since I read For Whom The Bell Tolls. I thought it was kind of sophomoric.


He's my favorite writer of all time. I can't explain the way he moves me. Intellectually, I can say that Shakespeare or Dante are better,
Intellectually, Hemingway is frankly very weak. His reputation rests predomonantly on stylistic innovations. Even a fine work like "The Old man and the Sea," what is so intellectually profound and new about it?

[The Comedian]

There is some very good Hemingway (most of his short stories, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, In Our Time), and there is not so good Hemingway if not even really bad Hemingway (Green Hills of Africa, For Whom the Bell Tolls), and so I would say overall he's good but not great.

My thoughts about Hemingway are almost exactly like Virgil's above (with my little addition, indicated in bold/italics). I thought For Whom the Bell Tolls was kind of silly; and I read it a long time ago.

I will say this, regarding Hemingway, I feel that he is the best short story writer that I've ever read. And it's not really that close. I think Daniel brought up "Hills like White Elephants" -- which accomplishes so much in so few words that it's tough to believe.

Regarding his prose style, I think his dialogue is his greatest strength; it's sparse, sure. But he somehow manages to contextualize his characters' dialogue so well that the reader (well, this reader anyway) feels tension and duality in every word.

[Virgil]

Thanks Comedian. In Our Time is a great collection of short stories, I agree. I kind of included it in my phrase "most of the short stories."

[WICKES]

. Even a fine work like "The Old man and the Sea," what is so intellectually profound and new about it?

That has one of the worst endings I have ever read: "he was dreaming about the lions". It's awful- like something a schoolkid would write.

[Noisms]

Intellectually, Hemingway is frankly very weak. His reputation rests predomonantly on stylistic innovations. Even a fine work like "The Old man and the Sea," what is so intellectually profound and new about it?

That depends how much store you set in intellectual profundity. Generally speaking if I want intellectual profundity I'll read scholarly works. If I want emotional profundity I'll read a novel. And Hemingway provides that in spades.

[Virgil]

That depends how much store you set in intellectual profundity. Generally speaking if I want intellectual profundity I'll read scholarly works. If I want emotional profundity I'll read a novel. And Hemingway provides that in spades.

There's nothing contradictory between your statement and mine. I agree, a novel or any work of art doesn't require intellectualm profundity. I was just responding to Mortalterror's statement.

[NickAdams]

In Our Time is a great collection of short stories, I agree.

:nod:

[mayneverhave]

Intellectually, Hemingway is frankly very weak. His reputation rests predomonantly on stylistic innovations. Even a fine work like "The Old man and the Sea," what is so intellectually profound and new about it?

I find myself agreeing with you again. I enjoyed The Old Man and the Sea but found myself comparing with Moby-Dick - certainly not in terms of style - and found far more in Moby-Dick.

I greatly enjoyed The Sun Also Rises and how the style of the prose worked perfectly with the subject matter, but aside from that...

[mortalterror]

There's nothing contradictory between your statement and mine. I agree, a novel or any work of art doesn't require intellectualm profundity. I was just responding to Mortalterror's statement.
I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a proper way to respond without spending all day at my keyboard and typing lengthy and tedious explanations of Hemingway's style. Noisms beat me to it, and summed it up better than I possibly could. Hemingway is more about emotion than intellect, although he does have an intellectual side.

When I read For Whom the Bell Tolls, I remember expecting a plot twist every page. I expected that someone would be a double agent and betray Robert Jordan. But that was what a lesser novel would do, and my expectations were inflated by television and spy novels. What Hemingway set out to do was write how it would have really happened according to his experience, and taken in that vein the novel is very true. Any exaggerations or twists would have been superficial and inappropriate.

That said, For Whom the Bell Tolls is not without moments of sublimity. There is that wonderful depiction of El Sordo's last stand on the hill. The savage communist uprising of Pablo's village is also quite memorable, as was the showdown where Pablo refused to be baited into a fight. That stuff was intense. Then there's the wonderful opening and closing sections so full of peace and nature. The novel has delightful sections of humor to, like when that foul mouthed guerilla talked about defecating in the enemy plane's engines at 30,000 feet, or when he's almost shot delivering a message because the guards are lazy. The section where the old man dies is powerful, and I don't think I'll forget Pablo shooting those men in the back. The book definitely has it's moments.

[Virgil]

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a proper way to respond without spending all day at my keyboard and typing lengthy and tedious explanations of Hemingway's style. Noisms beat me to it, and summed it up better than I possibly could. Hemingway is more about emotion than intellect, although he does have an intellectual side.


Hehe, sorry to have caused you anguish. I don't know if Hemingway is so much about emotion, any more than any other writer. When he's "on" he captures life and the moment as well as anyone. When he's not "on", he's flat, or sometimes mawkish, or melodramtic.

Oh I must put in a good word for A Moveable Feast. Not sure if that was mentioned here. That's a well written work. I definitely recommend it.

[Mariamosis]

I absolutely loved 'The Old Man and the Sea'!

I also read Hemmingway's 'The Garden of Eden', which I enjoyed reading, however, I wouldn't consider it one of my favorites.

Which Hemmingway should I tackle next?

[Jeremydav]

Farewell to Arms is a classic. If not then The Sun Also Rises or For Whom the Bell Tolls (I read this one, but not The Sun Also Rises).