Ernest Hemingway

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

Is it unique to Sun Also Rises, or does Hemingway always write like a 9th grade ESL student? This is a serious post. And it might be a little unfair having just gotten done with David Foster Wallace, but this is f'in terrible.

[Brad Coelho]

It's funny you mention both authors, seeing that I'm on a huge DFW bender and had just spliced in a re-read of the Sun Also Rises.

To answer your questions, his style is constant throughout all his work.

DFW is labrynthine & monstrously articulate. His use of adjectives rivals Faulkner. As our eyes and craniums adjust (depending upon whether or not we actually like the aesthetic), we acclimate. Jumping into the opposing polar end of the pond, we have Hem- the aborrher of adjectives. Quite the adjustment- and from a raw verbal density standpoint he seems like child's play. He is widely ride because of his apparent simplicity and accessibility...but also because of the pathos he illicits in readers.

It is difficult to not have the same knee-jerk reaction as yours when going from one end of the spectrum to the other- at least superficially.

[kelby_lake]

Hemingway's Iceberg Theory is quite interesting.

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

Brad - True. I'm not throwing the book away, so maybe I'll come back to it much later and have a different reaction. I kind of feel like I won't though because so much of what I read and prefer is adjective-y.

kelby - Iceberg theory does sound pretty cool, but lots of authors do this without forfeiting all the detail of what they choose to tell.



I walked into a room and picked up a book. It was written by someone named Hemingway. I put it on the table and read a few pages of it and was interrupted by an ugly girl.
"Are you reading Hemingway?" she said.
"Yes I am." I said.
"I have a house in the Keys. I love the Keys."
"Oh."
"Yes."
We f'd.

[minstrelbard]

Is it unique to Sun Also Rises, or does Hemingway always write like a 9th grade ESL student? This is a serious post. And it might be a little unfair having just gotten done with David Foster Wallace, but this is f'in terrible.

Some writers stuff their prose with excess and others pare theirs down to the skeleton. The Sun Also Rises was published in a time of mostly overstuffed prose, and its simple prose was a revelation and very influential.

There's nothing about overstuffed prose that makes it intrinsically better than simple prose. Often it just means that the writer is a conceited showoff.

By the way, I just looked at the first few pages of The Sun Also Rises for the first time in decades and found that its prose was more overstuffed than that of Hemingway's subsequent work. Weird.

[PeterL]

Is it unique to Sun Also Rises, or does Hemingway always write like a 9th grade ESL student? This is a serious post. And it might be a little unfair having just gotten done with David Foster Wallace, but this is f'in terrible.

No, he uses a spare, clear, and articulate style in nearly all of his writing. You should notice that the direct narrative is substantially different from the dialogue. Hemingway had excellent reasons for writing as he did, and the world be a better place, if more people expressed themselves as clearly.

[laymonite]

Initially, I thought the same as you regarding Hemingway's deceptively simple writing. But, as I started reading more of his short fiction, I realized that he was providing just enough detail to let me fill out the story with my own psychological identity theme (see Norman Holland, Heinz Lichtenstein, et al. for more on identity themes and literary interpretation). And for this, Hem's writing is powerful in its terse elegance. Check out "The End of Something," "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," or "Up in Michigan," for example. He wanted to capture situations/feelings as they are experienced. DFW, on the other hand, postmodernists in general, are operating in a different manner than Hemingway.

Another thing about Hemingway is that many try to emulate his writing and cannot. It seems so simple that surely a "9th-grade ESL student" could write it. But it is difficult. Hemingway was almost neurotic about his artistic craft--capturing those crucial details. The only person I know of who wrote in the same manner and did it well is Raymond Carver.

Anyway, thanks for posting this. It is a GREAT discussion point to think about Hemingway's prose style.

Cheers!

[Rores28]

kelby - Iceberg theory does sound pretty cool, but lots of authors do this without forfeiting all the detail of what they choose to tell.



Then by definition a larger degree of their icebergs would be above the surface. Hemingway's iceberg is but a subtle nipple peering mischievously above the waves.

Seriously quit ya *****in and read it, its a very good book. I would caution against reading it too fast though, while you can burn blindly through the pages fairly quickly, you'll lose alot of in-between-the-liney stuff.

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

I guess what I'm saying is.. ice cube.

[Gregory Samsa]

Another thing about Hemingway is that many try to emulate his writing and cannot. It seems so simple that surely a "9th-grade ESL student" could write it. But it is difficult. Hemingway was almost neurotic about his artistic craft--capturing those crucial details. The only person I know of who wrote in the same manner and did it well is Raymond Carver.

Anyway, thanks for posting this. It is a GREAT discussion point to think about Hemingway's prose style.

Cheers!

Very true laymonite. I also think Camus manner to do it in The Stranger.

"If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing." - Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon.

[MadcapLaugher]

I always got the feeling when reading Wallace that he was a child and English was his candy shop. He was always trying new and interesting words/sentences and coming up with some exceptionally impressive prose.

Hemingway is obviously the opposite, he knew his English very well but his point was to communicate a story as simply as possible to the reader.

Going from one to the other would give me quite a brain twisting.

[laymonite]

Gregory S. - Hadn't thought about the similarities in Camus's <i>The Stranger</i>--good call! There is much more to Camus than mere existential preoccupations, and, yes, he conveys it with focused subtleties.

Say, what part of Sweden are you in? I travel to Goteborg for business.

[Windup]

I like Raymond Carver's simplistic writing style. Detail is nice (Bradbury for example), but a truly great work will shine through regardless. To be honest, I get bored sometimes when detail is too thick.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Is it unique to Sun Also Rises, or does Hemingway always write like a 9th grade ESL student? This is a serious post. And it might be a little unfair having just gotten done with David Foster Wallace, but this is f'in terrible.

His prose can be clumsy when it comes to dialogue between characters but overall he's one of my favourite authors


I haven't read The Sun Also Rises

but For Whom The Bell Tolls and A Farewell To Arms are mandatory reading I feel

The latter being the first novel to make me cry

[spookymulder93]

His prose can be clumsy when it comes to dialogue between characters but overall he's one of my favourite authors


I haven't read The Sun Also Rises

but For Whom The Bell Tolls and A Farewell To Arms are mandatory reading I feel

The latter being the first novel to make me cry

For Whom the Bell Tolls is the most boring novel I've ever read. The only good part is when Pablo and the citizens kill all those public officials.

[Brad Coelho]

For Whom the Bell Tolls is the most boring novel I've ever read. The only good part is when Pablo and the citizens kill all those public officials.

Are you kidding? How about the ending? The race against time & umcompromising finish gave me palpatations. Pablo's massacre, told by Pilar, was absolutely brutal. This is actually my favorite book by Hemingway, w/ Farewell a close 2nd. I think 'what's your favorite Hemingway short story' generates a bit more interesting debate. Snows, Happy Short life, Clean Well Lighted Place & Fathers & Sons are on top for me.

[spookymulder93]

The end left me unsatisfied. I forced my way through that book hoping it would get better than it had been going and then it was over.

[Jeremydav]

For Whom the Bell Tolls was brilliant. I've only read that and Farewell to Arms, but I enjoyed both immensely.

Oh, and I've read The Old Man and the Sea.

[spookymulder93]

What did you guys like about For Whom the Bell Tolls?

I disliked the fact that even though this was about a war very little fighting went on.

I didn't enjoy the language:Oh my rabbit. Oh my oh my oh my oh oh oh. I will be thine wife and do all wife duties I will wash thy clothes and lay down and let thy walk over mine back. I didn't like Maria at all because she didn't really have a personality. She did what she was told. I didn't like the fact that he kept referring to him as Robert Jordan over and over and over again. The whole "I obscenity in thy milk" got annoying as well.

If the rest of the book would've been similar to that part when Pablo killed the officials then it would have been a great novel, but since it isn't this is one novel I'm certain I won't bother to read again.

[Jeremydav]

The language was that of Spanish peasantry and Hemingway gave us its English equivalent.

[EJMathews]

I walked into a room and picked up a book. It was written by someone named Hemingway. I put it on the table and read a few pages of it and was interrupted by an ugly girl.
"Are you reading Hemingway?" she said.
"Yes I am." I said.
"I have a house in the Keys. I love the Keys."
"Oh."
"Yes."
We f'd.

Do you dislike the economy of words or the work the reader must do to understand the story and meet the characters?

The iceberg theory is truly his own description of his writing and I think its accurate, but also he seemed to think it important to 'omit' important parts that the reader could fill in without the help of the writer.

[LitNetIsGreat]

His prose can be clumsy when it comes to dialogue between characters but overall he's one of my favourite authors

I think the criticism of Hemingway's dialogue is overplayed. I don't think that he is as bad in this area as is made out at all. It becomes a bit of a bandwagon I think, with many people willing to jump on. I'm not saying that he is the best writer of dialogue, but merely he is not as bad as it generally assumed.


I haven't read The Sun Also Rises

You should it is one of his best, if not his best.

[Virgil]

I'm with Spooky. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a below average novel. It's no better than a sensational pot boiler. There's no depth to it.

[LMK]

I think comparing Hemingway with a 9th grade ESL student is a bit harsh for both sides of that coin. I think there is something to be said for not being overly descriptive for word count's sake.

I can't say that I've read anything by Hemingway that was not assigned in a class, so I'm not the best judge of his work, but I don't recall thinking that The Sun Also Rises, or A Farewell to Arms were written so poorly.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Are you kidding? How about the ending? The race against time & umcompromising finish gave me palpatations. Pablo's massacre, told by Pilar, was absolutely brutal. This is actually my favorite book by Hemingway, w/ Farewell a close 2nd. I think 'what's your favorite Hemingway short story' generates a bit more interesting debate. Snows, Happy Short life, Clean Well Lighted Place & Fathers & Sons are on top for me.

I agree with Brad, the ending is immense

I love this book although it is second to Farewell...

[kelby_lake]

Hemingway's dialogue is actually pretty good. I can definitely envisage a theatrical adaptation...

[PeterL]

Hemingway's dialogue is actually pretty good. I can definitely envisage a theatrical adaptation...

No, his dialogue is excellent. He shows his characters through their dialogue.

[Rores28]

I'm with PeterL. I've only read Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises, but I felt like his strength and complexity resided primarily in the dialogue.

[untroddenways]

The simplicity has purpose. Hemingway's personality and writing style seem to go hand in hand. To me, he is easily the most realistic of American writers, a no-BS man who isn't going to soften blunt stories with senseless artifice. His themes naturally adapt to his style, or is it the other way around? In any case, I love the guy. I do not always enjoy inhabiting his world, as it is generally a very dark place, but he is most definitely unique. His style can be a welcome relief after enough Faulkner or Joyce (no offense intended toward those two).

[spookymulder93]

I obscenity in the milk of anyone who liked For Whom the Bell Tolls.

[untroddenways]

Oh, dooo you now? :P

I loved it, but because of the characters. I cannot argue that it is an action-packed story. It's not, of course, but I neither expected nor needed it to be.

[kelby_lake]

I really like The Sun Also Rises :)