What do you think Hemingway's Best Fiction is?

My favorite Hemingway work is The Old Man and the Sea. I think it is one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read. The old man's struggle need to prove himself, his willingness at his age to take an enormous risk, his momentary success and ultimate failure, the admiration he received from the villagers despite his failure. I think it's a wonderful story and beautifully written. And at no point in time did I think to myselt, " This would be so much better if Katherine Hepburn were sitting in the front of the boat.

There is a lot of discussion about Hemingway's female characters and I agree that they are not special. But I have found that male authors in general have difficulty developing female characters. Despite all of the psychological gobbledy-gook put forth, men in general don't understand women well enough to develop strong female characters. This may be fodder for another thread, but I can't name a single work by an American male author that features a strong, central female character.

Hemingway lived a macho life. Hunting, fishing, drinking, boxing, driving ambulances during wartime, hanging out in Paris. The themes prevail in his novels and his short stories. I read three of his novels this year and several of his short stories and I don't find his style of setting. It's powerful writing. It's real. It's raw. I think one either likes or not, or simpy tolerates it. Papa's alright with me.

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Originally Posted by PabloQ

I think it's a wonderful story and beautifully written. And at no point in time did I think to myselt, " This would be so much better if Katherine Hepburn were sitting in the front of the boat.

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I seriously love Katherine Hepburn, but I also love Marilyn Monroe. I've met all kinds of women, and I think it's a mistake to imply that there are no women like the ones in Hemingway's fiction.

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

I seriously love Katherine Hepburn, but I also love Marilyn Monroe. I've met all kinds of women, and I think it's a mistake to imply that there are no women like the ones in Hemingway's fiction.

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True. My comments on Hem's women was not on their type, but their two dimensionality as characters drawn in fiction. In fact I don't think Hem's women were anything like Monroe. I think Hem's women are the sophisticated type.

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Originally Posted by PabloQ

There is a lot of discussion about Hemingway's female characters and I agree that they are not special. But I have found that male authors in general have difficulty developing female characters. Despite all of the psychological gobbledy-gook put forth, men in general don't understand women well enough to develop strong female characters. This may be fodder for another thread, but I can't name a single work by an American male author that features a strong, central female character.

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Indeed, if Hemingway, with his sharp eye that is able to discern the deepest feelings with most simple, laconic sentences, is unable to create a viable, living-enough female character, who else?

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Originally Posted by PabloQ

I can't name a single work by an American male author that features a strong, central female character.

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Lolita (Yes, I know Nabokov's Russian but he's living in America so it sorta counts)

The females don't have to be strong; they just have to not be 2D notches on the bedposts.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Lolita (Yes, I know Nabokov's Russian but he's living in America so it sorta counts)

The females don't have to be strong; they just have to not be 2D notches on the bedposts.

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Should we even bother to go digging through Henry James? Portrait of a Lady? etc.

Just used him though, since he was an early (relatively) American writer. I can name more, but that isn't the point.

Faulkner's novel Light in August also comes to mind right away, as do works my Tennessee Williams, etc.

I was going to say Tennessee Williams as well but someone would probably just say that he doesn't count because he's gay or something stupid.

Despite his unique literary skills, I don't like Hemingway's approach to the living creatures, be it a woman, a man or an animal.

I might say that he was a little bit cruel.

I think the whole Hemingway and female character thing has massively snowballed out of control, so much so that it has become a sort of literary urban myth.

Hemingway only has to come up in discussion anywhere and you can guarantee that the third person or so will bring up Hem's "weak female character development." Usually then there are several people nodding in agreement (including the ones who have never read Hemingway!) and the conversation moves on to something else. The whole thing reeks of panto to me with Hemingway as the big bad wolf, it's hardly constructive at all.

I don't agree with the whole "notch in a bed post" as someone suggested, maybe a little 2D in places, maybe, but really that's taking it too far.

I think Hemingway is a really sensitive writer on the whole. His writing is full of tiny observations upon life with are quite touching and genteel in places. He is always sold as the bullfighting, hunter, fighter type, the male macho testosterone figure, but there is a huge amount of sensitivity for life and nature under that and a real skill for truthful, fine writing.

Yes there are weaknesses, even as I pointed out early in this thread, but the female thing has blown up out of all proportion to the criticism it doesn't really deserve.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Lolita (Yes, I know Nabokov's Russian but he's living in America so it sorta counts)

The females don't have to be strong; they just have to not be 2D notches on the bedposts.

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I have to disagree with you here Kelby. While certainly Hem's woman are two dimensional, I do not see them as notches on a bedpost. The male characters are truly in love with them. And they freely love them back. I'm not sure I know what you mean by notches on a bed post.

Edit: I see Neely makes the same comment.

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Originally Posted by Neely

Yes there are weaknesses, even as I pointed out early in this thread, but the female thing has blown up out of all proportion to the criticism it doesn't really deserve.

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Are my problems with Hemingway's depictions of females strong enough to make me stop reading him? No. In fact, despite being a more ardent admirer of Faulkner, I happen to greatly enjoy Hemingway's writing.

We're talking shop here. Does anyone else find some of the back and forth in A Farewell to Arms between Henry and Katherine slightly ridiculous? I understand that this fairy tale kind of romance is essential to the novel, but part of me is unsure Hemingway could cover such a topic.

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Originally Posted by mayneverhave

We're talking shop here. Does anyone else find some of the back and forth in A Farewell to Arms between Henry and Katherine slightly ridiculous? I understand that this fairy tale kind of romance is essential to the novel, but part of me is unsure Hemingway could cover such a topic.

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I thought their dialogue was relatively simple. And I mean simple in a negative sense.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I thought their dialogue was relatively simple. And I mean simple in a negative sense.

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Well, not every fiction can be as plausible and true to life as a story about a little boy who magically foretells the future of races by riding his rocking-horse to orgasm.

Mortal... I've loved reading your comments. I'd join into the fracas... but the reality is that in spite of the fact that I've made it clear (more than once) that I greatly prefer the lush, rambling prose of Proust (an antithesis to Hemingway if there ever was one) I actually do quite like his work. By the way... I can't say that I recall a single strong female character in the novel I would consider as the best written by an American in the last quarter century or more: Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

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Originally Posted by Neely

I think the whole Hemingway and female character thing has massively snowballed out of control, so much so that it has become a sort of literary urban myth.

Hemingway only has to come up in discussion anywhere and you can guarantee that the third person or so will bring up Hem's "weak female character development." Usually then there are several people nodding in agreement (including the ones who have never read Hemingway!) and the conversation moves on to something else. The whole thing reeks of panto to me with Hemingway as the big bad wolf, it's hardly constructive at all.

I don't agree with the whole "notch in a bed post" as someone suggested, maybe a little 2D in places, maybe, but really that's taking it too far.

I think Hemingway is a really sensitive writer on the whole. His writing is full of tiny observations upon life with are quite touching and genteel in places. He is always sold as the bullfighting, hunter, fighter type, the male macho testosterone figure, but there is a huge amount of sensitivity for life and nature under that and a real skill for truthful, fine writing.

Yes there are weaknesses, even as I pointed out early in this thread, but the female thing has blown up out of all proportion to the criticism it doesn't really deserve.

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Ah, Neely, Neely, at last I can agree so strongly with someone in regards to Papa Hemingway. Bravo, well said! Other Ernesto fans should applaud you, as fans did of the young bullfighter in The Sun Also Rises.