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/lit/ - Literature

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5373011 No.5373011[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What is your opinion on Hemingway? His writing or his persona

>> No.5373024

Don't get the hype even with his short stories which are supposed to be superior.

>> No.5373037

>or his persona

this is the fucking problem with /lit/. don't start threads that way.

>> No.5373077

He is really a 'brevity is the soul of wit' kind of writer. He sort of paints in broad strokes to give the sense his writing is profound by being very general.

But personally I find it charming. I don't know what it is. Reading his books about 'simpler times' feels like being told a story from your wise old grandpa.

>> No.5373087

Hemingway was a talentless hack who should have continued writing newspaper articles at the level of a third grader. He's worth reading if you're 6 and just finished the Spot books or the Bernstein Bears, but otherwise avoid him.

>> No.5373130

>>5373087
Did you form that opinion all on your own? Quite the independent thinker. You must be the only person on here that repeats that same line about every author you don't like.

>> No.5373162
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5373162

>>5373011
I've read a few of his books over the years and found them enjoyable.

>persona
>"h-hey guys! Look how cool I am! / 10

But does that really matter? Why should I care about his personal life as long as I understand his writing?

>> No.5373174

>>5373162
>Why should I care about his personal life as long as I understand his writing?

>being this much of a pomo fuccboi

>> No.5373260
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5373260

He's a boss. 10/10 would do cocaine with.

>> No.5373271

>>5373077
>brevity is the soul of wit
lel that was on Jeopardy the other day.

speaking of, it just started, unless it gets pre-empted for Labor Day.

>> No.5373296

The lesson a budding writer should take from Hemingway is that every word should count and count for as much as you can make of it. It's a good inoculation against purple prose.

Unfortunate side effects though include a suspicion of any work which seems at all "wordy," even when none of those words are being wasted.

>> No.5373307

>>5373296
We should take it as a good example that Hemingway was good friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and even James Joyce, both of whom are much wordier than Hemingway to varying degrees, and both of whom are obviously great writers in their own right.

They knew how to use wordiness to paint the pictures they wanted. Hemingway knew how to use conciseness to paint the pictures he wanted, too. Prose is only inexcusably purple when it's wordy for the sake of appearing intelligent or needlessly complex.

>> No.5373310

He's a manly man.

>> No.5373311

His book on the Spanish civil war I found to be quite good, not as good as George Orwells Homage to Catalonia but okay... he seems like a bad ass mutha fucka

>> No.5373314

>>5373011
Both strong and petty, interesting and dated.

His limits are his strengths, and he's too limited.

>> No.5373316

His book on the Spanish civil war I found to be quite good, not as good as George Orwells Homage to Catalonia but okay... he seems like a bad ass mutha fucka

>> No.5373329

I've only read The old man and the sea and I didn't like it.

>> No.5373337

>>5373162
He got up early to write alone most days of his life. As he said himself, his characters are not him.

>> No.5373343
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5373343

>>5373314
>>5373329
>>5373087

>> No.5373365

>>5373337
There's a lovely characterisation of him in 'a late education' by Alan Moorhead as a man who really did enjoy hunting and the outdoorsy life (to the point of standing in a barrel for hours to get ducks), a man who hated publicity and who had great self doubt. He would spend 5 hours reading a day and write until he could not (or so AM says). When he talked to Moorhead he talked of books and writing. He said he swore without rudesness and spoke of sex without dirtiness, so presumably they didn't only talk of books and writing.
I also met a man on a beech in Greece who claimed to have lived with him for a month or two weeks. His story correlates in Hemingway being a quiet and reserved man, though not particularly polite and he added that he carried with him everywhere the works of Jonathan Swift (if memory serves), which he had a great respect for.

>> No.5373389

>>5373365
I have not read that, is it worth looking into?

>> No.5373392

>>5373365
Why does everyone assume that Hemingway did all the things he did purely for publicity? That would be exhausting, and he seems to have been an exhausted fellow already.

Sure, he loved to mug for the camera, but he was a bit of an extrovert. He recognized his hobbies and trappings were interesting, so he played them up, but he didn't wholly invent them.

And let's not overlook the fact that publicizing his lifestyle made him famous, which made him money. Those of us who are writers can certainly attest to the fact that we spend money like drunk Indians. Hemingway probably needed that cash to buy fisherman's sweaters and shotguns and cabanas in Key West. I'm not going to begrudge him monetizing his lifestyle; I'd do the same thing in his position.

>> No.5373401

>>5373389
Great book, it's a sensitive look at war journalism, and his friend Alex Clifford, and pre-war Europe, and growing up, and the immediate post-war literary scene. And it's nice to read. I can post a couple of excerpts if you want.

>> No.5373402

>>5373011
Just finished Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls. I liked the bell one better.

>> No.5373408

>>5373162
hevvingway was thick jeez

>> No.5373422

>>5373307
There's a book in my local oxfam about Fitzgerald and Hemingway on the road, I forget who it's by. Cop or not?

>> No.5373436

Only read The Old Man and The Sea, what a heap of steaming fuck.

Literally the worst book I ever read, so unrealistic. This isn't how fishing goes down, bare-handed harpooning or not. The great struggle he barely describes is hilariously melodramatic.

>> No.5373438

>>5373408
>tfw same bodytype as hemingway

>> No.5373457

>>5373011

lived like a man
wrote like a child
dead like a pleb

>> No.5373458

>>5373401
Definitely, go ahead

>> No.5373591

>>5373011
He knocked out wallace stevens.
That's pretty cool.

>> No.5373614

I like his short stories a lot. I have them in that big book edition and read them all during a transitional summer of my life while working in a factory.

A Farewell to Arms is pretty great, I'd say it's his "standard."

I really liked For Whom the Bell Tolls, I've been thinking about rereading it lately.

I've started The Sun Also Rises twice but I've stopped both times.

The Old Man and the Sea is hit or miss. I read it in high school (like a lot of people I would guess) and thought it was ok. I feel like I would like it more if I reread it now.

>>5373311
Homage to Catalonia is on my bookshelf and I've been meaning to read it. Is it that good?

>> No.5373615

>>5373458
Chapter 2
[on commenting that he was too busy with his own preoccupations to have paid as much attention as he should have to his brother before his early death]
I was approaching twenty by this time, and the chief of these frustrations was concerned with sex. It appeared to be an insoluble dilemma; on one hand one had one's fragile, referent dream of the divine and beautiful creature whom one would not be worthy to touch, and on the other hand the was one's clamorous physical need to seduce a girl, any girl so long as she was desirable and pretty. I seemed to be spectacularly unsuccessful at this pursuit, and i put this down in great part to my being so short. I minded terribly about not being tall. At dances I constantly found myself looking up into my partner's face and this was mortifying. There was always the possibility, of course, of talking girls into submission when you got into a car outside, and how often was I carried away by my own eloquence. Surely, I felt, they must see the turbulence they had stirred up in me, my desperate wanting; how could they go on resisting? Yet they did. Ine got a certain distance -- the wet kiss, the fumbling with the shoulder strap -- and then no more.
It seems incredible that anyone could have been so ignorant about sex as i was. The only information on the subject I can remember receiving as a young boy was a dire warning: a doctor drew me aside to tell me that masturbation led to insanity and probably blindness as well if, by any chance, some of my semen was transferred to my eyes. I kknew nothing, wanted to know nothing, about the workings of women's bodies, their menstrual periods and so on; all that was too embarrassing. Since I was so wholly concentrated upon my own desires I had no notion of what their emotion or physical reactions might be; I simply presumed that since I was enjoying the experience they were too, and probably in the same way. There were certain rules to be observed -- one stopped a good deal short of attempting tape -- but essentially it was a conquest, a trial of strength, and the triumph of breaking down a girl's defences, of bringing her to an emotional pitch where she betrayed herself and could resist no more, was almost as satisfactory as the hasty and awkward consummation of the act itself. And that was that. Immediately afterwards one wanted to get away as quickly as one decently couuld; a final perfunctory and patronizing embrace and the, 'i suppose i had better go.' Contraception one did not bother about. That was the girl's affair, and one only hoped she knew how to look after herself; it would be too hideously embarrassing if she became pregnant and involved you in all the mess and expense of an abortion. I did not realise that i feared and distrusted women: feared because they could reject me and expose me to the mortification of defeat, and mistrusted them because i did not understand them.

>> No.5373624

>>5373615
And so I alternated between agression and shyness, and all the middle ground of liking and tenderness was lost. It was no wonder I was rebuffed. I actually reached the age of twenty-one before I managed to get a girl to consent. The encounter took place on a rubbish heap on an empty block of land beside her parents' house, and was not very successful since she infected me with a mild form of venerial disease --- a wry joke to look back on now but it seemed ctaclysmic at the time. It confirmed my belief that women were both predatory and dangerous.

I can choose some more representative warry or arty bit if you want, but it won't be such a length.

>> No.5373626

>>5373615
That's an interesting one
I've read a little bit about Alan Moorehead from my interest in journalism, so I'll take a look at it, thank you

>> No.5373944

Like most great writers and thinkers, he was smart, calculating, and witty. But as a person, he was an alcoholic, adulterer, and generally an asshole to women.

>> No.5374110

>>5373944
How else should a real man be to a woman, though?

>> No.5374114

>>5374110
He was the realest man

>> No.5374119

>>5374114
I think that's the most interesting thing about Hemingway. He was everything a traditionally masculine man should be, yet he was full of self-doubt and always questioning his masculinity. He's a fascinating character in his own right.

>> No.5374185

>>5374119
He may be one of the manliest icons the US has ever produced. Yet somehow he always grappled with it. Makes you wonder. His books also, while masculine, reflect an enormous amount of despair.

>> No.5374191

I've so far only read The Sun also Rises, and I can say his writing is very sparse, but I very much like it. He has a very distinctive style, and it feels cozy to me.

>> No.5374208

>>5373011
another robin williams thread?

>> No.5374344

>>5373011
Excellent beard. Quite handsome. Great smile. Erudite fashion sense. Highly photogenic. 10/10 would hypothetically fellate.

>> No.5374378

>>5374344
I bet you're a faggot, though, so hemingway wouldn't hypothetically accept fellatio I hope.

>> No.5374392

Hemmingway

It's spelled with two m's.

>> No.5374495

I want to do cocaine in Pamplona with him so bad. Then go to San Sebastian and do some more coke in a hotel balcony off the beach.