Your thoughts about Ernest Hemingway?

[readertim109]

So, what do you think about Ernest Hemingway?

Hemingway wrote such famous novels as The Old Man and the Sea, and The Sun Also Rises. His unique writing style is noted by economy and understatement and had great influence on the development of 20th century fiction writing.

Here's a quote:

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

[sleepydumpling]

I am not a fan. I always feel that Hemingway thought himself superior to most people, and the quote below quite illustrates that. I also feel that all the hunting and shooting and drinking talk was a lot of insecure male posturing. It seemed that he was always out to prove to the world what a manly man he was.

But boy did he travel to some wonderful locations!

[DanteAzrael]

I do not like Hemingway and I've only read The Old Man and the Sea. His writing style isn't unique or worthy of any praise. It is emotionless. It's nothing at all to me. Reading the Old Man and the Sea was like writing the most depressing and ununique poem I have ever written. Something about him did not sit right with me. I don't know if he thought himself superior to others. If he did, he definitely did not earn it because was not a great author. I think it might have been that it seemed so...unartisic...unvaluble...unworthy of being published.

[Danny Caz]

WOW! I understand that evrybody is entitled to their own opinions. But my Lord!!! Are we talking about the same Hemingway? The Author of "classics" such as The Sun also Rises, and Old Man and the Sea! not only is he one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, but he was a pioneer. His, cut to the chase straight foward style was and still is uncomprimisingly unique. He paved the road for such writers as Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski (my two favorite authors)...Not only do I enjoy reading Earnest Hemingway's works, but I declare that that man was a genius!!!

[sleepydumpling]

See that's what I never could get. How did Hemingway's books ever become "classics"? I could never see any great skill in his writing, just a lot of machismo posturing. Is it because he pushed the envelope with subject matter and was controversial for his time that his work became classics?

[awelker]

i like that a lot of the books take place in the same places that i love to be, northern michigan. i mean it is just so peaceful there. i would move there in a heartbeat.

[ClickForth]

I recently read A Farewell to Arms for school, and I have to say while I didn't really enjoy the novel, the discussion and further abstraction away from the actually text was great. While there are some novels that I just don't enjoy and can't find much to take away, at least with Hemingway, regardless of my enjoyment of his actual writing style, I still found plenty of substance.

[Ason]

From what i have read of Hemmingway he stole alot of his style from gertrude Stein & F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as another name i can't recall at the moment. I just finished The Garden of Eden and really nothing happened besides swimming,drinking,sex, talking, writing, maybe some eating and sleeping; otherwise nothing. No revelations, no character development. I've read some of his short fiction and a couple of the classics, but nothing has ever stuck out to me as being above par.
As for his machismo he injured himelf more times than not and with the few exceptions of his african safaris it was usually his fault.At the end of his career he was challanged to a duel and failed to make a meaningful response.
My one positive thing to say about him as someone previously mentioned was that he inspired other great writers such as those mentioned above but including Hunter S. Thompson who stole some of hemmingway's lines but did a great deal more with them. I don't know if that makes him Nobel prize worthy, but who am I to say.

[NSUSA]

Hemingway's novels are okay. They are not bad, but I think they are overrated. I wonder how his work became so popular...

[Aloisius12]

Tolstoy is too long, Hemingway is too short - there's really never a dull moment with you, guys

[DATo]

I've read everything Hemingway has written and frankly I don't know what all the hoopla is about. His pioneering of "understatement", in my opinion, makes his writing sound more like an outline than a novel. Also, I am intimate with his biography and I don't like him as a man either. I agree with those who say his macho posturing was an attempt to prove to himself that he was a man. The way he treated his first wife, Hadley, was a sin and in this case he WAS man enough to admit it in A Moveable Feast. His first mistake was taking writing advice from Gertrude Stein ... the woman was a talentless, self indulgent, self-worshiping fraud in my opinion. Hemingway DID have enormous talent ... but it was misdirected.

His sole redemption as an author in my eyes was the creation of The Old Man and the Sea in which, for the first time, his main character (or emulated characters) were not monosyllabic mercenaries, or slipper-wearing bull butchers, or emasculated Parisian play-babies but a truly heroic and tragic protagonist; a protagonist who we could empathetically identify with; a protagonist who, even in defeat, achieves a magnificence we can admire; a protagonist who is real - who is human. When the final curtain of this novel fell, I could weep for Santiago even as I stood up to cheer him ... the rest of Hemingway's half-mute-cardboard-cut-out protagonists could all be run over by a wild and rabid gaggle of bulls for all I care.

[Fran]

I've read everything Hemingway has written and frankly I don't know what all the hoopla is about. His pioneering of "understatement", in my opinion, makes his writing sound more like an outline than a novel. Also, I am intimate with his biography and I don't like him as a man either. I agree with those who say his macho posturing was an attempt to prove to himself that he was a man. The way he treated his first wife, Hadley, was a sin and in this case he WAS man enough to admit it in A Moveable Feast. His first mistake was taking writing advice from Gertrude Stein ... the woman was a talentless, self indulgent, self-worshiping fraud in my opinion. Hemingway DID have enormous talent ... but it was misdirected.

His sole redemption as an author in my eyes was the creation of The Old Man and the Sea in which, for the first time, his main character (or emulated characters) were not monosyllabic mercenaries, or slipper-wearing bull butchers, or emasculated Parisian play-babies but a truly heroic and tragic protagonist; a protagonist who we could empathetically identify with; a protagonist who, even in defeat, achieves a magnificence we can admire; a protagonist who is real - who is human. When the final curtain of this novel fell, I could weep for Santiago even as I stood up to cheer him ... the rest of Hemingway's half-mute-cardboard-cut-out protagonists could all be run over by a wild and rabid gaggle of bulls for all I care.

Wow! DATo, I'm tempted to quote the "apart from that Mrs Lincoln ..." line

[DATo]

Wow! DATo, I'm tempted to quote the "apart from that Mrs Lincoln ..." line :lol: :lol:

Yup. I am not a fan of Mrs. Lincoln either. It would have served Hemingway right if he had wound up with Mrs. Lincoln and Abraham had wound up with Hadley. ...... You see, I AM a consummate evangelist of "Poetic Justice" *LOL*

I re-read my post in a calmer state of mind .... sometimes my wrath frightens me .... *shivering*.

It is a good thing Hemingway isn't still around or he'd probably have to prove his manliness by hitting me over the head with a coal shovel or something.

[Fran]

Wow! DATo, I'm tempted to quote the "apart from that Mrs Lincoln ..." line

Yup. I am not a fan of Mrs. Lincoln either. It would have served Hemingway right if he had wound up with Mrs. Lincoln and Abraham had wound up with Hadley. ...... You see, I AM a consummate evangelist of "Poetic Justice" *LOL*

I re-read my post in a calmer state of mind .... sometimes my wrath frightens me .... *shivering*.

It is a good thing Hemingway isn't still around or he'd probably have to prove his manliness by hitting me over the head with a coal shovel or something.

Some kind of headlock more likely ... or maybe a challenge in the local taverna

[ceshiwuhao]

It seemed that he was always out to prove to the world what a manly man he was.