Your thoughts about Ernest Hemingway?
- PashaRu
- Posts: 9174
- Joined: 15 Mar 2014, 17:02
- Currently Reading: Vicars of Christ - The Dark Side of the Papacy
- Bookshelf Size: 191
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-pasharu.html
- Latest Review: "Damn Females on the Lawn" by Rachel Hurd
Re: Your thoughts about Ernest Hemingway?
-
- Posts: 304
- Joined: 02 May 2014, 21:39
- Bookshelf Size: 12
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-david-dawson.html
- Latest Review: "The Mystery Factor" by Michael Brightman
It's not the greatest redemption though is it; "it's not misogynistic because it doesn't have any women in it." Which is not to say I don't get that that makes it much easier to read.sheenasmith0715 wrote:I agree with DATo completely about The Old Man and the Sea being Hemingway's redeeming work. The thing I hate most about Hemingway's other works is his treatment of women. With The Old Man and the Sea, there are no women, and thus no reason for me to be offended! I believe Hemingway treated the women in his books as he treated the women in his life - badly. It's a shame he wasted so many years on a body of work that leaves so much to be desired and only started writing better material right before he killed himself.
-
- Posts: 18
- Joined: 06 Jan 2015, 14:49
- Bookshelf Size: 0
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-ayisyen.html
- Max Tyrone
- Posts: 75
- Joined: 11 May 2015, 18:16
- Favorite Book: <a href="http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelve ... =2696">One Hundred Years of Solitude</a>
- Currently Reading: Pastoralia
- Bookshelf Size: 193
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-max-tyrone.html
- Latest Review: "Design Of Life" by Martyn Anthony Rich
One of the most prevalent complaints I hear from people when I ask if they've read Hemingway is that he's masculine and womanizing. Knowing bits of his life, of which will definitely lead some to infer that he was sexist, I'd have to say that his work says something different to me.
There are strong female characters in Pilar of For Whom the Bell Tolls and Marie in To Have and Have Not in that they are hardened by the circumstances that have brought them to the page. The characters and the scenarios in A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises strike me as ironic. I mean, in A Farewell to Arms, Catherine's subservience to Henry is so apparent and ridiculous at some points, and in the course of the novel, the reader sees that this kind of love is not meant to be due to obvious consequences. (We almost see the same case in For Whom the Bell Tolls, though I would say that El Sordo represents more of a masculine character, rather than Robert Jordan.) In The Sun Also Rises, it seems like everyone is disconnected with each other--and not precisely for the difference in sexes. We have all these guys fumbling for Brett, but we follow Jake Barnes, who has lost his manhood and cannot pursue her because of it. This model of masculinity I also found ironic, because we have these men trying to win her favor, while one doesn't quite "qualify" as a man, and Brett makes her decision to her liking. (I didn't like the novel all too well, though.) One only really needs to read Hemingway's short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, to obtain this image that masculinity can go to hell because it is not worth emulation, and that its practitioners receive ill fates; and that women can be masculine as well--not because men allow them to, but because of their choices, the ultimate character builder. Perhaps Hemingway himself was masculine, but I believe that he struggled with it, along with the women in his life, which maybe led to his suicide.
As for his writing style, that's something that will make or break it with the individual that reads him. Faulkner once said that Hemingway doesn't send his readers to the dictionary. While Faulkner is somewhat of a maximalist, I like both their styles respectively.
- William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
- ryanjames50
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 04 Jun 2015, 01:19
- Bookshelf Size: 0
-
- Posts: 41
- Joined: 27 May 2015, 08:11
- Bookshelf Size: 60
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-ventis.html
My problem with him started when I decided to try writing stories in English, and l looked around for some advices for attempting writers. Almost every site, blog or forum on "creative writing" will push his style as The Only Right Way to Write. So much so, that some authors on those forums used the (in)famous "Hemingway app" to see if their writing meets the standard. And even though I'm aware that it's more a parody of his style, that this forced "minimalism" completely misses his point... it still soured his books to me.
- Max Tyrone
- Posts: 75
- Joined: 11 May 2015, 18:16
- Favorite Book: <a href="http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelve ... =2696">One Hundred Years of Solitude</a>
- Currently Reading: Pastoralia
- Bookshelf Size: 193
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-max-tyrone.html
- Latest Review: "Design Of Life" by Martyn Anthony Rich
Yeah, I hear you on that. I haven't read that many short stories as I have novels in general; and I've read more short stories by Hemingway than I have any other writer, Poe and King coming at a close second. Even though I wrote a paragraph (perhaps insufficiently) defending him, I would say that Hemingway's style isn't for everyone, though I will admit that he does a good job at rendering the prose so that they're simple enough to take in, but still leaves something to digest, ergo his use of omission. I, myself, am not the biggest fan of his short stories; and I don't have that much of a compass to point in the direction of creative short stories. I hear that Truman Capote's short works are great, and those of Flannery O'Connor.Ventis wrote:Oh god, Hemingway... he's one of the great American novelists, but imho, in the US he's highly overrated. As a reader I used to like Hemingway's short stories and some of his novels - the earlier ones are just average, imho (and full of big words, adverbs, and long sentences).
My problem with him started when I decided to try writing stories in English, and l looked around for some advices for attempting writers. Almost every site, blog or forum on "creative writing" will push his style as The Only Right Way to Write. So much so, that some authors on those forums used the (in)famous "Hemingway app" to see if their writing meets the standard. And even though I'm aware that it's more a parody of his style, that this forced "minimalism" completely misses his point... it still soured his books to me.
- William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
- mich2491
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 05 Jun 2015, 22:29
- Favorite Book: <a href="http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelve ... 7838">Full Dark No Stars</a>
- Currently Reading: The Stand
- Bookshelf Size: 110
- dgmal63
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 11 Jun 2015, 12:38
- Bookshelf Size: 0
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-dgmal63.html
-
- Posts: 114
- Joined: 12 Apr 2015, 07:30
- Bookshelf Size: 10
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-thesaurus-rex.html
- Stevefromtheblock
- Posts: 363
- Joined: 22 Nov 2014, 17:43
- Bookshelf Size: 13
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-stevefromtheblock.html
- Latest Review: "Short Shorts" by Alex Apostol
Duh, so are most people.Thesaurus Rex wrote:Isn't he dead now?
- fenderjedi
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 11 Jun 2015, 01:47
- Bookshelf Size: 0
-- 12 Jun 2015, 02:20 --
Actually, more people are alive now than have ever lived.Stevefromtheblock wrote:Duh, so are most people.Thesaurus Rex wrote:Isn't he dead now?
-
- Posts: 114
- Joined: 12 Apr 2015, 07:30
- Bookshelf Size: 10
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-thesaurus-rex.html
- Stevefromtheblock
- Posts: 363
- Joined: 22 Nov 2014, 17:43
- Bookshelf Size: 13
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-stevefromtheblock.html
- Latest Review: "Short Shorts" by Alex Apostol
While it is impossible to state exactly how many people have ever lived, general estimates run around 100-110 billion. The world population right now is about 8 billion. Which means about 100 billion have died. So, most people are dead.fenderjedi wrote:Actually, more people are alive now than have ever lived.
- Mike_Lang
- Posts: 230
- Joined: 14 Nov 2015, 22:16
- Favorite Book: <a href="http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelve ... 50592">The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid</a>
- Currently Reading: Mississippi Noir
- Bookshelf Size: 274
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-mike-lang.html
- Latest Review: "Justice Prevails" by Colin Lodder
- Reading Device: B00I15SB16
As far as his personal life, yeah, he was one of those type of larger than life people that you probably either loved or hated from the moment you met him. Hemingway always struck me as being the literary version of Orson Welles (whose work I do enjoy greatly) in that he always seemed to be performing, more concerned with creating a persona rather than living an "authentic" life.