The Ernest Hemingway Thread

[Benzadmiral]

Everybody who wants to be well-read, or wants to be a writer, needs to read Hemingway, at least For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea. Beyond that, he can be a bit dull (the entire middle section of FWtBT is pretty hard reading, until they finally start out to "blow the bridge"), but as somebody I once knew said, "He brought the English language back from rococo."

 

[GJ nord]

my gt uncle use to read that book to his crew mates (RAF Lancaster crew in 1942/43) (it was the spanish version so he had to translate it for them).

 

[apba1166]

Islands in the Stream. The only one that matters now. Even if, or especially because, it was unedited and unrevised for publication. The one book he really believed in, and for good reason. They threw it back at him, and then he leaves the planet.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I am also an Islands in the Stream fan. Over the past 20 years I have reread it 3 times, most recently when I was in Havana last week (ping!) I reread the section of the book titled “Cuba”. It’s both comic and tragic. Mostly, for me, the voice is pure Hemingway and very evocatively captures the “feel” of the time and place. Something about the opening chapter of the book keeps bringing me back to it.

 

[HadleyH1]

Hem....never too far from his cats he loved them...here with one at Finca Vigia, Cuba

 

[Tiki Tom]

I consider myself a fan, and fairly knowledgable on most things related to EH. But I was put to shame when I visited the finca earlier this year and met a guy who could name all the Hemingway cats and describe their attributes too.

 

[HadleyH1]

I consider myself a fan, and fairly knowledgable on most things related to EH. But I was put to shame when I visited the finca earlier this year and met a guy who could name all the Hemingway cats and describe their attributes too.

Wow! that's amazing!

 

[Fading Fast]

I consider myself a fan, and fairly knowledgable on most things related to EH. But I was put to shame when I visited the finca earlier this year and met a guy who could name all the Hemingway cats and describe their attributes too.

That might be a good thing for you as taking fandom too far can stroll into crazy town.

 

[Tiki Tom]

That might be a good thing for you as taking fandom too far can stroll into crazy town.

Indeed. Exhibit "A":

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/...-wins-hemingway-look-alike-contest/816337002/

 

[p51]

I was recently in Paris and noticed "Hemmingway stayed here" signs on more than a few buildings...

 

[Tiki Tom]

Hmmm. NEW previously unpublished Hemingway short story coming out.

Set at the Ritz Hotel during WWII, right after the liberation of Paris. What’s not to like? Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/books/ernest-hemingway-short-story-published.html

 

[wallypop]

Hemingway? ok I guess but vastly overrated. Seemed he was self-centerd and somewhat cruel....

 

[Tiki Tom]

Great article about Martha Gellhorn. What an intrepid, crusty, no-holds-barred character. Like him, something of an adrenaline junkie.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/a-memorial-for-the-remarkable-martha-gellhorn

 

[Tiki Tom]

Awww. A.E. Hotchner has died at 102. He was, of course, the young journalist who Hemingway befriended in the 1950s and who accompanied Hem on various trips to Europe and Cuba. After Hem’s suicide, Hotch wrote quite a charming portrait of those years. Later, he adapted some of EH’s work for TV, etc. Had a full life in his own right, beyond Hemingway’s shadow. But for decades he never wavered from having generally good things to say about the man, while still acknowledging his faults, and remaining a friend.

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/18/806991677/remembering-ernest-hemingway-biographer-a-e-hotchner

 

[Tiki Tom]

“New” (previously unpublished) story by Hemingway just published (June 2020) in the New Yorker. Titled “Pursuit as Happiness” it is a bit of escapism about an extended fishing safari off the coast of Havana in 1933 in pursuit of giant marlin. Typically Hem. In the 30s Hemingway regularly published sport pieces in Esquire. It seems like this might have originally been intended to be another Esquire installment. Some of the action takes place at the Floridita. Most enjoyable element is the relationship between the narrator and his friend, the boat’s skipper.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/08/pursuit-as-happiness

 

[Tiki Tom]

I want one!

https://robbreport.com/motors/marin...ilding-ernest-hemingway-fishing-boat-2936308/

 

[camjr]

In the days before smart phones and Kindles (I know, I know, but they're handy for travel), I kept a WELL worn paperback copy of The Old Man and the Sea in my briefcase for airport terminals and delays (I would usually pick up a magazine for the flight). I've probably read it 50 times in my life and always find something new. I'm always going back and re-reading his collection of short stories, and in the last 2 years have gone back and read Islands in the Stream, The Sun also Rises, and A Dangerous Summer. My grown children purchased Hendrickson's Hemingway biography Hemingway's Boat for me a few years ago and I read it off and on until I got through it. Not bad, using Pilar as a backdrop for his life.

 

[Harp]

The Sun also Rises

It is difficult to tag any single book of his canon as the Singular but The Sun Also Rises is the best.

Interesting that Hollywood found him excellent film source material while Fitzgerald is considered problematic.

 

[Fading Fast]

It is difficult to tag any single book of his canon as the Singular but The Sun Also Rises is the best.

Interesting that Hollywood found him excellent film source material while Fitzgerald is considered problematic.

Part of it might be because so much of Fitzgerald's world goes on inside the heads of his characters where as Hemingway's are men and women of action.

 

[Harp]

so much of Fitzgerald's world goes on inside the heads of his characters where as Hemingway's.....

Good point.
But Papa's character Francis Macomber's short happy life ended with a bullet going inside his head.
So, Hemingway's world really got inside the heads of his characters.