Posted on 05/20/2019 6:17:53 AM PDT by Twotone
Ernest Hemingway had just returned to London, after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, when he ran into Roald Dahl, then a British Royal Air Force officer. Hemingway told Dahl he’d witnessed a soldier escaping a burning tank on Omaha beach. Dahl responded that Hemingway should include the scene in his next piece for Collier’s, the New York magazine he wrote for at the time.
“You don’t think I’d give them that, do you?” replied Hemingway. “I’m keeping it for a book.”
Collier’s, a glossy weekly with a circulation of 2.8 million, was known as a forum for stellar writing. It was perhaps the most prestigious magazine in America, rivaled only by The Saturday Evening Post. It had commissioned Hemingway to cover what are now some of the most famous events in history, including the western Allies’ invasion of France and the collapse of the Third Reich.
We might have remembered that reportage alongside the best of his fiction. But we don’t—because Hemingway’s stint at Collier’s was a disaster.
His editors in New York were unimpressed with the six articles he filed. They were heroic portrayals, as requested, but of himself as much as of the protagonists in the epic events he was covering. Though he’d proven himself a capable war correspondent in Spain, China, and elsewhere, he had grown to dislike journalism. The relationship with Collier’s was cursed from the outset, and by the end of the war it had descended into a spat over an expense claim for about $13,000—or $187,000 in today’s money.
(Excerpt) Read more at cjr.org ...
$13,000 back then......Can the $187,000 headline be more phony??
Money changes value.
A car used to cost less than $1000 brand new in those days.
13,000 was THE EQUIVALENT OF 187,000 today
Just reading Hemingway’s biography now. He was an insane liar - he claimed to have killed 129 Germans in battle although he wasn’t in any armed forces (he was a journalist in the field). His lies about his participation in WWI (he was an ambulance driver in Italy) are drawfed by his drunken, paranoid lies about WWII.
That being said, he and Fitzgerald are the greatest American short story writers.
“The Old Man and the Sea” was his best IMHO
I did my thesis on Hemingway. Most good short story writers are terrific liars. Faulkner was the same way. Before he got famous, he lied that he was a pilot in WWI. He never got past Canadian flight training.
I always liked “Big Two Hearted River.” Great short story.
Brian William ought to give short story writing a shot. Ought to be terrific at it.
I found that just a couple of weeks ago.
I did my thesis on Hemingway. Most good short story writers are terrific liars. Faulkner was the same way. Before he got famous, he lied that he was a pilot in WWI. He never got past Canadian flight training.
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Interesting.
Hemingway was a bloated egotist. It’s odd that he became so hostile toward journalism because that’s where he made his name and developed his terse, bare-bones style.
I’ve found most of his work over-rated. But I agree with you about Fitzgerald. If you’re only talking about 20th-century writers ...
What always amazes me is that as much as Hemingway hated journalism, his style is pure, crisp journalism (just the basics...nothing extra, nothing not completely necessary).
Ditto. That's what I love most about his stories.
When I first read Hemingway as a kid, I thought it was masculine, nothing but the facts journalism.
I have done a lot of writing over the years and always used Hemingway as a guide of how to do it right.
And as much as I love Nabakov (absolutely beautiful prose), I always used him as a guide of how not to do it.
Stories are fabrications. What’s the mystery about that?
He did.
When the country was watching the OJ slow Bronco chase , I chose to watch The Old Man and the Sea .
Was a rat hat itemized on that voucher?
Only liars can create fiction?
Fiction itself definitely isn’t a lie. Unless it’s seriously and convincingly labeled “non-fiction”.
I’ve written stories. I’m no pro but I have done it. But in my daily life I don’t tell lies.
So yes, to me it is a bit mysterious that greats like Hemingway and Faulkner have to embellish when they write non-fiction.
I bet Asimov wasn’t a liar (just picking one other great at random).
That's quite a little creation there on your part.
Nowhere did I make such a claim.
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