Posted on 04/05/2021 12:01:41 PM PDT by Borges
The idea of a Ken Burns documentary on Ernest Hemingway seems both obvious and a bit absurd. Burns’ long project of celebrating the most dad-friendly pillars of American culture and history—the Civil War, baseball, jazz—makes Hemingway (after Mark Twain, covered by Burns in 2002) almost inevitable. Hemingway’s life was full of exciting adventures, and, not incidentally, he is surely the most photographed writer of the 20th century, so there’s lots of visual material to draw from. Yet after decades of dominating ideas about how a writer should live and work, Hemingway feels increasingly irrelevant today, his influence diminished to a vanishing point, his reputation corroded by a dated personal mythos. According to the Chicago Tribune, even in Hemingway’s hometown of Oak Park, Illinois, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby alone outsells all of Hemingway’s work combined, and the Hemingway Foundation had to launch a GoFundMe campaign to keep the museum at his birthplace open.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Some good stuff in Jack Hemingway’s book. Also, Hotchner’s “ Papa Hemingway” is insightful.
>>I am guessing that this will not bring up his communist sympathies ...
More likely Ken Burns would cast them in a positive light
Which one? "From Here To Eternity" or "Some Came Running?" If it is "Some Came Running" please make absolutely sure it is the UNABRIDGED version. Most editions are abridged and lack the depth of the UNABRIDGED version.
He was smart enough to live in Cuba for six months out of the year. He avoided a lot of taxes that way.
I’m going by the previous bios...Twain, the Roosevelts...all terrific.
“He was smart enough to live in Cuba for six months out of the year. He avoided a lot of taxes that way.”
Which went to the communists.
Hemingway had nothing on James Thurber.
The reason why the Great Gatsby out sells Hemingway is because it is required reading for school.
Good TP is hard to find when you're on safari. Maybe he used the wrong kind of leaves.
It must have been difficult to sit when wading in the waist-high blood of his good friends' victims.
About a fifth of what he’d like.....
Kurt Cobain died from Ernest Hemingway disease.
Twain’s own Autobiography, volume approved via terms of his will 100 years after his death— is far better than anything anyone has done.
Hemingway?... meh. He knew Philby was a Communist double agent in Spain (as did George Orwell), and as a “journalist” fronting for US intel of the time, reported nothing, and not to the Brits either. One of the “culture” cultivars of the then versions of intel through to his job watch Fidel.
Because Burns is a major queenie tootster, and thus never
“straight” in telling the truth. Lots have copied his “documentary” styles, though (guest actor voices, etc.).
Good to know. I will check out the Some Came Running unabridged.
Or any of his actual work for the ComIntern— all documented as he doubled himself with the Western intel.
When the US forced him to leave Cuba, I’m sure the commies took his farm.
Agree. John Steinbeck... about real people, and hard times not tainted with boring writing.
The WSJ already has a piece up about the bio, pointing out what they plainly see as Hemingway’s bluster, bullying, braggadocio, etc. etc.
The saving grace will be the presence of Tobias Wolfe, who judges Hemingway clearly, fairly and humbly, as a man and a writer who, as Wolfe says, moved all the furniture in the room, always and forever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.