Posted on 07/13/2009 8:37:50 AM PDT by FromLori
Didn’t he fight for the communists in Spain?
“The rest, incoherent.”
Aint that the truth - he was another darling of the left with little talent.
Old Man and the Sea was his best, but nothing that offers anything after the first reading.
Hemingway suffered from depression all his life, so that depression played a major role in his suicide. The heavy drinking probably didn’t help his mental state, either.
Well, that’s your opinion but dare I say there are millions that have an opposite view. I believe more than one or two of his books were on the best seller list.
The heavy drinking was probably self-medication, common with depressed and bi-polar people.
I agree, I think it was a scorching case of the emperor’s new clothes.
Freegards
I’m not entirely surprised. Hemingway’s novels got worse and worse, and I never liked his style. “Across the River and Into the Trees” has to be high in the competition for Worst Novel Ever Written.
A good friend of mine wrote well-respected books on Hemingway and Faulkner and taught them both in college.
I once asked her how she could stand teaching Hemingway, year after year, and she privately admittted to me that it was pretty painful.
What a jerk he was. No real surprise that he wanted to be a KGB spy. And no real surprise that he failed even at that.
The media can do that, whether authors, poets, actors, directors, or politicians, the media and academia can elevate mediocrity into enduring fame and success, even keeping it alive for generations.
But then, you judge his works on your own personal view, but the millions that love his works are just a media blitz? When I got through reading “The Old Man and the Sea” I really enjoyed it and didn’t really give a damn what the critics or media said about it one way or the other. I’m sure the other millions that read it felt the same way.
Not to mention he'd gotten pretty physically banged up over the years. That takes a toll.
I never saw what was so great about his writing either.
MICE.
Money
Ideology
Conscience
Ego
I think “sex” would be in the Ego category.
That is just wonderful, I am thrilled that you discovered and read an old 1952 novel without the media or academia playing a part in your discovering the book and choosing it over millions of others.
The Old Man and the C-I-A.
One of the most successful spy operations was when the East Germans sent over a bunch of suave good looking men to seduce the secretaries of Gov officials in West Germany.
Those women did it for love, not ego. If they were egotistical they would think “Heck, I can get a different guy just as tall dark and handsome”. ;)
I would lump “Conscience” into “ideology” myself.
“Now we know, from which came the phrase ‘’Argo f—k yerself’’”
Very, very funny!
When I was in Havana, I visited La Floridita bar, one of Hemmingway’s favorite watering holes. It was most interesting. It was very enjoyable.
I expected Hemmingway to come through the door any minute.
The drinks were excellent.
Also, Hemmingway didn’t win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for crapy writing.
I think Hemmingway’s earliest writing, especially some of his short stories are absolutely his best.
It seems to me that as time passed he became obsessed with over-perfecting his austere style, and by the time he came to “Old Man And The Sea” he was barely readable.
Try reading “A Clean, Well Lighted Place.”
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