Thread: Ernest Hemingway

I might be mistaken (I'm a newcomer to this forum) but I've been reading through quite a bit and didn't yet notice a Hemingway thread. Just wondering what your opinions on him might be? A lot of people, especially writers, seem to loathe 'Papa' but I've always been a big fan. There's a lot of his stuff of his I really can't stand but, having studied him greatly during my Creative Writing degree, I'm of the view that he is every writer's must-read author for a few of the following reasons:

- He demonstrates the value of short, simple words over big, cumbersome ones. Some people might disagree, but I personally cannot stand over-writing. The kind of writer who needlessly uses words like 'utility' instead of 'use', 'diminuitive' instead of 'small', 'traversed' instead of 'cross' and so on. In my thinking, unless one is using a large word for the purpose of creating an effect (such as in dialogue) those kinds of words shouldn't be used.
- He manages to create suspense with minimal reliance on abstract nouns. Not that abstract nouns are neccessarily bad, but I always think it's far better and more impressive if a sentence/paragraph/chapter is able to instill a sense of 'fear', 'despair', 'joy' or 'disgust' without using the word itself.
- He encourages brevity. This is important for many reasons, but in my experience particularly because writing sparely and not 'waffling on' allows the reader a much greater feeling of freedom and allows for a wonderful sense of ambiguity. What I like about Hemingway is that it is frequently possible for a character to be interpreted as both 'good' and 'bad', or even neither, because the writing is so open.

What I do think strange is that so many people seem to despise Hemingway. always been a bit of a mystery to me because, his personal life aside (which quite frankly never sounds much worse than many other writers who don't get half as much trash talked about them), I always found his work quite charming and certainly not obnoxious. Discuss!

Tried reading "A Farewell to Arms" and realised life was to short - Love his short stories though.

Originally Posted by luckyscars

What I do think strange is that so many people seem to despise Hemingway. always been a bit of a mystery to me because, his personal life aside (which quite frankly never sounds much worse than many other writers who don't get half as much trash talked about them), I always found his work quite charming and certainly not obnoxious. Discuss!

I don't find it strange at all. Different people have different reading preferences. That's about all there is to it.

I concur with Bloggsworth. I will go back to "Farewell..." when I feel I want to. His short stories are wonderfully written and a wonderful reading experience. My faves are "The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". I think I got the titles right there. I have meant to read "The Old Man and the Sea" for a while now but haven't. Everything I have read about it tells how good it is and I'm almost afraid of reading it in case I'm disappointed.

The thing I like about his stuff is the flow of the writing. Some of his stuff I've enjoyed because of the writing despite not necessarily enjoying the story.

Reading him certainly changed the way I look at my own writing.

I'm Not a Hemingway expert but his The Sun Also Rises is my favorite book, Hills like White Elephants is my favorite short story. I feel like I read a lot of older classics and I can certainly see where you are coming from when you talk of admiring his talent for intellectual simplicity, however I feel like this isn't necessarily why he is so appealing to me, though I do love to just sit and read his work casually. I also don't really mind his personal history, though I don't approve of the whole womanizing agenda, I think we can all relate to some of what he went through. I personally feel that being an artist makes it hard to maintain relationships, especially romantic ones, because romance overwhelms all other emotions... yet you need to stay in touch with all of your feelings to create art. However, being the emotional person he was, romance was exactly the thing he was drawn to most. What I love about Hemingway is that he draws you in to his turbulent emotions, makes you experience them and creates character depth through experiences it is so easy to relate to. He was just so human! And I find that he put so much of himself into The Sun Also Rises and Hills Like White Elephants, just by taking his own thoughts and emotions and presenting them in a way readers would find themselves experiencing after having read them. He is certainly not obnoxious, his art is too subtle to be obnoxious!