Another confession:
I have never read Hemingway.
Oh, a short story here and there but never a concerted effort, like Clarke, whose writing I have read in whole, down to laundry receipts and napkin doodles.
No, I’ve never read hemingway for the same reason I never visited Australia, though I’ve had chance to do so.
I was afraid to be caught up. I liked the few little things I read, not intensely, but enough. And I knoew that there was a finite amount to be had. And I knew that once I started, I wouldn’t stop.
Africa has made me change that. I’m reading The Green Hills, and will try to make it last until the flight lands in Ndola. And I won’t read anything but the label on my toothpaste while I’m there. I have a journal which I may transcribe here, or I may just mail around to friends to read.
One way or another, I’ve just made a turning down a road I chose not to travel years ago, and I’m excited to feel the road beneath my feet.
I’ve read everything he’s ever written.
To say he’s an influence on me is an understatement of the worst sort.
To say I write better than Papa, or at least different, isn’t sacrilege.
At least I hope not.
Enjoy Africa! What I gathered from my roommate who was born and lived there until the cannibal Idi Amin kicked ’em out, it’s a bit like India – only way bigger and more different…
I tried Hemingway a couple times when I was young, and could not get what the big deal was. Several years back I picked his shortest stories in a collection and finally “got” it – Hemingway writes the story, and when it’s over, he stops. No fancy endings. No fancy beginnings or middles either. I read all his fiction and much of his non-fiction while in grad school (was in engineering, so did not discuss it with my advisor).
Sokay, I HAVE read Hemingway, and generally dislike his writing.
I love his stories; I just dislike the way he writes.
Specifically, he writes as someone more concerned with how he writes than what he says… which is of course why so many literary art fags (no that is not an anti-gay slur, it’s an anti art-idiot slur) masturbate over him.
There is a point where “minimialism” becomes “I’m writing this way for style points” or “lets see if I can get away with this”. Hemmingway crossed that line early on and never looked back.
Yeah, so far it’s what he has to say and not how he says it that impresses me.
I’m another heretic. I don’t like his writing, I find it pompous and wordy. I’d rather read a biography about him.
When I was younger, I loved the landscape imagery in the (very) short story ‘Hills Like White Elephants.’ It’s still very vivid to me. Then I realized the actual story was about a man talking a girl into having an abortion. *rolls eyes*
Twenty pages into “green Hills” I find that I think I like Hemingway the Man. And I think I love the Africa he tells me about.
Hemingway the writer? Not so much.