I've a friend who studies language and cognition; he once observed that acoustical analysis of spoken language can demonstrate that cognition is not just a passive recognition of meaning, but that what someone has learned of a language's grammar and semantics is imposed actively in order to discern meaning from what can be an uninterrupted flow of speech sounds.
I think we do this in reading as well. We have an understanding of culture that forms a lens for how we read and interpret literature. Our social biases now are different from the time when Hemingway emerged on the scene; their absence probably also informs earlier assessments of his work. Coming to grips with Hemingway is complicated by the extraordinary amount of information and myth that has developed about the man himself. Is it possible to read Hemingway without considering his problematic biography and the complex social mores of the early 20th century?
So, you're saying that even on a structural level, people have their own ideas and "listenings" on a language, their own way of making sense of it?
I think Hemingway was important, but like many promoted artists and cultural producers, I think that it's useful to consider the time and the place. It's another thing to consider. I can still just read the books, but I do occasionally have a few moments where I disconnect.
I also find that by reading some of his work in the manner that I do, it can also set people up to defend him, or at least consider him. I am not anti-Canon, though I think it's worth thinking of the gatekeepers and the people who helped to make the canon what it is.
To answer your question, I think it is. I think he built good stories.
Hemingway was a conspicuous break in writing style - whether or not he was the cause or the effect of that change, I am not so sure it matters
This was very interesting, thank you! Got me thinking about Hemingway again. Really looking forward to your follow-up post. Claude McKay said some interesting things about Hemingway. But you probably know this already, right?
“When Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises he shot a fist in the face of the false romantic-realists and said, ‘You can’t fake about life like that.’ I find in Hemingway’s works an artistic illumination of a certain quality of American civilization that is not to be found in any other distinguished American writer. And that quality is the hard-boiled contempt for and disgust of sissiness expressed among all classes of Americans. Now this quality is distinctly and definitely American: a conventionalized rough attitude which is altogether unEuropean. I do not know what Mr. Hemingway’s personal attitude is toward the material that he has used and I care less. All I know is that he has most excellently quickened and enlarged my experience of social life.” Claude McKay, in A Long Way From Home (pgs 251-52 at least in the version I had)
McKay was so smart, so interesting, and so much his own person. He had interesting things to say about Gertrude Stein and James Joyce as well. If you haven’t read A Long Way from Home you really must! It is so good…
McKay was singular. I love his insights about average people in France and the us. He’s also another writer where people check out the most anthologized work and move on.
I didn’t know he’d written about Hemingway but it makes a lot of sense. I’m looking forward to researching this.
I had to read a lot of Hemingway but I always have liked John Steinbeck a lot more. If I have to pick one from that era. I've gone back to Steinbeck, I have never revisited Hemingway. Also re-read Great Expectations and that was rewarding. I refuse to go back to Moby Dick because I spent so much time on that book at uni. And weirdly, I recently saw The Call of the Wild, a modern version of the Jack London book. Why they made the dog look like a slim St Bernard is beyond me.
Have re-read Catch-22 (stands up, still disturbing), Slaughterhouse 5 (um, trippy) and Hitchhiker's Guide... the last one was F's favourite book for a good while.
But overall, I'll read a good crime detective novel now . Also, picked up a Stephen King novel recently. The Outsider. He writes really good people and puts you in the middle of the setup. But currently, it's Anne Cleves and her Vera series. I just luv Northumberland.
Yeah yeah and the chapter where the guy runs around wearing a whale penis. Nutters. I spent too much time with the book. I prefer Bartleby the Scrivener, actually.
I've a friend who studies language and cognition; he once observed that acoustical analysis of spoken language can demonstrate that cognition is not just a passive recognition of meaning, but that what someone has learned of a language's grammar and semantics is imposed actively in order to discern meaning from what can be an uninterrupted flow of speech sounds.
I think we do this in reading as well. We have an understanding of culture that forms a lens for how we read and interpret literature. Our social biases now are different from the time when Hemingway emerged on the scene; their absence probably also informs earlier assessments of his work. Coming to grips with Hemingway is complicated by the extraordinary amount of information and myth that has developed about the man himself. Is it possible to read Hemingway without considering his problematic biography and the complex social mores of the early 20th century?
So, you're saying that even on a structural level, people have their own ideas and "listenings" on a language, their own way of making sense of it?
I think Hemingway was important, but like many promoted artists and cultural producers, I think that it's useful to consider the time and the place. It's another thing to consider. I can still just read the books, but I do occasionally have a few moments where I disconnect.
I also find that by reading some of his work in the manner that I do, it can also set people up to defend him, or at least consider him. I am not anti-Canon, though I think it's worth thinking of the gatekeepers and the people who helped to make the canon what it is.
To answer your question, I think it is. I think he built good stories.
Hemingway was a conspicuous break in writing style - whether or not he was the cause or the effect of that change, I am not so sure it matters
This was very interesting, thank you! Got me thinking about Hemingway again. Really looking forward to your follow-up post. Claude McKay said some interesting things about Hemingway. But you probably know this already, right?
I take Hemingway in limited doses, myself. But I think it’s important to see him as a kind of manufactured persona as well.
I was planning to do something from McCay next! What did he have to say?
“When Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises he shot a fist in the face of the false romantic-realists and said, ‘You can’t fake about life like that.’ I find in Hemingway’s works an artistic illumination of a certain quality of American civilization that is not to be found in any other distinguished American writer. And that quality is the hard-boiled contempt for and disgust of sissiness expressed among all classes of Americans. Now this quality is distinctly and definitely American: a conventionalized rough attitude which is altogether unEuropean. I do not know what Mr. Hemingway’s personal attitude is toward the material that he has used and I care less. All I know is that he has most excellently quickened and enlarged my experience of social life.” Claude McKay, in A Long Way From Home (pgs 251-52 at least in the version I had)
Interesting, right?!
Darn. I might want to use that in the McCay piece.
That’s an incredible response but not too surprising. I need to do something more reading before next week I think.
McKay was so smart, so interesting, and so much his own person. He had interesting things to say about Gertrude Stein and James Joyce as well. If you haven’t read A Long Way from Home you really must! It is so good…
McKay was singular. I love his insights about average people in France and the us. He’s also another writer where people check out the most anthologized work and move on.
I didn’t know he’d written about Hemingway but it makes a lot of sense. I’m looking forward to researching this.
I had to read a lot of Hemingway but I always have liked John Steinbeck a lot more. If I have to pick one from that era. I've gone back to Steinbeck, I have never revisited Hemingway. Also re-read Great Expectations and that was rewarding. I refuse to go back to Moby Dick because I spent so much time on that book at uni. And weirdly, I recently saw The Call of the Wild, a modern version of the Jack London book. Why they made the dog look like a slim St Bernard is beyond me.
Have re-read Catch-22 (stands up, still disturbing), Slaughterhouse 5 (um, trippy) and Hitchhiker's Guide... the last one was F's favourite book for a good while.
But overall, I'll read a good crime detective novel now . Also, picked up a Stephen King novel recently. The Outsider. He writes really good people and puts you in the middle of the setup. But currently, it's Anne Cleves and her Vera series. I just luv Northumberland.
I love Steinbeck. Also an issue with women, but wonderful. The way he opens grapes of wrath remains one of my favorite openings to any book.
I’m open to Melville. I like all of the boat and whale descriptions!
And I am woefully underread for UK literature but I’ve read a lot of Irish.
Yeah yeah and the chapter where the guy runs around wearing a whale penis. Nutters. I spent too much time with the book. I prefer Bartleby the Scrivener, actually.