Saturday, November 19, 2011
Hemingway - Descriptive Writer
These varying reactions seem to me worth noting because of the indubitable fact that Hemingway has, since his first success, exercised more influence on American fiction than any other contemporary novelist. My own feeling about him has always been that he is one of the best descriptive writers in English, surpassed only by Kipling and a very few others; a master in the evocation of mood--most perfectly displayed in some of the short stories, and in certain situations of the novels. He is not, and never has been, a creator of character in the sense that novelists like Balzac and Tolstoy were, and has never come remotely near the understanding of human life and the values of which it is composed that are essential to great fiction. - J. Donald Adams (1950)
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6 comments:
There is a passage in one of Harry Turtledoves alternative histories where Hemmingway is a character.
He ends up killing his lover and shooting himself.
Interesting.
I like his stuff but I don't know if I can sign on to all the praise.
Thanks for the post Trooper. Is "Harry Turtledove" on CD or audio cassette?
That's the only way I can "read" fiction. I usually listen when working, driving or exercising - otherwise I don't have time or have too many interruptions to really enjoy it.
Yep, Ernie killed himself. Suffered from Depression or from flashbacks to his marriage to Martha Gellhorn.
The Biographers haven't determined which is correct.
I think the book you would enjoy most is "How Few Remain" which is both on CD and avialable as a downloadable audio book.
It is an alternative history of the post Civil War where Lincoln lives and becomes a socialist and Theodore Roosevlt and Custer serve together in an invasion of Canada.
You might find it fun.
Sounds cool, I'll check it out.
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