Put a video in this one! It's a cool speech from Ernest Hemingway

I've just read through the wiki on old Hemingway and put a bunch of stuff on hold at the library. He was a handsome guy in the 20's, like ridiculously handsome. And with his jetting all over the world working correspondence, he cuts an enviable figure- until you get to the part about all the accidents he suffered. Seriously, those are way too many head injuries for someone that isn't a boxer.

I have less sympathy for his fourth(?) wife Mary breaking either ankle on one of two separate skiing trips. At one point you have to realize you just can't ski.

I'm particularly interested in this part that tells of his relation to J.D. Salinger, that the two wrote to each other and that according to one source "[Hemingway was] as introverted and private as J. D. Salinger, although Hemingway masked his nature with braggadocio."

That conforms to my own (hardly unique) idea of the necessary personal qualities for a writer... I was going to say an introversion, but that's really an exaggeration. One doesn't have to be introverted, they have to be self examining- and the one doesn't neccesarily follow from the other. Actually wait...

Dictionary.com defines introvert two ways:

1. a shy person.
2. Psychology . a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings ( opposed to extrovert).

So, okay, yeah the one doesn't necessarily follow the other. 'Being introspective' is a better precursor to self awareness and any kind of knowledge on the human condition...

Oh, are you still here? I'm sorta working through this... well, anyways


I do love hearing what people have to say about the process of writing. From the 1954 Nobel Acceptance speech written by Hemingway (he couldn't attend the ceremony himself, what with recovering from the several accidents that had convinced the world he'd died... this guy had so many accidents! Rough):


My favourite part is this quote:
"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."

And finally on his famous iceberg writing:
If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.
—Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon

What's so cool about that quote is that it rings especially true with some of the most famous comics around- Batman's retirement in Dark Knight Returns, the adventures of the Minutemen and Crimebusters from Watchmen, and more recently the secret history of the world as told in Planetary (I just finished reading all of Planetary this week). You get a tantalizing feel for those adventures, with a feeling that couldn't be matched by actually reading the adventures. It's a paradox that speaks to the power of the mind to fill in the gaps on its own.

I still wonder if, after a good look at his work, I'll switch gears and become a Hemingway fan.

That's right, I said I was going to talk about my fun hate on for the guy.

Well, it's pretty straightforward, in the tenth grade my english teacher was suffering from health problems, so our class had a lot of substitutes with no clear direction. You never knew what was going to happen, whether they'd be strict or not (I actually did better with the structure of the stricter teacher.). But yeah, that was the only year I didn't do well in high school english, and the main book for the year was "The Old Man and the Sea".

That's basically it, except if you fast forward to university when we read I'm pretty sure "The Sun Also Rises" in the best modernism course ever... nobody ask me how many modernism courses I've taken! (Yeah, I loved the professor for that course, too bad I was such an embarassment as a student :( ...)

After that there was a film course- read the source material, watch the film adaptation. I couldn't stand that course, whenever I attended the tutorial I basically had to do all the work for both students and tutorial leader, directing discussion in such a way so as to make the time spent in class NOT torturously painful. It's like there was this disconnect between the leader and the classmates. Question posed, irrelevant answer given, further irrelevant RESPONSE from the tutorial leader- at least acknowledge that that wasn't an answer. There can be a wrong answer! Especially if the student apparently wasn't listening to you!

Ah that place drove me mad, they say. I say, just now.

So I stopped going, and once the exam rolled around I wrote an essay about how Hemingway would have loved getting the film treatment based on knowing absolutely nothing but my own prejudices. I find that funny- no I didn't do very well, thanks for asking.

Uuuh, despite evidence to the contrary, I really do love to learn. Just thought I'd make that clear.