Some Notes on Hemingway's Toughness

Nearly every reference I've heard to Ernest Hemingway in modern literature smacks of parody. Somehow he has become this paradigm for a failed masculinity we just love to hate. When I was in high school, or maybe it was in college, my teachers would talk about his prose style as being like an iceberg: only a very little bit shows on the surface, but beneath the surface, it is vast. And despite what you may think of the metaphor, it is undoubtedly true. The problem is that, today, we have little respect for that kind of posturing. If Hemingway's prose is an iceberg, so too are his characters. The arch of their development is almost entirely sub-textual, and much of their internal dialogue consists of talking themselves out of one feeling or another. "Don't feel this way," they say. "Concentrate on this." "It is your own fault, really." Excuses are the scourge of each and every one of Hemingway's heroes; a mind set not very compatible with our modern one, which wants to blame all our problems on media and advertising.

I wonder what David Foster Wallace and Ernest Hemingway would think of one another?

RIP, RIP

Personally I enjoy the voice much of Hemingway's fiction is told in. There is something dignified about it. Feircely honest. Like he's just daring others to judge him. Though the fiercness of it I think masks another aspect of the human experience. In truth, I identify more with the neurotic/existential paranoia of DFW. There is dignity in both.

One thing though that I am really enjoying about Hemingway right now is how much craft figures in to his writing. Reading a novel by Ernest Hemingway can often feel like a master class, particularly Garden of Eden, and obviously, A Moveable Feast. An idea of his that I am trying to emphasize in my own process is the clear break one makes with a work-in-progress when one is finished writing for the day.

"It was in that room that I learned not to think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day. That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything, I hoped; learning, I hoped; and I would read so that I would not think about my work and make myself impotent to do it.... It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything. But afterwards, when you were empty, it was necessary to read..."

-A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

Muy bien.