Books HOME LOCAL L.A. Now Politics Crime Education O.C. Westside Neighborhoods Environment Obituaries Findlocal U.S. Politics Now Top of the Ticket Science & Environment Obituaries Religion WORLD Afghanistan & Pakistan Africa Asia Europe Iran Iraq Latin America Mexico Under Siege Middle East Business Money & Co. Technology Personal Finance Small Business Company Town Jobs Real Estate Cars SPORTS Lakers Clippers Dodgers Angels NFL Ducks/Kings USC UCLA Soccer High Schools Scores/Stats ENTERTAINMENT Movies Television Music Celebrity Arts & Culture Company Town Calendar The Envelope Findlocal Health Booster Shots Fitness & Nutrition Medicine Behavior Healthcare Reform Hospitals Living Home Food Image Books Parenting Findlocal Magazine Reader Photos Summer Guide Travel California Hawaii Mexico Las Vegas Europe Asia Australia Travel & Deal Blog Opinion Editorials Op-Ed Letters Opinion L.A. Deals Save: Deals Go: Travel Eat: Food Wear: Apparel Live: Everyday Needs Play: Electronics Drive More Mobile Site Subscribe / Manage Account Print Ads Place an Ad LAT Store Jobs Cars Real Estate Rentals More Classifieds 
Weekly Ad#inTheNews {min-height:20px;} Advanced Search Advanced Search X include all of these words: include any of these words: include this exact phrase: exclude: Select a date range this week past 30 days past 3 months past year Create a custom date range From: To: Jacket CopyBooks, authors and all things bookish« Previous |Jacket Copy Home| Next»Happy birthday, Ernest Hemingway!July 22, 2011 | 7:00am
Ernest Hemingway was born on this day in 1899 in Oak Park, Ill. He fought in World War I, traveled widely, hunted big game and lived, among other places, in Cuba, Florida, Wyoming and Paris. In Paris, he was mentored by Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound; his 1923 passport photo, above, shows him as an intense and handsome young man. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1954.
Hemingway was famous for his direct, terse prose style and his tendency to focus on issues of masculinity. His best-known novels include "The Sun Also Rises," "A Farewell to Arms," "To Have and Have Not," "For Whom the Bell Tolls" -- all published by 1940 -- and 1952's "The Old Man and the Sea." He was also a prolific short story writer.
Convinced he was being followed by the FBI (he was) and in increasingly fragile mental health, Hemingway took his own life on July 2, 1961. Considering Hemingway on the anniversary of his death, book critic David L. Ulin wrote that the author was "an early example of the writer as celebrity, as famous for who he was as for what he wrote -- and yet, half a century after his death, he is misunderstood, if we think of him at all." Ulin wrote about a short story by Hemingway:
I think of "Cat in the Rain," perhaps my favorite of his stories, which in three concise pages portrays a marriage on the cusp of unraveling, without ever making that overt. The young American wife at the center of the narrative is dissatisfied but only aware of it as an undertone. As her husband reads, uninterested, she stares out the window of their Italian hotel room, then tries to rescue a cat caught in the rain. The story unfolds over the course of only a few minutes, but these minutes are intensely weighted, especially when the wife goes downstairs and runs into the hotel-keeper, an older man who is everything her husband is not. "The wife liked him," Hemingway writes. "She liked the deadly serious way he received any complaints. She liked his dignity. She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands."
You can read that passage in a variety of ways: as a deft character description or as an example of Hemingway's aesthetic in action, with the repetition of "She liked" working to remind us of the story as a written artifact. Yet most important is how the spareness sets up the emotion, by forcing us to inhabit these sentences for ourselves.
What is Hemingway asking us to do, after all, if not to compare this man, in the wife's eyes, to her husband, who does not and will never match up? He doesn't need to say it; we can see it, and its implications for the future of their relationship. If, as he once wrote, "all stories, if continued far enough, end in death," he is revealing to us here a way station, freighted with both past and future, a catalyst, an epiphany.
Happy birthday, Ernest Hemingway.
RELATED:
A farewell to Hemingway's Wyoming cabin?
Photographer Alfred Eisenstadt on Ernest Hemingway [Video]
Home repair, the Hemingway way
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo: Ernest Hemingway's 1923 passport. Credit: U.S. National Archives
Twitter: @latimesbooksFacebook: latimesbooksMore in: authors, fiction, prizes.entry {border-bottom:0px; padding-bottom:0px;}#sponsored1 {margin-bottom:15px;}
PreviousNext 
More from Jacket CopyComments () | Archives (0) var countNum = 0;if (countNum == 0) {jQuery("#archiveShow").css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});jQuery("#commentsDivider").css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});};jQuery('#fbShow').click(function () {jQuery('#commentsArchive').css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});jQuery('#fbComments').css({'display' : 'block', 'visibility' : 'visible'}); });jQuery('#archiveShow').click(function () {jQuery('#fbComments').css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});jQuery('#commentsArchive').css({'display' : 'block', 'visibility' : 'visible'}); });/*jQuery('#fbShow').css('color' , 'white');jQuery('#archiveShow').css('color' , '#666666');*/
L.A. Times on Facebook
AdvertisementIn Case You Missed It...The LatestMost ViewedMost Emailed Explore Bestsellers Lists
Browse: Dates Titles Authors Search: Find a title Find an author
Recent NewsThe Reading Life: Notes from underground | July 22, 2011, 10:00 am »Happy birthday, Ernest Hemingway! | July 22, 2011, 7:00 am »Subscribe or the puppy gets it | July 21, 2011, 10:52 am »Los Angeles Public Library open Mondays, thanks to Measure L | July 21, 2011, 9:29 am »A new 'Hunger Games' movie poster! OMG! | July 20, 2011, 2:14 pm »
Categoriesacademiaadvertisingamazonanimalsappsarchitectureartaudioaudiobooksauthorsbeabenjamin buttonbestsellersbiographybook clubsbook festivalsbook reviewsbook trailersbooksbookstoresbusinesscaliforniacarolyn kelloggcelebritycharitychildren's literatureclassical literaturecomicscoverscraftscrimecriticismcurrent affairsdavid ulindeborah netburndenis johnsondenverdesigndoing gooddonationsdrmdrugsearthquakesebookseconomicseducationenergyenvironmentereadersessayseventsfantasyfashionfictionfilmfood and drinkgamesgardeninggooglegraphic novelhealthhistorical nonfictionhistoryholidayhorrorhow tohumorindiainternationalinterviewjon thurberkindlela eventsla times bestsellersla times book prizela times festival of booksla times reviewlanguagelawlibraryliesl bradnerliteraturelos angelesmagazinesmargaret wapplermediamemoirmiddle eastmoney walksmusicmysterynew reviewnextnick owcharnobody movenonfictionnovelnovellaoff the shelfonlineparentingphilosophyphoto booksplayspoetrypoliticspomo monthpop cultureprizespublishingradioreadingreading liferearviewrelationshipsreligionrock your books offromanceschool readingsciencescience fictionself-helpsexshelvesshoppingshort storysportssummer readingsusan carpentersusan salter reynoldssxswitechnologytelevisionthe reading lifetheaterthrillertranslationtravelurbanismvideovideo gamesweb extraweb/techweblogswordswritingya
ArchivesJuly 2011June 2011May 2011April 2011March 2011February 2011January 2011December 2010November 2010October 2010September 2010August 2010July 2010June 2010May 2010April 2010March 2010February 2010January 2010December 2009November 2009October 2009September 2009August 2009July 2009June 2009May 2009April 2009March 2009February 2009January 2009December 2008November 2008October 2008September 2008August 2008July 2008June 2008May 2008April 2008March 2008February 2008January 2008December 2007November 2007October 2007September 2007August 2007July 2007June 2007May 2007
Stay connected:
About the ReportersCarolyn Kellogg
Orli Low
Nick Owchar
David L. Ulin
More from The Times24 FramesAfterwordAll The RageAwards TrackerBabylon & BeyondBig PictureBooster ShotsCompany TownCulture MonsterDaily DishDodgers BlogFabulous ForumFrameworkGreenspaceHero ComplexHomicide ReportJacket CopyL.A. at HomeL.A. NowL.A. Times on TumblrL.A. UnleashedLa PlazaLakersMinistry of GossipMoney & Co.Opinion L.A.PolitiCalPolitics NowPop & HissReaders' RepresentativeShow TrackerTechnologyTop of the TicketTravel News & DealsVarsity Times Insider
Corrections Horoscopes Media Kit About Us Contact Us Site Map
Coastline Pilot | Daily Pilot |Huntington Beach Independent | Valley Sun | Burbank Leader | News Press |KTLA |Hoy | LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine | ZAP2itBaltimore Sun |Chicago Tribune |Daily Press |Hartford Courant |LA Times |Orlando Sentinel |Sun Sentinel |The Morning Call
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Los Angeles Times, 202 West 1st Street, Los Angeles, California, 90012 | Copyright 2011
A Tribune Web siteView the original article here
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
No comments:
Post a Comment