Do you love me, Ernest Hemingway?

[nonionay]

Every now and then, I try to read Ernest Hemingway. My mom gave me The Old Man and the Sea when I was younger, and I remember liking it. So it represents a rare bonding moment with mom. However, my attempts always skirt disaster. I tried to read a novel--I think it was Farewell to Arms--and couldn't get past the first few pages. I'm trying hi short stories this time (see paragraph below for reasoning). Opened to the table of contents to see what I should start with, went for "The Hills Like White Elephants," and experienced the old familiar sensation of dragging my brain over shards of gravel. (see third paragraph for an appropriate description of my experience.)

My current blast of inspiration has me wanting to cram a Howard Hawks movie into a gothic novel box, injected with Ernest Hemingway. Since most of the stories I've read so far involve a disaffected couple doing little but argue in the middle of nowhere, often in Africa where there are lions or vultures waiting around to eat you at the end of your argument, I'm starting to see how I can get away with this strange premise.

It was hot. The young woman was reading Ernest Hemingway. There was a cat in her room. The young woman was reading "The Hills Like White Elephants" and wondering how it was that anyone could use the word "was" so many times. She was thinking this so much that she missed the euphemistic line about abortion and instead wondered what the hell was the point and if every woman in his life was such a needy bitch than it really wasn't a surprise that Hemingway killed himself. And then she went on the internet and remembered that "The Hills Like White Elephants" was about abortion and felt bad because the woman was justified in her whiny indecision and if Hemingway felt like that about his whiny women who were justified than it's really not a surprise he killed himself. Fortunately, the other stories weren't so oblique, but they still had whiny women.

And that was my experience reading, "The Hills Like White Elephants." That said, I am appreciating other stories more, even though every woman has a tendency to fulfill one of my biggest pet peeve and ask, "Do you love me?"

Comments

[hawkdancer.livejournal.com]

teehee!

Why are so many Really Important Authors so annoying to read? I have similar reactions to Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

The only James Joyce I've read was Dubliners, but that was pretty good, and not totally annoying. Apparently it's very different from Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.

[reicreature.livejournal.com]

"The Hills Like White Elephants."
Ugh. I remember that we read that story in one of my English Lit classes years ago and during the discussion, no one was picking up on the abortion bit and I suddenly blurted out, "They're talking about abortion!"
and every one turning around to stare at me.

Also. "A Farewell to Arms" made me never want to be pregnant.

[bolddeciever.livejournal.com]

Check out The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber if you have a chance -- a little bit of a different angle there.

[criada.livejournal.com]

That was the one I read next. I liked the woman in that a lot better, but she was still a Hemingway Woman, and if she'd gotten between a gun and a lion, I wouldn't have been too sad.

[ruralwriter.livejournal.com]

Done The Snows of Kilimanjaro?

"Do you love me?"
HA! So true.

[criada.livejournal.com]

I'm in the middle of that one right now. If I wasn't a writer, I might feel sorrier for the guy. But he's all, "woe, all the stuff I never wrote about!" and I'm like, "heh, loser."

[laurajerry.livejournal.com]

Ugh! I was never able to read Hemingway either! We were forced to read The Old Man and the Sea in high school, and I never wanted to read anymore after that!

Reading Hemingway, is like eating year old bread --- sooooooo dry!

[spencimusprime.livejournal.com]

This post is funny.

I liked the Old Man and the Sea. Never got past page fifty of For Whom The Bell Tolls.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

We had to read a couple of his Short Stories in High School. Soooo Boring.