Books as Weapons – John Hench

Judy__ said:
Hemingway did commit suicide.

You call it “suicide.” He called it “research for my next novel.”

I’ve not really read enough Hemingway to know what I’m talking about, but seeing as ignorance has never stopped me before I think I’ll chime in as well. I think Hemingway (at least in To Have and Have Not) perfectly understands the human condition, albeit through a male or masculine filter, which is fair enough as he is indeed a man. Many female authors seem to do this to, indeed gender-issues seem to be such a ubiquitous element of so much of female-penned fiction to the extent that it is almost a genre of literature in itself. There are exceptions of course, and it is these more androgynous voiced female authors which tend to appeal to me as a (male) reader. Certainly the character in To Have and Have Not is impotent in terms of freewill, being largely forced by circumstances beyond his control – which I would argue is very much part of the human condition and 20th C literature, although I don’t see this as meaning Hemingway doesn’t understand sexuality, nor that this is a particularly male trait. I just think that showing a greater understanding of sexuality is less important in masculine culture therefore it appears less prominent (or less obviously so) in male-penned fiction. However I don’t think that the obvious inference of this: that women do understand sexuality, necessarily follows. While sexuality probably plays a more important role in female fiction, I don’t think that means that it is necessarily understood any better nor that female sexuality isn’t similarly fucked up… the awful Bridget Jone’s Diary comes to mind, which would suggest that women are all self-hating, relationship fixated narcissists. Of course there’s also the amazing Du Maurier and Tiptree, so like male fiction there is some good to the ample bad.

As an author Hemingway is obviously a superb writer, although I think the extent that a Hemingway-esque style has been evangelised in creative writing classes and lit academia has been a straight jacket to modern literature and publishing. Anything that substantially deviates from Hemingway’s ‘terse’ prose style seems open to unfair criticism. Admittedly few authors are quite a terse as Hemingway (nor could pull it off as well), but still there is little room for the truly verbose in modern fiction.

As for Hemingway…. Why would any government want to push a theory of mind to most men that they are dark inside, incompetent, insufficient, impotent. Or, in the case of Orwell, pushing the case that resistance is useless. What benefits does a government get if most men are focused on bread and circuses and feel weak and isolated?

An interesting video clip about theory of mind and how we aren’t born with it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDtjLSa50uk&feature=youtube_gdata

We have to be carefully taught …. conditioned…. for what purpose?

Hemingway’s terse style was deliberate. He felt that by omitting parts the reader would fill in the blanks – much in the same way we see motion in movies.