Comment by komali2
6 years ago
From what I know of Hemingway, it's sincere.
The image he gives of himself (or imagines of himself) is a barrel chested beer swigging straight shooting Man's Man. He bullied "pencil necked" little Fitzgerald into alcoholism, and possibly abandoning his wife. He used a writing style that was the quintessential "no fluff" style of the period.
I don't know him but from what I know of him he would not be a fan of having untanned literary professors claiming his works were about more than literally just an old man pissing in the sea or a bull fighter fighting bulls.
> from what I know of him he would not be a fan of having untanned literary professors claiming his works were about more than literally just an old man pissing in the sea or a bull fighter fighting bulls.
... I think that's the point - even if it were more than that, he might not be a fan of admitting it.
Actually.. ;) Fitzgerald’s insane wife bullied him into alcoholism. Hemingway was more of a rum drinker and the main bully of the writers of the time was Gertrude Stein.
But your point still stands. Hemingway thought not highly of literary critics.
The fun thing about Hemingway was his persona was 50% real and 50% self-cultivated myth, except we can’t really tell which half was which. As far as his style, that was a direct result of his journalism training at the Kansas City Star. https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/articl...