Thank you.

quote:

Fearing for her life, I call that madness.
Fearful of that life, she calls it justice.

Nice.

Re: Hemmingway. Y'know, I've never read any Hemmingway. Ever. What would be a good place to start?

And so we don't get too far off topic, I'm going to go to the library before heading home and pick up The Ode Less Traveled today.

Papa? Well, 'A Farewell to Arms', his first semi-autobiographical novel is my fave - just - it's so incredibly touching, and even the big bad man that I am, I always cry at the end. Check out the quote I posted on the 'Tell Yourself Off' thread in Flame Wars. Many, however , would argue that 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' about the Spanish Civil war, is best (both books were filmed too, if you want to take the lazy option, or do both and compare). His short stories are good too - I'd recommend Men Without Women. Some scorn his machismo stance and almost misogynistic regard for women, but that's the man he was. Oh, thankyou, thankyou - I Googled the man, looking for more of his works, and, while I know that he tragically committed suicide with a shotgun (just like Kurt Cobain - figures, huh? Both were angry voices for their respective generations), what I hadn't realised was that he was diagnosed with bi-polar effective disorder (you'll understand my heartfelt ggratitude more if you read the aforementioned Tell Yourself Off thread). The Old Man and the Sea is a fabulous novella. I personally disliked Death in the Afternoon (really, I feel, for afficionados of bull-fighting only). And 'A Moveable Feast' his biographical account of the time he spent in Paris, rubbing shoulders with James Joyce and other luminaries, plus his relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald is fascinating. To my eternal chagrin, I haven't read all his works - though, in truth, I leave that in the hands of fate, not seeking them out, but waiting until they come to me, rather than glut myself on what I feel is too much of a good thing - I did that with David Gemmell, read everything he ever wrote, and then he died. Ditto Douglas Adams. Strangely, I'd rather die not having read all of Hemiingway's work, than live with having read them all. I know, I'm quite mad, really. Do enjoy.

that's a very interesting madness. hmm. I really like that, although I'm far too compulsive to imitate it.

anyway! Hemingway is magnificent and glorious, and, despite Sammael's romanticism, you should read everysinglethingheeverwrote! but I would start with In Our Time. it's short stories/vignettes, very stark, very vivid. it's his first published work (ignoring the smaller version that was printed independently), and absolutely amazing. "The Big Two-Hearted River" (parts one and two, which are at the end of the book) essentially encapsulates Hemingway's world view.

The Sun Also Rises is also popular to the point of being a cliche—because it's damn good. just ignore the "lost generation" bullshit you hear. Hemingway was not the fatalist people seem to think he was, especially not early on, and Brett is not the heroine people seem to think she was. the book in general has a sort of guarded optimism. brilliant, brilliant work.

(I'm actually cheating on Joyce again with Men Without Women right now...I'm liking it so far. also, I did my thesis on Hemingway, and everybody was shocked that I, a woman, would want to concentrate on a misogynist prick like Hem. bleh. so misunderstood, he is.)

Yeah - I do romanticise Papa, but that's because, like him, I'm a big bad man, and a dipsomaniac, so I have to - these are the areas in which my compulsions lie, I'm quite disciplined elsewhere, really - for the sake of forthrightness and candour. Just trying to achieve some form of balance. Love that your thesis was on Papa, by the way. Where have all the real men gone. I try my best, but I know I'll never achieve Papa's level of manliness - I just too damned pretty (falls off chair, snorting beer out nose).

quote:

Originally posted by JeePz:

quote:

Fearing for her life, I call that madness.
Fearful of that life, she calls it justice.

Nice.

Re: Hemmingway. Y'know, I've never read any Hemmingway. Ever. What would be a good place to start?

I would recommend The Sun Also Rises. Apathy's right, it's damn good.

I's also vote for To Have and Have Not as a good intro to Hemmingway.

*deviates*


The Whitsun Weddings
Philip Larkin

That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river's level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles island,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displace the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.

At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewelry-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochers that
Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.

Yes, from cafes
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed abroad: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known

Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots. and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
-An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl -and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.



I fuckin' love that one, but I think it might defeat me to try and learn it - it's a good two verses longer than the next longest one I know

Also, Philip Larkin is ace!

quote:

Originally posted by Caspian:
I would recommend The Sun Also Rises. Apathy's right, it's damn good.

I's also vote for To Have and Have Not as a good intro to Hemmingway.

pfft. of course I'm right.

warning re: To Have and Have Not—it bears little to no resemblance to the Bogart/Bacall movie, if you've seen that. awesome movie, yes; faithful to the book, not so much.

I found one in German, but I can't make it rhyme properly in translation:

Es müssen nicht Männer mit Flügeln sein,
die Engel.
Sie gehen leise, sie müssen nicht schrein,
oft sind sie alt und hässlich und klein,
die Engel.

Sie haben kein Schwert, kein weißes Gewand,
die Engel.
Vielleicht ist einer, der gibt dir die Hand,
oder er wohnt neben dir, Wand an Wand,
der Engel.

Dem Hungernden hat er das Brot gebracht,
der Engel.
Dem Kranken hat er das Bett gemacht,
und hört, wenn du ihn rufst, in der Nacht,
der Engel.

Er steht im Weg und er sagt: Nein,
der Engel.
Groß wie ein Pfahl und hart wie ein Stein –
Es müssen nicht Männer mit Flügeln sein,
die Engel.

Rudolf Otto Wiemer



They aren't always men with wings,
those angels
They walk on soft soles and don't have to yell
Often, they are old and ugly and small,
those angels

They have no sword, no white robe,
those angels
Perhaps there is one who takes your hand
Or who lives next to you, wall to wall,
that angel

He brought the starving bread,
that angel
He made the bed of the ill
He hears it whenever you call him at night,
that angel

He stands in your way and says: No,
that angel
Large as a post and hard as stone
They aren't always men with wings,
those angels

Rudolf Otto Wiemer