Since I read the Nick Adams stories, way back in high school, I have been a fan of Hemingway’s writing. I do admit that I felt a connection, since Horton’s Bay is somewhere I used to walk to on rainy days from my camp on Lake Charlevoix – I had been told that the camp’s property was next to that of Hemingway’s. In college I discovered In Our Times, The Sun Also Rises, and A Farewell to Arms. He became my favorite writer, and I discovered my father’s favorite too. I reveled in the crisp, clear sentences, the Code, and the adventure. Then “people” started questioning why I would like the writing of a sexist man, especially since I am a staunch feminist? The answer, I found, was as complicated as the author.
In my college years, and many before and after, I clung to the Code that Hemingway had laid out for a Real Man. This code, in my view, is that a person must be strong, embrace life wholly, be open to all possibilities, and always be true to themselves. That meant savoring each bite, drinking the last drop, and being with the person you like right now. The crazy thing I saw missing from my critic’s view was that in The Sun Also Rises, Brett lived this code perfectly. She did as she pleased regardless of convention. This is why I had loved this book better than the critic’s favorite For Whom the Bell Tolls. Maria’s passiveness and awakening only with Robert near her seemed simpering to me.
Then I was awakened myself. I read The Paris Wife, a fictional account of Hemingway’s first marriage. The references to Sherwood Anderson, and others whom were cast off later by “Papa” made me curious. I took to my father’s bookshelf and snagged Winesberg, Ohio. Sure enough, the loosely connected stories were crisp and clear, with a code of their own. Written well before In Our Time. And I concluded that each of Hemingway’s best works were written when starting a new relationship with a woman that lived his hero’s code better than he did.
Yesterday, when I was reporting my completed reading to my goodreads.com challenge group, I saw that someone was reading Winesberg, Ohio. After I mentioned that it would make her question Hemingway’s genius, someone shared with me the link to Ellen N. La Motte’s The Backwash of War. It seems that the model of writing Hemingway laid claim to developing was actually from both Anderson and La Motte. La Motte’s book has been made available from the Guttenberg Project, and is accessible free of charge from libraries and amazon. I have just downloaded this, and I am now entering into an uncomfortable place where I need to rethink my reactions to the writing of Hemingway even more deeply. Even if uncomfortable, I will put myself into action (code requirement), be true to myself (code requirement) and decide what I must without looking back (code requirement.)
I will let you know what happens…..
The Source 4 Books 