Men Without Women: Ernest Hemingway (Arrow Classic S)

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they’re not all of the same calibre. the stories all hit differently, yet remain of a whole. a collection of little truths told through fiction. i also find maile meloy (a wonderful contemporary writer) does something very similar with her short stories. she can bypass your critical radar because it feels like something that really did occur, in credit to the subtly of it all. I'm not really sure I see Hemingway's brilliance just yet. An idea or a quote will flit through when you least expect it and then the spark just goes out. Hemingway's first two published works were Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time but it was the satirical novel, The Torrents of Spring, that established his name more widely. His international reputation was firmly secured by his next three books; Fiesta, Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms.

Joseph Wood Krutch called the stories in Men Without Women "Sordid little catastrophes" involving "very vulgar people,” an assessment I find that observation ungenerous and vulgar in its own way, to miss the subtley and elegance of the prose, to miss the humanity and vulnerability underneath the bravado and bullfighting and boxing. I know Hemingway is out of fashion at the moment as supposed misogynist and drunk, but I think its somewhat too narrow to dismiss him altogether. However, A crowd of young men, some in jerseys and some in their shirt-sleeves, got out. I could see their hands and newly washed, wavy hair in the light from the door. The policeman standing by the door looked at me and smiled. They came in. As they went in, under the light I saw white hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing, talking. With them was Brett. She looked very lovely and she was very much with them. The best of these stories are among the finest in the English language: “Hills Like White Elephants,” “The Killers,” “In Another Country,” “Fifty Grand,” “Now I Lay Me,” though I want to make a pitch, too, for the story of the aging bullfighter in “The Undefeated,” which has amazing passages of description, as painful as it is now for most people to see the cruelty of the slow killing of the bull. But the twin portraits of the older bullfighter and bull are powerful, in spite of that. Both are undefeated, in the way of The Old Man in the Sea. The subject matter of the stories in the collection includes bullfighting, prizefighting, infidelity, divorce, and death. " The Killers", " Hills Like White Elephants", and " In Another Country" are considered to be among Hemingway's better works. [2] CONTENTS The Undefeated In Another Country Hills Like White Elephants The Killers Che Ti Dice La Patria? Fifty Grand A Simple Enquiry Ten Indians A Canary for One An Alpine Idyll A Pursuit Race To-day Is Friday Banal Story Now I Lay MeFirst edition, first printing, of Hemingway's collection of 14 stories in which, as noted by the blurb, "the softening feminine influence is almost wholly absent - either through training, discipline, death, or situation". I get that there was lots of symbolism and big themes in these little nuggets, but for me, there are more enjoyable ways to consider them. And then after 70 minutes of discussion I ask them certain trigger questions and I always see that never ending effect of eyes widening and constant eyelashes fluttering when they finally understand and then they always say: oh my God, really?! I can see that he's a fantastic writer, but I don't think he's a very good story-teller. Not yet, anyway.

The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees. The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads . She put the felt pads and the beer glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl . The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry . It is such a fitting image, considering the title of Hemingway's book, but I have never been bothered by the image, nor the action, as so many seem to be. The Undefeated" begins the collection and is the story of an over-the-hill bullfighter's last hurrah. In the end, his performance is merely satisfactory, and this theme of "man against time" will become a recurring theme for Hemingway, perhaps most notably in The Old Man and the Sea. "To-day is Friday" is a short play featuring three Roman soldiers having a drink, following a crucifixion (presumably Jesus'). "Banal Story" is both a tribute to the great bullfighter, Maera, as well as a diatribe against trite writing and pseudo-intellectualism. "Fifty Grand," following the theme of "The Undefeated" and "A Pursuit Race," is about a boxer who bets against himself, knowing he cannot win: though he almost does win on a technicality. "A Simple Enquiry" stands out, somewhat provocatively: a dialogue in which a major subtly propositions his adjutant. The Undefeated, In Another Country, Hills Like White Elephants, The Killers, Che Ti Dice La Patria?, Fifty Grand, A Simple Enquiry, Ten Indians, A Canary for One, An Alpine Idyll, A Pursuit Race, Today is Friday, Banal Story, Now I Lay Me. Themes and subject matter range from bullfighting, boxing, and prizefighting to divorce, infidelity, and death. Critics at the time praised Hemingway’s concise language and powerful prose.No. I’m Peter. You’re my wonderful Catherine. You’re my beautiful lovely Catherine. You were so good to change. Oh thank you, Catherine, so much. Please understand. Please know and understand. I’m going to make love to you forever.” Fifty Grand” resembles a story, “A Matter of Colour,” Hem published in his high school literary magazine, Tabula, when he attended Oak Park High School (which I, name dropper, mention because it is near my house, and where they have a small shrine to the local hero outside the school). The story is one of a fight fix gone badly, and is really wonderful. Cheerfully this was not the case and Ernest existed, sometimes belligerently one suspects, in a time when the only required eau de toilette pour homme was testosterone. The stories in this book reflect this, with each character reduced to the raw brutal essence of what it means to be a man; in the bullring, at the end of a gun, in war at the wheel of a car or in the arms of a woman. I love this story, sometimes I top-toe around it because you never know how people will react and I don’t want to push them overboard but I like it when I see groups of people in front of me, just contemplating and actually arguing about literature, forgetting that I’m in the classroom, eating candies or just writing down another theory in my Ernest Hemingway folder. The girl looked across at the hills.‘They’re lovely hills,’ she said. ‘They don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the colouring of their skin through the trees.’