A slight diversion from Vienna today, because it is Ernest Hemingway's birthday - he would have been 113. To celebrate, I thought I would do a Hemingway-themed post. For my A Level English coursework I studied Hemingway's short stories and absolutely loved them. Having read The Paris Wife I thought I ought to go back to at least some of them and now I feel I have that little more insight into Hemingway's mind and it shines through his stories. Themes of war, giving birth, adultery, new places, new faces all come out in these First Forty-Nine Stories. I've provided links to some of the stories below so you can have a read. They really are very short... Indian Camp, Up in Michigan and Hills Like White Elephants are particularly so.
Hemingway has an amazing way of establishing tone and atmosphere and in throughout these stories, there's a definite eerie feel. For instance, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, first published in 1936 by Esquire, tells of a man named Harry on safari in Africa who is horribly awaiting death after a wound becomes severely infected. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, based also on safari, is similarly disturbing. Hemingway manipulates the reader by mixing up the chronology so that during the later events, you aren't always armed with the preceding context, whereas earlier moments are sometimes affected by the reader already knowing what will happen in the future.
One of my favourite stories is Indian Camp, first published in 1924 in the Transatlatic Review. This was one of the first stories to feature his famous recurring character, Nick Adams, who is thought to be semi-autobiographical. Nick is just a kid in this story when he travels with his father, a doctor, to the aid of a Native American woman giving birth. Adams describes the event as horrific and gives some idea of the fear that Hemingway must have had for his own impending fatherhood. What I love about this story is the description of the setting as 'They walked up from the beach through a meadow that was soaking wet with dew, following the young Indian who carried a lantern.'
Up in Michigan brings Hemingway's writing back home to Horton's Bay, Michigan, close to where he grew up. This story is, again, controversial in topic and beautifully written, instantly transporting you to a specific place, emotion and situation. Hemingway always provides just enough information; he doesn't destroy your own imagination. This story in particular really asks you to bring your own thoughts, beliefs and morals to the forefront and decide what really happens. Read it here.
There are a lot of stories in this compilation (49 to be precise, funny that...) but the last one I'm going to talk about is a story where Hemingway asks even more of his reader. I don't mean it's hard to read, so don't get put off! What I mean is that when it came to talking about Hills Like White Elephants in class, it became clear that we all had different ideas as to what had just happened. This is all part of the enjoyment of reading, so lease don't Google it before you read it! It's very short and you can read it here.
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