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[jlhoots]

Brandon Hobson: The Removed

[JSngry]

Karen Russell - Vampires In The Lemon Grove

[ejp626]

Mostly reading poetry for a larger project, but I have read some shorter works.  Am midway through Hemingway's To Have and Have Not.  I don't have too many issues with the hard-bitten anti-hero.  (I don't believe I've ever seen the movie version with Bogart, but I can imagine him in the role.)  But almost every page, Hemingway tosses around the n-word plus Chinese slurs, etc.  (It's something like 5 chapters in when the reader is even told the name of the Black crew member.  Sheesh.)  It really detracts so much from the experience.  I don't think time will be very kind with Hemingway, as so many of his characters embody toxic masculinity.

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, ejp626 said:

 I don't think time will be very kind with Hemingway, as so many of his characters embody toxic masculinity.

You think it will just be Hemingway? You think it will just be literature?

[jlhoots]

Walter Mosley: Blood Grove

[medjuck]

3 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Mostly reading poetry for a larger project, but I have read some shorter works.  Am midway through Hemingway's To Have and Have Not.  I don't have too many issues with the hard-bitten anti-hero.  (I don't believe I've ever seen the movie version with Bogart, but I can imagine him in the role.)  But almost every page, Hemingway tosses around the n-word plus Chinese slurs, etc.  (It's something like 5 chapters in when the reader is even told the name of the Black crew member.  Sheesh.)  It really detracts so much from the experience.  I don't think time will be very kind with Hemingway, as so many of his characters embody toxic masculinity.

The movie is a great Howard Hawks film  but has so little to do with the book that the studio (Warner Bros.) later made a film that was based on the book.  It's called The Breaking Point and stars John Garfield.   And the Hawks film has the distinction of being (I think) the only movie  to have one  Nobel Prize winner (Faulkner) work on a film  adaptation of a work by  another Nobel Prize winner.  (It seems to take as much from Casablanca as it does from the original novel.)

[JSngry]

No, kindness towards toxicity should not be expected.

[ejp626]

It was more of a general comment.  Faulkner struggles with race in a way that I think will make him still relevant in 50 or 100 years.  Arguably Fitzgerald has interesting things to say about social climbing, elite society and "looking in" that will matter more and more as the class divide deepens in North America.   

I personally don't think what Hemingway has to say about being a man are that interesting.  Obviously that is a gross simplification of what he was up to, but I think with today's trends he will be seen as less relevant, but he will still speak to some.  I'm not calling for banning him, by any means.

[BillF]

38 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

It was more of a general comment.  Faulkner struggles with race in a way that I think will make him still relevant in 50 or 100 years.  Arguably Fitzgerald has interesting things to say about social climbing, elite society and "looking in" that will matter more and more as the class divide deepens in North America.   

I personally don't think what Hemingway has to say about being a man are that interesting.  Obviously that is a gross simplification of what he was up to, but I think with today's trends he will be seen as less relevant, but he will still speak to some.  I'm not calling for banning him, by any means.

Looking away from the content of Hemingway's writing, was he not remarkable for the way he wrote - his style?

[Brad]

I read the To Have and Have Not last year and it’s a terrific book. I don’t believe in judging a different time or milieu by today’s standards although I’m sure that will happen and by today’s standards they are objectionable. If you want to look at Fitzgerald his views about Jews (although perhaps not as blatant as Hemingway’s) were not good either but to me this was part of telling the story.

I’m glad you’re not calling for banning Hemingway although I wasn’t aware you were so powerful. 

20 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I don't think time will be very kind with Hemingway, as so many of his characters embody toxic masculinity.

Before making such a conclusion which, frankly, isn’t worth much comment, I suggest you read the following: A Death in the Afternoon

Edited March 15, 2021 by Brad

[mjazzg]

51 minutes ago, Brad said:

I read the To Have and Have Not last year and it’s a terrific book. I don’t believe in judging a different time or milieu by today’s standards although I’m sure that will happen and by today’s standards they are objectionable. If you want to look at Fitzgerald his views about Jews (although perhaps not as blatant as Hemingway’s) were not good either but to me this was part of telling the story.

I’m glad you’re not calling for banning Hemingway although I wasn’t aware you were so powerful. 

Before making such a conclusion which, frankly, isn’t worth much comment, I suggest you read the following: A Death in the Afternoon

Interesting read.

I think it's quite easy to read Wolff alluding to something akin to the 'toxic masculinity' that ejp626 mentions here (apologies for the font size, posting from my phone)

"In his later work, especially in the novels, we can see Hemingway the writer sometimes yielding to the persona he developed, the persona we boys aspired to: tough, taciturn, knowing, self-sufficient, superior. This could bleed into the work, painting his leading men in caricature."

Edited March 15, 2021 by mjazzg

[Brad]

15 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Interesting read.

I think it's quite easy to read Wolff alluding to something akin to the 'toxic masculinity' that ejp626 mentions here (apologies for the font size, posting from my phone)

"In his later work, especially in the novels, we can see Hemingway the writer sometimes yielding to the persona he developed, the persona we boys aspired to: tough, taciturn, knowing, self-sufficient, superior. This could bleed into the work, painting his leading men in caricature."

That was the Hemingway persona: the hard boiled tough man, a men among men. Obviously, that doesn’t fly today and you wouldn’t write that way today. It’s a different age and that’s my point about interpreting writing from 70 to 80 years ago by today’s standards.

Wolff also finished the paragraph you cited by saying the following:

“But in the stories you find almost nothing of that. Indeed, I am struck most forcefully by their humanity, their feeling for human fragility.”

That’s why Hemingway will endure.

Public TV is doing a Ken Burns program on Hemingway. It will be interesting to see how they treat him. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Brad

[Brad]

This is a quite interesting article about Nabokov’s Lolita that appeared in the New York Times about 10 days ago.

How ‘Lolita’ Escaped Obscenity Laws and Cancel Culture

[soulpope]

[JSngry]

Starting on this one, after setting it aside for other things:

[jlhoots]

Ayad Akhtar: Homeland Elegies (for the 2nd time).

[mjazzg]

10 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Ayad Akhtar: Homeland Elegies (for the 2nd time).

I'm waiting for the paperback edition of that. Looks enticing.

[ghost of miles]

[jlhoots]

Kirstin Valdez Quade: The Five Wounds

[Ken Dryden]

[Brad]

On 4/7/2021 at 0:23 PM, ghost of miles said:

The author has come under fire for sexual assault allegations and the publisher has stopped shipping and promoting his book. 

[Brad]

I ran across this story via an interview by Ethan Iverson with Gerald Early; the interview was discussed here.

Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin.

https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/Baldwin-Sonnys-Blues.pdf

It's taken from The Jazz Fiction Anthology, published by Indiana University Press.  

[soulpope]

[jlhoots]

Bradford Morrow: The Forgers

Edited April 29, 2021 by jlhoots

[Brad]

I’ve just finished 

and now onto Mary Dearborn’s bio of Hemingway.