Julie
I've read a decent chunk of both A Farewell to Arms, and Men Without Women. Hemingway, unfortunately writes in his usual terse, boring, and consequently dry manner. With nothing but the same amount of flatness he himself purports to have. One could say he is an author within a time period, writing from a certain perspective, and that's for men with fragile egos. His overbearing masculinity makes him write one dimensional women-as-pets characters, where his sexism comes to shine. I've read now four different books of his, and I think one was too many. The Old Man and the Sea was okay, but frankly, one would be better off not reading it.
I think some people would disagree with my view, but I simply find his sexism unreadable when central characters are incredibly shallow - just like the rest of the story. Without going too in-depth on my own personal views on taste, and the subjectiveness of it, merely I'll say that quality, however, is not entirely subjective. If someone likes Hemingway, than by all means, read him. Enjoyment is not equal to quality a lot of times, and a think a lot of highbrow literature is terrible too. I do not mean to be elitist nor classist, but some books simply suck, sorry.
Into the garbage heap of history Hemingway goes.
I've read a decent chunk of both A Farewell to Arms, and Men Without Women. Hemingway, unfortunately writes in his usual terse, boring, and consequently dry manner. With nothing but the same amount of flatness he himself purports to have. One could say he is an author within a time period, writing from a certain perspective, and that's for men with fragile egos. His overbearing masculinity makes him write one dimensional women-as-pets characters, where his sexism comes to shine. I've read now four different books of his, and I think one was too many. The Old Man and the Sea was okay, but frankly, one would be better off not reading it.
I think some people would disagree with my view, but I simply find his sexism unreadable when central characters are incredibly shallow - just like the rest of the story. Without going too in-depth on my own personal views on taste, and the subjectiveness of it, merely I'll say that quality, however, is not entirely subjective. If someone likes Hemingway, than by all means, read him. Enjoyment is not equal to quality a lot of times, and a think a lot of highbrow literature is terrible too. I do not mean to be elitist nor classist, but some books simply suck, sorry.
Into the garbage heap of history Hemingway goes.
I wish much so to dislike this book, however I must admit it was quite good. A reaction summoned through the meeting with the abject, which was contained within these pages. I hate every character in this book - within reason, obviously there are actors and characters which are not as bad as others, merely they all irritate me for being miserable twats - while some are broken, abused throughout childhood and so on, their actions are not justified - as Goethe once put it, ‘Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.'. To be a good person is to be gentle, it is how you act towards the world, in the manner in which you do things.
Going from Frank Herbert's writing style to Ursula K. Le Guin was a shock which I found appaling to begin with. That faded and I enjoyed it.
However I felt there was little of food for thought, something about how the environment shapes society, war being the antithesis to civilisation, an exploration of gender yet lacking. Everything was just a bit lacking.
Nevertheless the prose was good enough for me to start ereyesterday and finish it today.
A few thoughts:
- “A slow lava flow of narrative.” = Loads of commas, 7-8 before a full stop.
- it's somewhat boring at times, especially when the characters have personal musings with no relation to the story, music theory? Right.
- I didn't really know what was going on half of the time?
- “Dark-skinned hooligans”, was apparently a misstranslation and supposed to be, “wild hooligans” or something like that.
- Valuska is really the idiot everyone thinks he is, I'd know I was inside his head.
- it's a book.
Der er to dele til medie, det ene er hvad der ligger i det, hvad der er tænkt og hvad kan tages fra det. Den anden del er hvad det for dig til at føle. [a:Susan Sontag 7907 Susan Sontag https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615556608p2/7907.jpg]'s [b:Against Interpretation and Other Essays 52374 Against Interpretation and Other Essays Susan Sontag https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436152896l/52374.SY75.jpg 2453262] inspirerede mig, at ikke at læse ind i det, men tage det som det er, at fravælge symbolisering, og leve med det reele.
“The principle, which demands uncontrolled freedom in action in all that only the agents themselves,” require by nature a synthesis of the opposite view. For by virtue of granting freedom of the highest order, freedom inherently becomes impoverished - the advantages given by luck of the draw (by nature of aforementioned freedom), in turn takes freedom away. Freedom that is not evenly distributed and is disturbed by privileges granted by birth and other such acts of luck, is not freedom for everyone, but only for some. In essence, that which only gives opportunity, and prosperity for some through fate, in turn, does exactly the opposite for others, by not being granted the same opportunity. The acceptance of a legacy in the world of schooling, the monetary advantages given by rich parents, and social connections through measure of nepotism; are intrinsically highly unfair, and is what we should aim to combat through social reform and legislation.
Dostoevsky wrote in A Writer's Diary that “Most decidedly, I did not succeed with that novel; however, its idea was rather lucid, and I have never expressed in my writings anything more serious. Still, as far as form was concerned, I failed utterly.” Vladimir Nabokov, who generally regarded Dostoevsky as a “rather mediocre” writer called The Double “the best thing he ever wrote,” saying that it is “a perfect work of art.”
