HEMINGWAY AND FEMINISM. There was a wonderful phrase in the Wall Street Journal for December 23-24. In an article on William Empson, Robin Moroney refers to the “Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway types who made their discoveries while drunk in brothels in countries where the president had just been shot.” When I read that quote to my wife Mary Jane, she said, “That reminds me how much I hate all that Alpha Male tough guy stuff that Hemingway has.” With the successes of the feminist movement, we tend to forget that Hemingway led the way in the opposite direction. Kurt Vonnegut has a Hemingway caricature in his play HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE. The caricature says at one point, “Educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey in a fine Swiss watch.” I used to repeat this line from time to time in appropriately ironic inflections. Then one day my wife told me that she had repeated the line to her book club and that they were not amused. I asked if she had made it clear that this was a quotation. No, she hadn’t had a chance to. I was already afraid of her book club.
Categories
Archives
Recent Comments
- “A COMFORT BLANKET FOR THE SMUG”? (1)
- Nick: Further informing my perspective was that in the writings of classical Romans the middle-aged authors opined...
- ARE PEOPLE LESS VIOLENT? (COMMENT). (2)
- Dick Weisfelder: My prior comment was just in the context of sports. Whether or not from Pinker, I have seen the...
- erik: It seems doubtful that human nature has changed. The most likely explanation would be that modern culture gives...
- HOW BANKS PREPARED FOR A U.S. DEFAULT. (2)
- GREECE’S ADVANTAGE IN THE CHICKEN GAME. (2)
- Nick: That makes sense. It reminds me of the stories Pater Familias would tell me about how in Boston the person with...
- Dick Weisfelder: Greece seems to me to be playing a game that Karl Deutsch called “underdog.” While one...
- FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS? (3)
- Nick: It was my understanding that boxing gloves were to protect the puncher’s hands and not the...
- Dick Weisfelder: Remember the Roman arenas? Bare knuckled boxing? Such injuries were taken as natural and accepted in...
- Mary Jane Schaefer: This isn’t about football. Or even sportsmanship. Well, it is about sportsmanship. But what...
- A 25 % CHANCE OF A EURO DEFAULT? (1)
- Nick: The fact that this has gone on for so long is pretty perplexing. The Economist is referring back to articles it...
- DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE. (1)
- Dick Weisfelder: One can be very open to new technology, but also risk averse. The recent debates about how to...
- “A COMFORT BLANKET FOR THE SMUG”? (1)
Meta
I’m performing post necromancy because on the last day of my Hemingway/Fitzgerald seminar a classmate gave a very detailed report on The Garden of Eden, one of Hemingway’s posthumous novels. It features a woman that becomes more and more masculine and dominant in the relationship—talk about breaking out of the usual mold. It was surprising to hear about such a change of pace from Hemingway.
Wikipedia says: “The novel has received much attention for its sexual content, especially in the context of Hemingway’s canon. Some scholars have suggested that the novel effects a more tender, effeminate, ‘new Hemingway.’ In this vein, it has been interpreted as an exuberant celebration of free sexuality.”
Of course Hemingway still prized manliness above all, I’m sure. Dr. Mangum told us about Hemingway exposing his own chest hair to a negative critic in a restaurant, then tearing open the critic’s shirt to expose a humiliating dearth of hair.