HUMOUR HUNT
By Terry Fallis
Liberating the Ritz
I
know that Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel Prize-winning literary titan, is revered the world over as a truly revolutionary writer of the 20th century. He stripped his prose right down to the bone and influenced generations of writers to follow his lead. But the truth is, I don’t much like Hemingway’s writing. You see, I hail from the “why use six words when 12 will do” school of writing.
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My issues with Hemingway’s prose style aside, I’m certainly not the only one who finds him far from likable as a person, though I remain fascinated by his life, particularly his time in Paris. In fact, I’m writing this from the City of Light, where in August 1944, Hemingway pulled off a stunt that enraged Allied commanders, amused Parisians, and fueled the great Hemingway myth-making machine for years to come. Hemingway is best known for his novels, his fiction, which stands to reason as his relationship with facts and the truth, particularly when telling stories about himself, is somewhat, shall we say, loose and freewheeling. Hemingway was never actually in the military. As a 19-year-old, he was eager to test his mettle on the battlefields of the First World War, but was rejected for his poor eyesight. Set on getting into the action anyway, he joined the Red Cross instead and served as an ambulance driver near the front in Italy.
Illustration by Malcolm Jones
2017-01-27 9:14 AM
