Welcome to 2literate2work!!!1, in which we'll discuss the deeper meaning of sacred literary texts while comparing Hemingway to TLC.
This week: Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms. Set in Italy during World War 1, it was published in 1929 and cemented Hemingway's spot in The Canon/ boring sophomore English classes. Arms tells the story of a Henry, an American lieutenant in the Italian army who meets Catherine, an English nurse, with whom he falls in love and knocks up. There are also some war scenes.
WW1: It is What It Is
Emily: AWW GIRL
LETS TALK ABOUT HEMINGWAY
babay
let's talk about you and me
Meredith: Chattin' the Classics: Part 1
At first i was all 'does this guy know how to party or what?' ...yawn
Emily: and HE DOES!
Meredith: and then i was all, geez meredith, show some respect. this is war! this is the ww1!
so much booze
Emily : on that note, can i say i didn't realize this was a "war book"
until i opened it
talk about YAWN
and I read most of the book while drinking, in honor of Hway. I was like, how original, a war book. but then, i spose he sort of "invented" the genre.
Meredith: but it's so nonchalanty.
that's in the dictionary, right?
buttttt it's basically autobiographical.
Emily: yes, nonchalantly
Meredith: no L. it's an adjective
Emily: ah, but of course
Meredith: so can i also say that i kinda hate using "woman gets pregs" as a plot twist
Emily: war is hell-- BUT WAIT!
these ladies just can't stop themselves from getting knocked up!
Meredith: i guess when folks aren't practicing family planning, it actually is a plot twist IRL, but still.
anyway. talk about tragic.
woof
Emily: I know! I read the ending in a public place and gasped, predictably
what do you think of his writing style?
Meredith: it's so hemingway
Emily: it is pretty hemingwayesque
Meredith: i mean it's good for being intentionally specific with deets
modernism, etc
he's the father of modernism?
Emily: right, or the "papa" of modernism.
the blurb on the back of my book basically says he’s the greatest writer to ever have lived.
Meredith: totally disagree.
my book is clothbound hard cover blue with his john hancock and a feather.
so handsome.
Emily: yeah, he was a handsome man.
Meredith: i meant the book cover.
Emily: oh right.
so I read about his “iceberg theory” which apparently supposes that the prose itself is only the "tip of the iceberg" whereas the true meaning or implications of it are what lie beneath the surface.
BUT I WANT DESCRIPTION!
Meredith: ah yeah. or some kind of inner dialogue.
Emily: not stoically suffering through it.
Meredith: i guess the lack of inner dialogue, i.e. emotion, lent itself well to stoic manly men.
Emily: yes.
Meredith: and the priest was a big baby because he talked about his feelings.
Emily: yes.
Meredith: but i think i had a hard time reading into the text further.
because his style seems so surfacy and factual, like he didn't want me to delve any further.
World War 1: it is what it is.
Emily: “WW1: you win some, you lose some.”
however, there was one passage i was struck/impressed by.
Meredith: tell me.
Emily: it's when he's thinking about falling in love with Catherine.
and planning an escape from the war with her.
and he goes into this long reverie, and i think it's as imaginative or descriptive or dare I say emotional as the book gets:
“Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge’s desk and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator and then we would go into the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking all the floors and then our floor and the boy would open the door and stand there and she would step out and I would step out and we would walk down the hall and I would put the key in the door and open it and go in and then take down the telephone and ask them to send a bottle of capri bianca in a silver bucket full of ice and you would hear the ice against the pail coming down the corridor and the boy would knock and I would say leave it outside the door please. Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the window open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink the capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be. I would eat quickly and go and see Catherine Barkley.”
I love the rhythm of that passage; it seems breathless. It’s the one time in the book where he allows himself to fall through the surface (or to go beneath the iceberg, if you will)-- while still maintaining that patented concise clip, and here I think that amplifies the emotion rather than replaces it. Here, he reminds me more of (post)modern male protagonists than someone trapped inside their own stoicism.
Meredith: yeah definitely, it's romantic and idyllic.
what did you think of Cath?
Emily: I actually liked her. Although obviously at times she is a little too eager to please. But I do like her-- when we first meet her, she tells Henry that he doesn't have to lie to her about whether he loves her. She’s not delusional. Overall, i think she's a pretty fully realized character. What did you think?
Meredith: I thought she was obnoxious at times. like "you don't really love me. I’m terrible," etc.
Emily: ha yeah-- overall, I get the feeling that Hemingway himself likes and respects her. I guess I was imaging her in the form of a film heroine from the same period, and they're all the same way. Falling over themselves trying to please their men, apologizing for themselves, etc. So I didn't hold that against her.
Meredith: yeah exactly. Definitely had to do some mental time configurations. And in that sense, yes, she's great.
buttttt it's basically autobiographical.
Emily: yes, nonchalantly
Meredith: no L. it's an adjective
Emily: ah, but of course
Meredith: so can i also say that i kinda hate using "woman gets pregs" as a plot twist
Emily: war is hell-- BUT WAIT!
these ladies just can't stop themselves from getting knocked up!
Meredith: i guess when folks aren't practicing family planning, it actually is a plot twist IRL, but still.
anyway. talk about tragic.
woof
Emily: I know! I read the ending in a public place and gasped, predictably
what do you think of his writing style?
Meredith: it's so hemingway
Emily: it is pretty hemingwayesque
Meredith: i mean it's good for being intentionally specific with deets
modernism, etc
he's the father of modernism?
Emily: right, or the "papa" of modernism.
the blurb on the back of my book basically says he’s the greatest writer to ever have lived.
Meredith: totally disagree.
my book is clothbound hard cover blue with his john hancock and a feather.
so handsome.
Emily: yeah, he was a handsome man.
Meredith: i meant the book cover.
Emily: oh right.
so I read about his “iceberg theory” which apparently supposes that the prose itself is only the "tip of the iceberg" whereas the true meaning or implications of it are what lie beneath the surface.
BUT I WANT DESCRIPTION!
Meredith: ah yeah. or some kind of inner dialogue.
Emily: not stoically suffering through it.
Meredith: i guess the lack of inner dialogue, i.e. emotion, lent itself well to stoic manly men.
Emily: yes.
Meredith: and the priest was a big baby because he talked about his feelings.
Emily: yes.
Meredith: but i think i had a hard time reading into the text further.
because his style seems so surfacy and factual, like he didn't want me to delve any further.
World War 1: it is what it is.
Emily: “WW1: you win some, you lose some.”
however, there was one passage i was struck/impressed by.
Meredith: tell me.
Emily: it's when he's thinking about falling in love with Catherine.
and planning an escape from the war with her.
and he goes into this long reverie, and i think it's as imaginative or descriptive or dare I say emotional as the book gets:
“Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge’s desk and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator and then we would go into the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking all the floors and then our floor and the boy would open the door and stand there and she would step out and I would step out and we would walk down the hall and I would put the key in the door and open it and go in and then take down the telephone and ask them to send a bottle of capri bianca in a silver bucket full of ice and you would hear the ice against the pail coming down the corridor and the boy would knock and I would say leave it outside the door please. Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the window open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink the capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be. I would eat quickly and go and see Catherine Barkley.”
I love the rhythm of that passage; it seems breathless. It’s the one time in the book where he allows himself to fall through the surface (or to go beneath the iceberg, if you will)-- while still maintaining that patented concise clip, and here I think that amplifies the emotion rather than replaces it. Here, he reminds me more of (post)modern male protagonists than someone trapped inside their own stoicism.
Meredith: yeah definitely, it's romantic and idyllic.
what did you think of Cath?
Emily: I actually liked her. Although obviously at times she is a little too eager to please. But I do like her-- when we first meet her, she tells Henry that he doesn't have to lie to her about whether he loves her. She’s not delusional. Overall, i think she's a pretty fully realized character. What did you think?
Meredith: I thought she was obnoxious at times. like "you don't really love me. I’m terrible," etc.
Emily: ha yeah-- overall, I get the feeling that Hemingway himself likes and respects her. I guess I was imaging her in the form of a film heroine from the same period, and they're all the same way. Falling over themselves trying to please their men, apologizing for themselves, etc. So I didn't hold that against her.
Meredith: yeah exactly. Definitely had to do some mental time configurations. And in that sense, yes, she's great.
“Why should he make us feel good at the end? This is war.”
Emily: All the battle scenes were a bit much. I think because i was left wanting for an emotional response to them.
Meredith: but they were hardly battle scenes!
Emily: I felt like I was watching a war from 100 miles away. I want to be in there!
Meredith: It was all "then they took over the mountain and then we shot and then they came up and then etc". Realllly distant/impersonal.
Emily: Yeah- how can you demonstrate that "war is hell" without showing the loss as well as the action?
Meredith: Even the scene with the bridge when they captured that one guy. It was literally right there. But still pretty far away.
Emily: All Quiet on the Western Front, also about WW1, does an excellent job of putting you into the trenches, so to speak, with the aim of trying to make you experience the terror and futility of war. It succeeds and I think it's a better "war novel" altogether.
Meredith: ah haven't read it.
Emily: so good. should be on our list. once we recover from this one.
But SPOILER ALERT to our readers: so Henry survives the war, this act of immense inhumanity between people. But Catherine doesn't survive the war of nature vs. human by dying after giving birth to their son.
Meredith: oooof
Emily: Which: Catherine's death: banal plot twist used only to magnify the horrors of war/ tragedy of our protagonist?
or
a metaphor to show that nothing on earth is benevolent?
there are always small wars that take innocent lives?
Meredith: What I thought was a banal plot twist when it first was introduced became truly tragic when put in the context of Henry's life.
Emily: my biggest fear of the book: Catherine's death is used to justify the entire story, to nicely bookend a hellish episode in Henry’s life and to make the reader feel like they've Experienced Something Epic and Moving and “A Triumph”.
Meredith: Why should he make us feel good at the end? This is war.
Emily: not saying we all deserve a happy ending, but it made me wonder what the book was about: war sucks or life sucks?
Meredith: also, while he was writing that, his wife was currently undergoing a cesarean section!
Emily: oh wow .
didn't know that.
hm.
Meredith: the whole book for the most part mirrors his life up until that point.
He served as an ambulance driver in the Italian army.
Emily: right.
Meredith: i don't think he escaped execution.
Did he? irl?
Emily: he killed himself.
so, i guess not.
Meredith: self execution
Emily: at 61
in Idaho
with a Nobel prize and a Pulitzer on his shelf.
Meredith: damn. hate when that happens! That kind of leads me to believe that it really does get worse.
Emily: but he seemed to be profoundly fucked up. Not in the worst way, but in a fundamental way.
Meredith: do you think it was the pressures to be manly and stoic?
That’s so crazy. Someone who doesn't let on that he feels feelings offs himself.
Emily: Perhaps being born with an intense want for something that doesn't exist outside your own mind manifests itself in those ways sometimes. But, what great writer isn’t born that way?
Meredith: born wanting?
Emily: I was thinking that H is the opposite of writers like DFW and Agee, who really throw themselves screaming across the page. But maybe they're more alike than I originally thought.
Meredith: yeah. They made their depression/frustrations obvious.
Emily: Yeah... there seems to be an inherent dissatisfaction with The Way Things Are in all of them. Which obviously drove them to create in the first place. And killed them, in the end.
But maybe all humans are that way, and writers are just more in touch with those tendencies.
Meredith: right.
Emily: Or more compelled to explore them and hanging them up for the world to see.
Meredith: Oh man. elliott smith just came on my itunes!!!
WWHT?
hm.
Meredith: the whole book for the most part mirrors his life up until that point.
He served as an ambulance driver in the Italian army.
Emily: right.
Meredith: i don't think he escaped execution.
Did he? irl?
Emily: he killed himself.
so, i guess not.
Meredith: self execution
Emily: at 61
in Idaho
with a Nobel prize and a Pulitzer on his shelf.
Meredith: damn. hate when that happens! That kind of leads me to believe that it really does get worse.
Emily: but he seemed to be profoundly fucked up. Not in the worst way, but in a fundamental way.
Meredith: do you think it was the pressures to be manly and stoic?
That’s so crazy. Someone who doesn't let on that he feels feelings offs himself.
Emily: Perhaps being born with an intense want for something that doesn't exist outside your own mind manifests itself in those ways sometimes. But, what great writer isn’t born that way?
Meredith: born wanting?
Emily: I was thinking that H is the opposite of writers like DFW and Agee, who really throw themselves screaming across the page. But maybe they're more alike than I originally thought.
Meredith: yeah. They made their depression/frustrations obvious.
Emily: Yeah... there seems to be an inherent dissatisfaction with The Way Things Are in all of them. Which obviously drove them to create in the first place. And killed them, in the end.
But maybe all humans are that way, and writers are just more in touch with those tendencies.
Meredith: right.
Emily: Or more compelled to explore them and hanging them up for the world to see.
Meredith: Oh man. elliott smith just came on my itunes!!!
WWHT?
Meredith: it’s interesting comparing Hway and DFW/Agee
Emily: i guess that's always my first instinct.
like how some people compare humans to Jesus.
Meredith: i'm not as well versed in DFW. But they seem so opposite
Emily: yeah. I guess my main struggle with Hemingway was to feel empathy for him, because I'm so used to reading people who really just cut their heart out and leave it bleeding on the page for you to see, and that's what I'm drawn to and really impressed by-- people who are willing and able to do that.
Meredith: that makes sense. But then it's the separation of the author and the author's work.
Emily: right, just stylistic differences.
Meredith: okay, so he didn't fuck your mind, but he must have had similar feelings to other literary deities enough to find the same shit as unbearable. is it wrong that that gives him cred?
Emily: right, exactly. He just expresses it in a different way, maybe quieter.
Meredith: right.
Emily: well, it seems like he invented this particular brand of modern hyper-masculine stoicism (i keep going back to that word) that really defined an era in American literature and permeated other media too. I think of Bogart, of other classic film idols who embodied that same sort of emotionally unavailable guy.
Meredith: yeah absolutely. Is modernism defined as just very literal writing?
Emily: probably, a departure from Elizabethan or Victorian prose... less flowery and embellished.
I think to look at that literal writing in the context of modern war makes it more interesting:
Meredith: ooooo, you
Emily: these things that were happening were so horrific that there was no other way to describe it than in an emotionally detached manner. and all you can do is relay the events and let the reader feel it themselves.
Meredith: So i wonder how many books were written about war in that time but publishers wouldn't publish them if they were too real or cut too deep or something. I don't know how big the censorship was for ww1 to the public.
Emily: mmm, good point. would be an interesting PhD thesis ha.
Meredith: but the access we have to war now is so much more than it ever was
via wikileak vids and tweets
Emily: true. will there be any novels to come out of the first gulf war or the "Iraq War"?
probably only video games instead.
Meredith: ugh. Gross.
they're RIGHT THERE ON THE FRONT LINE OF THE ACTION though
thats how to breed stoic manly men now
desensitize them to fighting in the front
Emily: right, it's not like those games are used to indoctrinate young kids into thinking like a soldier/ normalize killing brown people.
Meredith: bam
Emily: because they've already virtually been there.
Meredith: so weird
ah
ahhhhhh
Emily: what would hemingway think?
WWHT?
also, at least the US recently lowered standards for accepting soldiers, so at least none of them can think critically let alone write a novel about the horrors of postmodern warfare.
Meredith: oh man
Emily: so this all impresses the shit out of me re: hemingway. guess it's all relative.
Meredith: why couldn't Henry join the US army?
Emily: not sure... it seemed like he wanted to join the Italians? Don’t really know how that would be possible. Don’t really "get" the "rules" of war.
Meredith: rule #1: do not tell anyone about war club
Emily: rule #2: do not tell anyone about war club
Meredith: *do not talk about war club
Emily: ahh right. we're bad at being bros.
I found the iceberg metaphor kind of appropriate because sometimes he just seemed really cold.
Meredith: totttttttez
and he's not going to give you anything more.
Emily: yes.
DUDES WHO ARE READING THIS, WE LIKE SENSTIVE BROS WITH FEELINGS
but who can still fix things
JK
Meredith: and can grow hemingway beards
Emily: yeah, that's a must
maybe staring stoically off your safari vehicle while plucking your freshly slayed condor is also a must.
Meredith: with rifle pictured stage left.
Emily: there are so many photos of him on safari. with some natives.
Meredith: teh gun stays in te picture
Emily: he's is the whitest and maliest white male ever to have existed.
Meredith: 'a hard man is good to find' -m. rivlin
Emily: you're the 4th member of TLC.
or third, now.
miss u left eye.
salt and pepa > TLC
Meredith: duh.
although early tlc
like creep is good
Emily: CRZSXYCL
Meredith: like their older stuff better
same with Hemingway
Emily: yeah, FWELL2ARMS is like his CRAZYSEXYCOOL: masterpiece.
Meredith: HAHAHAHAH
Emily: "the old man and the sea" is his "waterfalls"
one big metaphor
Meredith: that was his single.
Emily: it totally was... won a Pulitzer, like how TLC won the respect of the critics/ community at large for singing/rapping about important issues
like "the drugs"
and setting shoes on fire in the bathtub of your boyfriends mansion
Meredith: hahhahahha
damn, girl.
he had it coming
Emily: he sure fuckin did.
Next time: teenage rioting with Franny and Zooey.
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