Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 69
February 11, 2011
the shorter EH
[Talking about Hemingway's short stories in sff.net . . . ]
Dave, my copy of The Nick Adams Stories is the 1972 Book Club Edition – interestingly enough, it was a "special" offering through the Science Fiction Book Club back then. I'm not a completist, and have never been motivated to buy a fancier version. It has all the words.
Some interesting words. For those who don't know, Nick Adams was the semi-autobiographical viewpoint character of about half of Hemingway's short stories. The 1972 book was the first offering of them in fictive chronological order, from Adams's childhood in "Indian Camp" to the melancholy and elegaic "Fathers and Sons," where Nick is telling his son about his own father. It also includes eight unfinished pieces EH left behind, some of them very good reading. I especially like "The Last Good Country," where young Nick runs away with his kid sister. I used a quotation from that to introduce The Hemingway Hoax –
"He had already learned there was only one day at a time and that was always the day you were in. It would be today until it was tonight and tomorrow would be today again. This was the main thing he had learned so far."
As for a collection of EH's short stories, I think the 1987 "Complete Short Stories of" – the Finca Vigia Edition – is essential. For a little book to carry around, I'd say Men Without Women, though In Our Time has the best feeling of what EH's original genius was.
By-Line Ernest Hemingway has most of his short nonfiction, and I think is an entertaining and readable book, not as important (or as oblique) as his fiction but still classy writing.
Joe
Dave, my copy of The Nick Adams Stories is the 1972 Book Club Edition – interestingly enough, it was a "special" offering through the Science Fiction Book Club back then. I'm not a completist, and have never been motivated to buy a fancier version. It has all the words.
Some interesting words. For those who don't know, Nick Adams was the semi-autobiographical viewpoint character of about half of Hemingway's short stories. The 1972 book was the first offering of them in fictive chronological order, from Adams's childhood in "Indian Camp" to the melancholy and elegaic "Fathers and Sons," where Nick is telling his son about his own father. It also includes eight unfinished pieces EH left behind, some of them very good reading. I especially like "The Last Good Country," where young Nick runs away with his kid sister. I used a quotation from that to introduce The Hemingway Hoax –
"He had already learned there was only one day at a time and that was always the day you were in. It would be today until it was tonight and tomorrow would be today again. This was the main thing he had learned so far."
As for a collection of EH's short stories, I think the 1987 "Complete Short Stories of" – the Finca Vigia Edition – is essential. For a little book to carry around, I'd say Men Without Women, though In Our Time has the best feeling of what EH's original genius was.
By-Line Ernest Hemingway has most of his short nonfiction, and I think is an entertaining and readable book, not as important (or as oblique) as his fiction but still classy writing.
Joe
February 10, 2011
literary pruning
[In sff.net, they're talking about books put together after the author's death . . . ]
Hemingway "produced" three posthumous novels -- Islands in the Stream, The Garden of Eden, and True at First Light – and the pseudofictive autobiographical essay A Moveable Feast. Some of the stories in The Nick Adams Stories are cobbled together out of stuff he never thought worth finishing.
It's all stuff scholars can be grateful for, but most of the work hasn't done Hemingway's reputation any good. He was a careful rewriter and, before mental illness warped him, was a pretty sharp critic of his own work.
Anybody who wants to can learn something about writing and revision by reading two stories out of The Nick Adams Stories – "Indian Camp" and "The Big Two-Hearted River." In the edition of The Nick Adams Stories that I have, the parts cut out by Hemingway are left in, but italicized.
There's nothing wrong with the parts he omitted. But both stories are tremendously improved by leaving those parts unsaid.
I'm sure there are semester-long writing courses that teach less. I've probably taught a couple myself.
Joe
Hemingway "produced" three posthumous novels -- Islands in the Stream, The Garden of Eden, and True at First Light – and the pseudofictive autobiographical essay A Moveable Feast. Some of the stories in The Nick Adams Stories are cobbled together out of stuff he never thought worth finishing.
It's all stuff scholars can be grateful for, but most of the work hasn't done Hemingway's reputation any good. He was a careful rewriter and, before mental illness warped him, was a pretty sharp critic of his own work.
Anybody who wants to can learn something about writing and revision by reading two stories out of The Nick Adams Stories – "Indian Camp" and "The Big Two-Hearted River." In the edition of The Nick Adams Stories that I have, the parts cut out by Hemingway are left in, but italicized.
There's nothing wrong with the parts he omitted. But both stories are tremendously improved by leaving those parts unsaid.
I'm sure there are semester-long writing courses that teach less. I've probably taught a couple myself.
Joe
February 6, 2011
blast from the past
Going through some stuff, I came across this snapshot from the Central Highlands of Vietnam, sometime in the summer of 1968 . . . maybe the only bit of science fiction fandom I committed over there. The committee trying to get the Worldcon for St. Louis in 1969 asked me for an endorsement, so I scrawled it out on some cardboard from a C-ration box. Unfortunately, the guy who took the picture had his thumb in front of the lens.
The St. Louis fans Ray and Joyce Fisher gave me a home away from home when I was doing Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training in Fort Leonard Wood. They co-chaired the St. Louis worldcon and, as often happens, split up soon afterwards. ( Joyce is in Las Vegas fandom now.)
Joe
The St. Louis fans Ray and Joyce Fisher gave me a home away from home when I was doing Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training in Fort Leonard Wood. They co-chaired the St. Louis worldcon and, as often happens, split up soon afterwards. ( Joyce is in Las Vegas fandom now.)
Joe
February 4, 2011
a teaching thought experiment
Here's a neat idea from Robert Coover, which (although presented ironically) gives a neat idea for a classroom situation. The quote is from today's Writer's Almanac --
"Creative-writing workshops have absolutely nothing to do with our nation's literature, though writers sometimes, more or less by chance, turn up in them, looking for an agent or romance or someone to start a new magazine with them. Creative-writing workshops mostly have to do with creating other creative-writing workshops. And this is all right, I suppose, because writing is good for people, or at least not seriously harmful. It teaches them to read, for one thing. We don't need more writers, but we do need more readers. We need creative-reading workshops. Students would still have to write in them, but for nobler ends."
(copyright Robert Coover, no provenance given)
It would be fun to teach critical reading as a cross-discipline with creative writing. I'm sure people do it routinely, but I've never encountered a specific course description to that effect. Assignments like "Read The Red Badge of Courage and write a sequence of two or three sonnets about how Henry Fleming feels before, during, and after experiencing combat."
It would be cool to teach, though not easy to grade. Unless you emulated Professor Einstein and said, "I enjoyed it. Give them all A's."
Joe
"Creative-writing workshops have absolutely nothing to do with our nation's literature, though writers sometimes, more or less by chance, turn up in them, looking for an agent or romance or someone to start a new magazine with them. Creative-writing workshops mostly have to do with creating other creative-writing workshops. And this is all right, I suppose, because writing is good for people, or at least not seriously harmful. It teaches them to read, for one thing. We don't need more writers, but we do need more readers. We need creative-reading workshops. Students would still have to write in them, but for nobler ends."
(copyright Robert Coover, no provenance given)
It would be fun to teach critical reading as a cross-discipline with creative writing. I'm sure people do it routinely, but I've never encountered a specific course description to that effect. Assignments like "Read The Red Badge of Courage and write a sequence of two or three sonnets about how Henry Fleming feels before, during, and after experiencing combat."
It would be cool to teach, though not easy to grade. Unless you emulated Professor Einstein and said, "I enjoyed it. Give them all A's."
Joe
rock on
Yesterday we saw a good movie, but not exactly a fun one! "127 Hours" – the story of a hiker who is pinned down by a rockslide in the desert and ultimately . . . well, you probably know the story, but I'll obey convention and assume not. True story, from the autobiographical book Between a Rock and a Hard Place – if ever there was a natural title, that's it.
What an acting job. James Franco.
It's close to a masterpiece technically, considering the extreme limitations: most of the movie is a wordless soliloquy by an actor stuck in one place. If it weren't for occasional flashbacks, it might have been unwatchable. As it is, it's kind of a Beckett play with occasional invasions from Peckinpah . . . a movie that cineastes will be talking about for a long time. But you'd have to be a masochist to want to see it twice. Maybe a sadist as well.
I thought it was a new release, but Googling I find that it's been out since 7 November 10. It opened on only four screens, which tells you something about the studio's commercial expectations.
Joe
What an acting job. James Franco.
It's close to a masterpiece technically, considering the extreme limitations: most of the movie is a wordless soliloquy by an actor stuck in one place. If it weren't for occasional flashbacks, it might have been unwatchable. As it is, it's kind of a Beckett play with occasional invasions from Peckinpah . . . a movie that cineastes will be talking about for a long time. But you'd have to be a masochist to want to see it twice. Maybe a sadist as well.
I thought it was a new release, but Googling I find that it's been out since 7 November 10. It opened on only four screens, which tells you something about the studio's commercial expectations.
Joe
(this didn't get through yesterday?)
Back in Gainesville after a couple of pleasant days at Cedar Key. Too much rain and not enough stars, but it's a nice place anyhow. Best fried-fish sandwiches and crab cakes in the area, served with lovely placid scenery.
(In LJ I'll post a scan of the little ball-point pen drawing I did, sitting at a beer joint drinking [ptui!] O'Doul's. Some non-alcoholic beers are drinkable, but it's not one of them.)
At least the rains this morning were soft, and driving was pleasant. It's almost fifty miles of ruler-straight road through swamp and scrub pine. The whole couple of days I only saw one animal of note – on a gravel road out to a soi-disant observing site, at dusk, I flushed a huge owl, I guess the barred variety, and he flew in front of me around eye level for some time. Gorgeous.
Your litany of Poe books is impressive, Dave, but I think I'd have you beat in Stevenson. At a bookstore in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, the owner made me a special deal for all of his hardcover duplicates of a Scribners' set. It's a red-leather 1908 edition, complete but for Kidnapped. They came to about ten bucks apiece, including shipping to the U.S. I don't really collect books (I just accumulate them), but that was an offer I couldn't refuse.
(I've had a lot of fun leafing through the obscure volumes, things like travel books and criticism of long-forgotten tomes. His wife Fanny was always after him to stop wasting his time writing juvenile trash like Treasure Island – it was the criticism and reviews that put bread on the table.)
Speaking of Wales, company coming tonight for Welsh rarebit. I'd better start getting my stuff together for that.
Joe
(In LJ I'll post a scan of the little ball-point pen drawing I did, sitting at a beer joint drinking [ptui!] O'Doul's. Some non-alcoholic beers are drinkable, but it's not one of them.)
At least the rains this morning were soft, and driving was pleasant. It's almost fifty miles of ruler-straight road through swamp and scrub pine. The whole couple of days I only saw one animal of note – on a gravel road out to a soi-disant observing site, at dusk, I flushed a huge owl, I guess the barred variety, and he flew in front of me around eye level for some time. Gorgeous.
Your litany of Poe books is impressive, Dave, but I think I'd have you beat in Stevenson. At a bookstore in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, the owner made me a special deal for all of his hardcover duplicates of a Scribners' set. It's a red-leather 1908 edition, complete but for Kidnapped. They came to about ten bucks apiece, including shipping to the U.S. I don't really collect books (I just accumulate them), but that was an offer I couldn't refuse.
(I've had a lot of fun leafing through the obscure volumes, things like travel books and criticism of long-forgotten tomes. His wife Fanny was always after him to stop wasting his time writing juvenile trash like Treasure Island – it was the criticism and reviews that put bread on the table.)
Speaking of Wales, company coming tonight for Welsh rarebit. I'd better start getting my stuff together for that.
Joe
February 1, 2011
Public Night at Cedar Key
Thanks, Dave. I think I'll pass on Igor. And hope none of my nurses resembles him too closely.
The day lazing at Cedar Key was fine, but I had electricity problems with the scope for the public observing night. I thought I'd brought adaptors to run it off the car's battery, but no. (Belatedly I remember that two of them were rusted and had to be thrown away; the one that I have won't reach.) I do have about 200 feet of heavy extension cord for 120-volt AC, and the park ranger pointed me to a place where I could relocate near an abandoned building with a external outlet.
Long story short, there was no outlet, and it was growing dark. My mount won't work without electricity. Fortunately, a guy about twenty feet away had a portable recharged battery that output AC, so I bummed some off him. Can't count on him being available tonight.
(I feared electrical problems and considered bringing the heavy German equatorial mount. But it's a weight-lifting pain to set up even when I'm in good shape, and since I already have hernias from surgery, maybe I don't need any new ones.)
Anyhow, the scope will run for a couple of hours on 10 AA batteries, so I'm going to get those when I'm out today. Independence.
The sky was pretty clear, but loaded with moisture ... telescope fogged up by 10:15. I should've skipped the public presentation, an hour-long slide show, stuff I already knew. Showed Jupiter and the Orion Nebula and some double stars to a bunch of people. Tonight it'll just be observing, down at Shell Mound, where the sky should be darker and the population a lot lower.
I'll have a list of more obscure targets, and will put the large finder scope on the 9-inch. Not even try to use the mount's computer.
I did a little drawing yesterday before and after lunch, on the restaurant's dock. A standard Cedar Key scene, water and islands. Since I didn't bring my art bag, though (mea culpa), it's rendered with a three-color ballpoint pen on stationery paper, the only art supplies available here. Actually, an interesting experiment. Will try a more careful attempt today. Maybe I'll have something worth scanning in when I get back.
The motel office has lots of old VCR tapes, so I watched John Wayne in The Shootist before I turned in, though it was a technical nightmare; it would spontaneously start to rewind every ten minutes or so. I'd have to jump up and stop it (the remote doesn't work) and run back and forth.
So the equipment gods – Loki? – were not with me last night. Tonight, with the batteries, will be better.
Joe
The day lazing at Cedar Key was fine, but I had electricity problems with the scope for the public observing night. I thought I'd brought adaptors to run it off the car's battery, but no. (Belatedly I remember that two of them were rusted and had to be thrown away; the one that I have won't reach.) I do have about 200 feet of heavy extension cord for 120-volt AC, and the park ranger pointed me to a place where I could relocate near an abandoned building with a external outlet.
Long story short, there was no outlet, and it was growing dark. My mount won't work without electricity. Fortunately, a guy about twenty feet away had a portable recharged battery that output AC, so I bummed some off him. Can't count on him being available tonight.
(I feared electrical problems and considered bringing the heavy German equatorial mount. But it's a weight-lifting pain to set up even when I'm in good shape, and since I already have hernias from surgery, maybe I don't need any new ones.)
Anyhow, the scope will run for a couple of hours on 10 AA batteries, so I'm going to get those when I'm out today. Independence.
The sky was pretty clear, but loaded with moisture ... telescope fogged up by 10:15. I should've skipped the public presentation, an hour-long slide show, stuff I already knew. Showed Jupiter and the Orion Nebula and some double stars to a bunch of people. Tonight it'll just be observing, down at Shell Mound, where the sky should be darker and the population a lot lower.
I'll have a list of more obscure targets, and will put the large finder scope on the 9-inch. Not even try to use the mount's computer.
I did a little drawing yesterday before and after lunch, on the restaurant's dock. A standard Cedar Key scene, water and islands. Since I didn't bring my art bag, though (mea culpa), it's rendered with a three-color ballpoint pen on stationery paper, the only art supplies available here. Actually, an interesting experiment. Will try a more careful attempt today. Maybe I'll have something worth scanning in when I get back.
The motel office has lots of old VCR tapes, so I watched John Wayne in The Shootist before I turned in, though it was a technical nightmare; it would spontaneously start to rewind every ten minutes or so. I'd have to jump up and stop it (the remote doesn't work) and run back and forth.
So the equipment gods – Loki? – were not with me last night. Tonight, with the batteries, will be better.
Joe
January 31, 2011
see der Key
I've come down to Cedar Key for a couple of days of astronomy and music, and peace 'n' quiet. Sort of getting my head together before going for surgery mid-month.
Cloudy right now, of course. Listening to Handel and reading.
So while I'm sitting down here being anonymous, Gay got on the front page of the paper –
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110130/ARTICLES/110129377?tc=ar
Looks to be good biking tomorrow. I'll let it warm up a little while I write, and then take off around the island. It's a super biking area; easy to do a dozen or twenty miles.
Thirty percent chance of rain. But that's what the guitar is for.
Joe
Cloudy right now, of course. Listening to Handel and reading.
So while I'm sitting down here being anonymous, Gay got on the front page of the paper –
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110130/ARTICLES/110129377?tc=ar
Looks to be good biking tomorrow. I'll let it warm up a little while I write, and then take off around the island. It's a super biking area; easy to do a dozen or twenty miles.
Thirty percent chance of rain. But that's what the guitar is for.
Joe
January 29, 2011
Ashton Kutcher's butt
Went with Brandy and Christina yesterday to see NO STRINGS ATTACHED, which had an amusing premise. A young guy falls for a medical student and she has no time for a love affair, so they agree to limit it to just sex. Either one will show up when the other calls. But if either one falls in love, the deal is off. (Yeah, right.)
It's a clever Molierian premise, no? If Moliere had had cell phones, he might have thought of it – and done a better job. The writing is mostly pedestrian and the acting is uneven.
The medical student (technically a resident, I think) is well played by Natalie Portman, and as believable as a sappy-comedy lead requires, but the guy she supposedly falls in love with (Ashton Kutcher) is charmless and plain and really kind of annoying. In real life she'd just walk away from him. Maybe back away.
(It was also annoying, to me at least, that we saw more of Kutcher's naked body than Portman's. So he works out, yawn.)
Half the movie is set in Cambridge, and it was fun to see the old MIT campus and adjoining Kendall Square in that light. Some Harvard Square night life.
Woody Allen should have done it. Some zippy dialogue and a little irony.
Joe
It's a clever Molierian premise, no? If Moliere had had cell phones, he might have thought of it – and done a better job. The writing is mostly pedestrian and the acting is uneven.
The medical student (technically a resident, I think) is well played by Natalie Portman, and as believable as a sappy-comedy lead requires, but the guy she supposedly falls in love with (Ashton Kutcher) is charmless and plain and really kind of annoying. In real life she'd just walk away from him. Maybe back away.
(It was also annoying, to me at least, that we saw more of Kutcher's naked body than Portman's. So he works out, yawn.)
Half the movie is set in Cambridge, and it was fun to see the old MIT campus and adjoining Kendall Square in that light. Some Harvard Square night life.
Woody Allen should have done it. Some zippy dialogue and a little irony.
Joe
January 28, 2011
reading and writing
[A correspondent on sffnet noted that Amazon sold more ebooks than paper ones last year . . . ]
Bob, it is scary, both for the reader and the writer. Of course catastrophe is also opportunity, at least if you're Chinese. I love the feel of a good book, the heft, even the smell of the ink and paper. But I also love having hundreds of books available on my little iPad, to carry on the plane or anywhere.
It would be the best of both worlds if regular books existed independently of ebooks. But of course the sale of ebooks cuts into the profitability of paper ones, and not only makes them more expensive but also favors the publication of best-seller type books over more interesting ones.
On the other hand, it does save trees.
I don't dare complain about the cold here, considering that most of you are digging out from under a really severe weather. But (whine, whine) it's getting down below freezing, which means I have to bundle up for astronomy, poor me. Or stay inside and feel guilty.
That said, I'm probably headed out to Cedar Key (on the Gulf coast about 90 miles away) for some astronomy. There's an annual amateur astronomy gathering this week. Gay's doing some extensive real estate license cramming with her partner Sharon, up from Orlando, so I might just get out of their hair and take a telescope out into the cold and clear night. Maybe eat a shrimp or two while I'm down there. Maybe do some drawing or painting.
(I'd go fishing but I always feel kind of silly, going to all that trouble to locate one fish for one person. I could buy one at the market. Or even go into a restaurant and get one already cooked.)
Meanwhile, back to work.
Joe
Bob, it is scary, both for the reader and the writer. Of course catastrophe is also opportunity, at least if you're Chinese. I love the feel of a good book, the heft, even the smell of the ink and paper. But I also love having hundreds of books available on my little iPad, to carry on the plane or anywhere.
It would be the best of both worlds if regular books existed independently of ebooks. But of course the sale of ebooks cuts into the profitability of paper ones, and not only makes them more expensive but also favors the publication of best-seller type books over more interesting ones.
On the other hand, it does save trees.
I don't dare complain about the cold here, considering that most of you are digging out from under a really severe weather. But (whine, whine) it's getting down below freezing, which means I have to bundle up for astronomy, poor me. Or stay inside and feel guilty.
That said, I'm probably headed out to Cedar Key (on the Gulf coast about 90 miles away) for some astronomy. There's an annual amateur astronomy gathering this week. Gay's doing some extensive real estate license cramming with her partner Sharon, up from Orlando, so I might just get out of their hair and take a telescope out into the cold and clear night. Maybe eat a shrimp or two while I'm down there. Maybe do some drawing or painting.
(I'd go fishing but I always feel kind of silly, going to all that trouble to locate one fish for one person. I could buy one at the market. Or even go into a restaurant and get one already cooked.)
Meanwhile, back to work.
Joe
Joe Haldeman's Blog
- Joe Haldeman's profile
- 2191 followers
Joe Haldeman isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
