Ken’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2020)

Ken’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

Nick wrote: "An interesting Hemingway discussion! I have only read three, A farewell to arms, Men without women and Old man and the sea. I should read more, as I liked these. Men without women (I recollect, as ..."

Nick, I just read On the Road for the first time this past summer and was "meh" on it. Maybe my road days are over. OK, maybe they never arrived. But I did like another Kerouac title better... it's title escapes me at the moment, is all.

Plus I relished reading a BIG collection of Kerouac -- Ginsberg letters. I think their personalities were stronger than their writing, is what it amounts to. And the Kerouac drinking dive is just pitiful to read about.

Yvonne wrote: "The mention of Crane reminds me that The Red Badge of Courage was required reading in my high school’s English Humanities curriculum, mid-‘60s. My brother (two years younger) called it The Red Barg..."

The weird thing was, Crane never went to war. It was all the power of imagination, based on his readings and perhaps talks with soldiers. I, too, only read it once and that was high school.

Amazing, isn't it, how limited the curricula were back in the day. No matter where you grew up and went to high school, you probably read a lot of the same books, e.g.

Red Badge of Courage
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Huckleberry Finn
A Separate Peace
The Catcher in the Rye
Julius Caesar
The Merchant of Venice (pre-politically incorrect days)
Hamlet
Macbeth
The Scarlet Letter

and so on.

Carol wrote: "I like the short sentences , reminds me of the staccato of a typewriter. I think Hemingway’s career as a journalist comes into play."

Good description. Some of his sentences are long, but mostly because they're roped together with and's.

Hi, Scout. Good to see you here! Our next read isn't until June, but you can nominate any ole book you wish (including an unread Hardy, if you wish).

It's Faulkner I can't stand. Ugh. Neutral on Fitzy.

Not to worry, Hem would never be an ORG choice. Even if a book were nominated, I doubt it would garner many votes.

Agree, Kathleen, about Moveable Feast. It's imbued with his Romanticism and regret over dumping his first wife and true love (everyone's favorite Hem wife), Hadley.

Bumby's mom!

If you like short stories, that may be a good start, as some say that's his true calling. Of course, the Collected would be overwhelming, so maybe his first, In Our Time, which I once studied, marked up, and imitated (bad idea) as a young writer.

Of the novels, I'd say either the war romance A Farewell to Arms or the drinking book set at the running of the bulls (Pamplona Festival in Spain), The Sun Also Rises, are his two best outings.

It's just a case of which you prefer. Farewell has a bit of a mini-War & Peace feel, as the scenes are split between WWI scenes (Italy) and romance with a nurse scenes. Sun has all that bull fighting nonsense, but it's true to the core about alcoholics and their funny dialogue (which inevitably devolves into nasty dialogue... liquor, you see).

I've read more than one biography and, through the lens of his times (think "Mad Men" macho) and of his upbringing, you can see it coming. Mrs. Hemingway put him in dresses when he was a toddler and young boy, plus she was an outsized personality.

Anyway, his reaction to that led to... um, you know. A rather twisted take on manliness, which included weird fetishes like preferring women with very short hair.

One of his sons (Patrick?) was a cross-dresser, something Ernie came to grips with (to his credit) before his suicide.

Hello, ORG-anization!

Somehow, at the tail end of the TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL discussion thread, a Hemingway side discussion broke out.

Anne Brontë and Ernie? Hell, Hemingway doesn't even merit an umlaut! (Though many like to give him an extra "m" as in "Hemmingway," which is nowhere near the problem Edgar Allan Poe has with people who want to hijack his "Allan" and make it an "Allen" wrench.)

Anyway, what think you of the big lug (read: his writing -- that is, if you an read it)?

I like to say Hemingway was a turtle -- hard shelled on the outside, mushy soup on the inside.

That is, anyone reading A Moveable Feast will see both sides -- the hopeless Romantic and the small-minded score settler.


That said, I should probably type "HEMINGWAY: DISCUSS" over in the "Between Books" thread, as we're clogging up Anne Brontë's turf before some readers may have crossed the finish line with final says to say.

Cindy wrote: "Thanks for all the commentary. Each of you added perspectives to Bronte's novel that I never considered. I also liked a previous suggestion to read some of the books that were nominated but not cho..."

That's an interesting idea, especially when you look at the thread where I've listed all our nominated would-have-beens, worthy every one!


Carol wrote: "We got our first dose of vaccine, because we are old.

I had not noticed that all the books were mainly about women. So I guess it is time for Ahem , Hemingway. I know a certain person doesn’t par..."

Who could not like Hemingway? (Ha-ha.) I love the old jerk, though I've read all his books by now, so not such a thrill for me... not here.

Only read one Greene and felt kind of whatever about it. Still, the literary world doesn't lack for male leads by male writers stuck in male worlds (that, like Freud, keep asking, "What do women want?").

Kathleen wrote: "That's very true, Ken! How interesting, and they were all strong outsiders.

I always feel like time flies ... except when I'm waiting for our next group read! ⌛"

So nice to say, Kathleen. The time flying thing has been gummed up a bit by Covid. Waiting for vaccines is like Waiting for Godot (now there's a new reading of an old play!).

In any event, we'll be nominating books in late April, have one by May Day, and be ready by June 1st. Right around the proverbial corner.

And then there's the "Between Books" thread to visit now and again. To keep up with each other and such!

Sue wrote: "I’m looking forward to future readings too.."

June will come soon!

Also, it's worth noting how all four of the first four books we've read together have featured strong female leads.

There's Sue, with before-her-time thoughts about marriage, education, and art in Jude the Obscure...

Gina, whose coming-of-age experience during WWII causes her to mature before her time in Abigail...

Lutie, in The Street, trying to bring up her son on her own during a time of economic hardship in 1940s Harlem...

And now Helen who, like Lutie, has to do battle against a world of male domination and privilege, with feminist instincts way before their time in Victorian England.

Interesting coincidence!

Terrific contributions from both veteran and new members. I learned a lot (namely that I have a lot to learn) about Victorian Lit.!

...and how the name "Grimsby" would be perfect in a Dickens novel?

Ginny wrote: "Jan wrote: "Didn't Anne Bronte refer to the discussion of "painting, poetry, and music, theology, geology, and philosophy" early on? At least I wrote that phrase in my book of notes. ..."

Yes. Gil..."

Despite that wonderful quote and description of the afterlife, I'm glad both Gilbert and Helen went ahead with the imperfect bliss of a relationship here on Earth. If she nixed him because he couldn't or wouldn't sign on to her religious belief, imagine the loss for both of them. One side is guaranteed, after all. The other remains dicey.

Diane wrote: "I have a mental picture of these three spinster sisters sitting around a table writing their books, with brother Branwell raging in the room behind them."

The Brontë brood brings to mind the Alcott family in Concord, MA. I still haven't read Little Women, based on Louisa May's family of sisters, but I was much taken with last year's movie, shot on location at Massachusetts locations, most of which I had visited myself thanks to my extended tour on Earth.

In books and movies, BIG families seem cool because it always seems something's going on (A) and that you'd have a favorite brother or sister among the huge circle of nestlings/fledglings/birds you call "blood" (B).

The only thing is, considering the poor mother. Giving birth is still marginally dangerous, but back then the margin was wide enough to be called by other names.

Much as I still mourn the 1968 passing of Robert F. Kennedy (the Anti-Trump in every way), I still think of poor Ethel. My God.

Nick wrote: "I’m glad to have read this Bronte. I read about “conduct literature” in the introduction to the Oxford edition and that some of the plot in the Tenant could act as a warning to young women. There w..."

Nick, I think alcohol was given to children in many eras preceding the Victorian, even during the staid Pilgrim era of Massachusetts Bay Colony here in New England, for the simple reason that fermented drink (i.e. beer, ale, apple jack, etc.) was safe to drink, and water wasn't -- certainly on a ship crossing the Pond from Jolly Olde to New England. Whether this was true in everyday England after Medieval times (heavy drinking times), I'd have to defer to better Victorian scholars here than me (i.e. most everyone).

And thanks for the kind moderating compliment (Matt, too), but I hope other readers weigh in with more angles on this interesting book before the week plays out.

Me, I read and enjoyed Charlotte's Jane Eyre way back in my 20s, but abandoned sister Emily's Wuthering Heights. What's weird is how I recall the physical book itself.

That's true of a lot of books I had in my "library" as a young man. They sat there for years and years and I got to know them (Wuthering Heights, for example, was a smaller-sized paperback, mostly purple in color, with a young man and woman out in a field holding a single arm each to the other, both probably wondering why I never bothered to look up the word "Wuthering" to see if it means anything).

Then I married and most of these "young man books" vanished in the name of sharing space. Only a precious few, like The Catcher in the Rye, survived and still remain proudly among the more modern tomes.

So, in that sense, Anne takes the #2 slot of 3 behind sister Charlotte. Branwell will have to wait.

I think we can all agree that the architecture is awkward. Who would write a 500-page letter (even over time) to a friend? And, as I believe Gil had to return Helen's diary to her, who would COPY a personal document like that to share with a friend?

I think the ethics of it all would be the same then and now.

The strength? Certainly the "Helen Reddy" in Helen (who appeared ready early). I am woman, hear me roar (albeit softly in my diary). And hear me lay out just how cheap and shallow man's idea of manliness can appear.

Yeesh. It's enough to have me censure my Y chromosome (thus reducing the reaction to "Eesh").

Repost from Discussion #2: How odd that Little Arthur is subjected to booze on all sides: Daddy gives it to him to "make him a man," and Mommy gives it to him to "make him sick of it."

I don't really get that. Alcohol would make a kid THAT young (five? six?) vomit in no time (among other problems). I should think Arthur, Sr.'s, ministrations would do the trick as easily as Helen's.

By modern standards, BOTH could be relieved of their parental duties, intent be damned.

Yvonne wrote: "Seems there’s not much energy to discuss this book now that we’re done. Maybe some haven’t finished it yet.

I’m happy to have read it. Brought thoughts about women’s place in relationships, to wha..."

Maybe there's not much energy because it's a bit of a draining read. At least it felt that way to me. I soldiered on because it was an ORG discussion book. I long ago gave up the habit of finishing every book I start, so probably would've abandoned this if not for the cause.

Am I the only one?