Brad’s Comments (group member since Dec 27, 2008)

Brad’s comments from the The Importance of Reading Ernest group.

In the opening paragraph, Hemingway repeats himself consistently: "war monument," "square," "rain" or "raining," then he ends the first paragraph with a waiter watching the rain and repeats the image immediately with the American girl watching the rain from her room.

I read the story out loud to my daughter and the repetitious language transformed. It can seem so simple on the page (but still beautiful in its simplicity), but when I was reading it out loud my voice started to take on a rhythm like rain itself. Drip drop, drip drop, drip drop, making the weather tangible in our reading. It is a wonderful effect.

Did anyone else notice this? Did the repetition do anything else for you? Did you just not like it at all?

Having read through the story again with my daughter, I was struck by the gorgeous description of the square. It is alive in the rain, with it's palm trees and brightly colored hotels and Cafes and puddles and the miserable little cat under the table. I've been places like that, and the picture Hemingway conjures takes me right back to the places I have been.

I feel like Hemingway has really captured a visual world in Cat in the Rain. How about you? Was there any image that really captured your imagination? I love that something like the cat under the chair in the rain can be so simply done and yet seems so real.

Shortness is nice sometimes. I've been reading large books lately too, and that was one of the reasons I started the group, hoping to get back to reading more short stories. Thanks for joining us, Ruth. Glad to have more people finding us and jumping in. Don't forget to vote in the poll for our next story.

In his post in the First Impressions thread, Arthur mentioned the American woman's "wanting" that extends to the cat. It struck me that so much of what she says and does is about what she "wants," that wanting is an extremely important part of the story, and maybe this is even true of the husband.

So what do you all think about "wanting" (and you to, Arthur, expand on your idea if you would).

Arthur wrote: "The American wife is social and a snob. She thinks she can live cheaply and is acting earnest for her husband. She can look at herself in mirror. But is still in wanting. She saw the kitten and instead of her embarrassment she tries loving a cat...."

That was definitely something that struck me in this story. The whole idea of the American woman "wanting." So much of what she says and does is driven by that. Nice suggestion, Arthur. I am going to open a new thread to deal with that. Thanks for the first impressions.

What I love most about this story is the way I can feel the heat and the rain. It makes me feel like I've actually been there, wherever there is, and that I have lived that moment. It is tactile, and represents the connection to the senses that I love so much about Hemingway.

I also imagine the cat to have six toes.

I always like to kick off discussions with first impressions, so whatta y'all think?

Gio wrote: "its just that i look at this and see that for some men and women, things just havent changed.

its frustrating for me."

I totally understand that frustration. For sure. And it reminds me of something you said before about Hemingway making you feel, so that his story must be some kind of success for you.

Many people would just write an author or filmmaker off for making them feel if the characters are irredeemably (like people's reactions to Natural Born Killers all those years ago), but it is impressive to be able to do what you are doing and continue reading it and allow yourself to feel that frustration rather than just shutting off.

Wow...a quiet discussion this week.

I have been reflecting more on Liz and Jim, and I really like both characters. Her more than him, even though they both have an element of the pathetic in them. But I really think we all have that element to some degree.

I really felt Liz aching to love Jim and be loved by him, and I felt her ache when her dreams didn't play out the way she hoped they would. At the same time, I understood why Liz loved Jim, (as opposed to something like Twilight where I am still trying to figure out how Edward could ever love Bella or vice versa). This couple makes sense. They fit. And I am very much attracted to that.

Again, I think this all depends on time and place.

Is it rape?

Yes. In the new millennium it is. Today "no" means "no," and he didn't stop when she said no.

And...

No. Not in 1920s Michigan. I don't think it is. When she leaves with him in the night there is a tacit agreement that "something" is going to happen. And in the 20s -- a time teetering uneasily between the influences of 19th century coquetry, World War I's loosening of morals and the burgeoning consciousness of the possibility that women really had rights -- "no" sometimes meant "yes" -- and not just to men but to women too. At the very least we can see why there would be some confusion for him. In the culture of the time the signs she was giving were very much "yes" even if she really wanted "no" and said "no."

But maybe the latter is precisely why Hemingway wrote the story. Perhaps he himself felt it was a rape and that her "no" should have been enough, although he knew that the culture around him wouldn't see it that way. So he writes Up in Michigan from her perspective and shows the men of his day that she is violated.

I have been asked about some of the things I write about. I even had one person stop reading my book after the first story because they thought I was a sick freak for writing about infanticide. The answer for why I wrote the story I wrote was simply that I had to write it. It was in me and it had to come out, and I had to tell the truth of the characters.

I suspect the real reason Hemingway wrote this story, and all his stories, was just that...he had the story in him and he had to tell the truth of those characters. Or it could just be that I want to be Papa, so I project my own writing motives on him.

Gio wrote: "even though i think that jim acts as any man would today, he's painted as the uber man. i'm not sure how to describe it, but maybe with some discussion, i'll be able to find the words. he hunts, he's a blacksmith, he drinks (a lot) and takes what he wants."

I was thinking about this much more today, and I think I have a possible answer that is linked to your post about "time and place." The whole uberman, macho man's man, is something that seems hyperbolic today because for a man to be those things is mostly a put on. But in Hemingway's day, particularly when he first started writing and his experience to that point, say between 1899-1925-ish, those men were not cliches. There were still wild enough places that blacksmiths were needed. Folks were still hunting for food on a regular basis and sport hunting was the sphere of the rich rather than the sphere of the trailer park. Clearly there is something inherently "macho" about these manly pursuits, and even then it would have defined working men, but it would not have been as foreign then as it seems to be today.

I think our time and place, and particularly the way men and women act and interact now, make his characters seem hyperbolic but real at the same time.

Hello everyone. Hope you're enjoying the group thus far.

Thanks to Gio for her excellent work so far with Up in Michigan, and please hop in with any comments you have.

We need a discussion leader for Cat in the Rain. Any takers?

Gio wrote: "if you didn't know that hemingway wrote this story, would you think it was written today? and if so, would you like the story?"

I would love this story even if it was written today. I am pretty sure. But I really love how he captures another time. Even living where I do, where snow-ins are still commonplace, I think Hemingway really captured the remoteness of Michigan in the 20s (or before). Just the fact that the Canadian came all the way down to Michigan to live and work gives us a hint of that. I mean...driving down to small town Michigan would take someone an hour or two today. Someone could actually live in Canada and drive to work in Michigan now. But moving to Michigan in the 20s would have been a permanent move, and one that would have taken trains and crappy old trucks on dirt track roads to reach, which means there'd be no getting out in the winter.

Moreover, what Hemingway says about men and women, no matter what side we come down on, is relevant today, and maybe that, more than anything else (apart from the way he changed prose), is what earns Hemingway a deserved place as a "great" writer. His lasting relevance.

Gio wrote: "he clearly doesn't love liz, because i don't think any man who loved and respected a woman would do what he did to liz."

There's many other points to talk about in your big post, Gio, but this is the one that is striking me right now. I don't think it is clear that he doesn't love Liz. In fact, I think it is entirely possible that he does love Liz, but since the story is from Liz's perspective we can't be certain. For one thing, we're not talking about a man who is just passing through. He lives there, he works there, even drunk it would be a hell of a mistake to have sex with Liz during that time in such a small town without some feelings for her.

That's definitely a Hemingway technique, to surprise us with dialogue when we don't expect it, or with action when we don't expect it. I think that he's doing a few things: first, he's intentionally overthrowing readers expectations. The state of writing when he began writing fiction in the 20s (and Up in Michigan is his first published story) was driven by the narrative, and hardly anyone used the short declarative sentence or realistic dialogue (by all reports he was an impressive writer of natural dialogue in his day, although it may not sound that way to our ears today). He was experimenting and challenging readers to come along for a tough journey -- to work at their experience; second, the introduction of dialogue in Up in Michigan seems to be an attempt to take us out of that hyperbolic head space Giovanna mentioned in another post. I think that people tend to hyperbolize themselves in their heads, in their emotional worlds, and that dissolves (at least for me) when Hemingway has his characters speak; third, it's possible that he was actually trying to keep us off balance, a sort of literary manifestation of the drunkenness of his male characters.

From things I have read I know that Hemingway was aware of his readers when he was writing, but staying true to the characters and the stories meant more to him than what the readers might or might not think. So I think he did what he did for the purpose of the story and characters, knowing full well what it might mean to those who read it -- even if he didn't give a damn.

Did anyone else mix themselves a drink from "The Short Happy Life..." or feel otherwise inspired to imbibe?

Booze has to be one of Hemingway's favourite set pieces, and I know I have an awfully hard time reading him without craving the drinks his characters are drinking.

Chris wrote: "I don't believe things have changed all that much in the world, but I think we hide it better. " What do you think about the fact that we hide it now? Was it a better world to live in when we didn't hide it well, or now that we do? Or is it the same regardless of the way we represent it? Or is it something else entirely?

There is not much of the usual sweeping vistas, none of the "Green Hills of Africa" descriptions of grandeur, but there is something that Hemingway conveys about Africa that really seems to capture the feel of Safari.

I really felt the heat, for one thing, and simple bits about flies and mosquito nets gave me a hint of the mood. I am going to have to pay more attention to this when I read it again tomorrow.

Arthur wrote: "I must confess I wouldn't mind reading a novel..."

Me too, but I think we should really get into the swing of the short stories before we throw in a novel. We'll do it someday, though.