HOT! HOT!! HOT!!! The Buckeye State will test the hardiest of souls today as temperatures are predicted to push near 100 degrees! Certainly a “Balldropper” kind of day. This might be very similar to what I have experienced in Texas! My beautiful wife Kim will understand!
On this date in 1899 Ernest Hemingway was born. “Papa”! Why do I have such an affection for Hemingway? Unlike other prolific authors of his generation, he has resonated with me for the better part 35 or so years. I think it is because to me Hemingway is a mystery. How he lived always intrigued me as a child. Hemingway had that little “extra”, that something special that reached out and grabbed me right around the throat.
Even after all these years, it is that “extra” which is difficult to describe. Some see it. Some feel it. But also for each it is a bit different. Or for that matter not at all. But when as a young high schooler I read The Old Man and the Sea, I was captivated. Captivated beyond belief. Dare I say hooked? From that point on I devoured as much Hemingway as possible.
Over the years I keep coming back to read parts if not all of a Hemingway work. Just as I have changed over time, reading Hemingway at different points along my journey has spoken differently to me. Back to that mystery. After all these years since “Papa” so tragically took his life, what he wrote is alive with passion, both good and bad.
Over these same many years there has also been the reading and research of so many who have done exhaustive, critical analysis of the man and his work. And I have come to this conclusion. Hemingway is so compelling, even today because of his extreme contrast. He was many things. Admired, respected, and imitated. He was also despised, chauvinistic, often Neanderthal in his behavior. He was characterized as strong, almost “unsinkable”, and yet labeled “weak” amidst all his bravado for ending his own life. But for me, it is in these extremes that “Papa” stands the tallest.
As I did back as a “know-nothing” high schooler, as I still do today as a “know even less nothing” adult, I sense, I feel a little of me in all of Hemingway’s extremes. At times so perfect. At times so flawed.
As I do every July 21st, I will read my most highlighted lines of The Old Man and the Sea! Thanks “Papa”!
No comments:
Post a Comment