Poll: Ernst Hemingway: Why in God's Name is he famous?

[lodo_bear]

Ernest Hemingway is famous because he is considered by many to be a good writer (I am one of those many) and because he was a unique writer. The Old Man and the Sea, for instance, is not at all the sort of book that most people will write. But Hemingway conceived it and wrote it and it was good.

I'm ignorant when it comes to literary analysis, so I can't speak to how Hemingway's style compares with other styles, but I like his style and I like what he has to say.

 

[Shadowfaze]

Hemingway's work is about the true horror of war. Its a stark portrayal of how awful human beings are. If its not for you, dont rant about it. I find it fascinating, and chilling.

 

[ribonuge]

He wrote For Whom the Bell Toll's didn't he? It's sitting in my room untouched, perhaps it best be left that way.

 

[MorsePacific]

Ernest Hemingway was essentially the anti-F. Scott Fitzgerald. He countered Fitzgerald's romantic fantasies by being completely straight-forward in his writing, putting no faith in the romantic ideas other writers had become infatuated with. His writing style and the depth of his work made him a household name.

Also, he was a hard-drinking badass, so that's a positive.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

The problem is this: Why is Ernst Hemingway such a reknowned and famous writer?

Seriously, there is no passion, no emotion, no personality and no form to his writing, and his dialouge falls below any resonable mesurement of awful-ness

Quoted for irony. To understand Hemingway, you have to place him in context with his time. He, along with William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, formed a "Lost Generation" of writers who grew disenfranchised with the glitz and glamour of post WWI America, and so all their stories are not actually about "love" - love is just a plot device. Instead they're really about disillusionment.

To be fair though, he is also famous because he was a celebrity as well as writer - just as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson were equally famed for their various escapades as well as their writing. But in so far as his literary merit is concerned, that's judged on the strength of what he had to say.

 

[Zetsubou]

Because The Old Man and the Sea was an awesome book, that's why. Also he had a thing for funky toed cats.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

That's not the problem

The problem is this: Why is Ernst Hemingway such a reknowned and famous writer?

He was a narcissistic, alcholic womanizer with a heavy bout of depression and many suicides in the family owing to a rare, genetic depression disorder. All his lead characters, who are always 20-something males, are identical to him.

Most greats were clinically-depressed loser alcoholics. Poe was both. Lovecraft wasn't an alcholholic, but he was sure as hell depressed and a loser. Jack London was poor most his life and died of alchololism.