4 Part series on PBS by Ken Burns. Check it out. So damn good.
4 Part series on PBS by Ken Burns. Check it out. So damn good.
hey, thanks for the heads-up! i would have missed this had you not mentioned it.
Lol, when I saw the title of this thread I was sure he was the latest historical cancel.
I watched the first part last night. Excellent.
Coevett wrote:
Lol, when I saw the title of this thread I was sure he was the latest historical cancel.
It's just a matter of time
He’s already been cancelled. No one reads anymore, so no one cared. He was cancelled last year with David Foster Wallace, Salinger, and Bukowski.
An alcoholic liar and misogynist that passes his stories off as truth. He’d make a great politician.
Yes, but he was in Paris in 1944, dodging German snipper bullets...and he didn't have to be.
Listen to what the female Irish scholar in the documentary says about "Up in Michigan." Great writers and thinkers (especially those who occupy the limelight) will never satisfy each one of our obsessive politicized compulsions, or calm our anxieties. Looking at art with 21st century media goggles is sure-fire way to ruin everything.
stillreading wrote:
Listen to what the female Irish scholar in the documentary says about "Up in Michigan." Great writers and thinkers (especially those who occupy the limelight) will never satisfy each one of our obsessive politicized compulsions, or calm our anxieties. Looking at art with 21st century media goggles is sure-fire way to ruin everything.
That one still creeped me out, and not because of any of my own "obsessive politicized compulsions." I probably would have wanted it out of "In our Time," too.
I've just watched the first episode so far, but I suspect that I'll watch it all eventually. I hope that later episodes focus more on the process and style of his writing (and perhaps the mental illness or depression that seems to have passed from generation to generation). It's still not clear to me why so many were so charmed by him; he seemed kind of mean, lied a lot, and had an unusually strong attraction toward death by violence (whether human, bulls, or hunting prey). I will say this: The ending of "A Farewell to Arms" changed forever what I thought of him and his capacities. (But I still don't think I'd like him.)
I think you'll enjoy the other episodes.
Glad to hear it.
Hemingway did not write 'for whom the bell tolls', Donne did, hundreds of years before.
Avocado's Number wrote:
Glad to hear it.
I caught a good portion of the series (my wife was watching it) but there really wasn't a lot about his actual writing *process* and stylistic choices IIRC. There was some, though.
His later years were tough in many ways. I hadn't known (or at least hadn't remembered) that he was even too messed up to travel to Stockholm for his Nobel.
formerly present wrote:
Avocado's Number wrote:
Glad to hear it.
I caught a good portion of the series (my wife was watching it) but there really wasn't a lot about his actual writing *process* and stylistic choices IIRC. There was some, though.
His later years were tough in many ways. I hadn't known (or at least hadn't remembered) that he was even too messed up to travel to Stockholm for his Nobel.
True but it delved into his personality and mental illness etc...that Avocado's Number was hoping for.
No one is putting him on a pedestal. It is an interesting expose on the life he chose to lead.
I saw it, the whole thing, last week. It was good.
It certainly doesn't glamorize his life. The parts about bullfighting were hard to take.
I like his writing earlier in my life and heard some graphic first hand descriptions about the kind of cantankerous character he made of himself. Heavy drinking left it's mark on him.
I know why his writing appealed to me. He's not my fav writer of that period but he did strike a chord.
The impression i came away with was that he was clearly a pitiable character in his later years. I have to remind myself that the chooses he made and the life he insisted on living determined his path and destiny, to a large extent.
I found it thought provoking, and not necessarily epitomizing a lifestyle or choices I would condone.
I caught one episode of this series and I found it interesting. Would like to watch the whole thing. I always knew that Hemingway was a man's man but I never realized the extremes he took it to. The stuff about World War II was nuts. I found it pretty ironic how macho he was but how dependent he was on women and how he drowned his emotions in alcohol. He basically passed on his trauma to his wives and children. Some of the events from the last 10 years of his life were quite sad, but it almost seemed like an inevitable consequence of his lifestyle. Must have been hard when he no longer could do the things he loved to do in life. Nobody is perfect, and he was certainly a great writer and I have enjoyed some of his works.
Big fan of Hemingway's work.
How do you watch this PBS series?
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/hemingway/kw1954 wrote:
Big fan of Hemingway's work.
How do you watch this PBS series?