The Simple Eloquence In Hemingway’s Words
Hemingway doesn’t feel like a dusty old classic. His works have a cultural relevance beyond many other classic works. What’s he got that his peers don’t. Lots of folks have read or know his works, but not so much his peers. The Daily Beast pondered the same point.
And we don’t just seem to love reading his work. The man seemed to fascinate us. If you do a search for works about him, the list goes on for pages. The Hemingway society lists books related to the man and his work. The list goes on with quite a few works in every year for the past 10, and that’s just where they stopped counting. This pattern carries on from the time the man became famous. People seem to want to know about him.
But What’s So Special About Hemingway
Many say it’s because of his writing style. His economy of words and lack of flowery speech feels easy to read. A hallmark of Hemingway’s work is his light, dynamic composition. Reading Hemingway is a joy because of his sentence structure and spare style. He keeps his background information and details thin choosing to fill in the blanks as necessary, as the tale evolves.
He writes in a clear, concise manner, alternating from long and descriptive sentences to short and powerful ones showing the reader simple facts. When reading Hemingway’s work, this sentence structure makes it comfortable to read. It doesn’t feel like slogging through it. The story flows easily.
Are you beginning to think about how you’d like to find some Hemingway to read? To find a passage of his text to see his sentence structure?
This passage from “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” demonstrates Hemingway’s long and short sentence structure.
“She had liked it. She said she loved it. She loved anything that was exciting, that involved a change of scene, where there were new people and where things were pleasant. And he had felt the illusion of returning strength of will to work. Now if this was how it ended, and he knew it was, he must not turn like some snake biting itself because its back was broken. It wasn’t this woman’s fault. If it had not been she it would have been another. If he lived by a lie he should try to die by it. He heard a shot beyond the hill.”
Hemingway starts out with a simple four-word sentence and finishes with a short simple sentence, then mixes long and short sentences throughout the paragraph. He chose to paint a somewhat Impressionist picture with only the details indispensable to illuminate the reader’s vision of what he thought was valuable to the story. His works end up tremendously vivid in their word choices and phrasing and convey the tale in a matchless manner.
My Love of Hemingway
Before I started paying attention to Hemingway and his writing, I had read The Old Man And the Sea. The book drew me because, although I love my desert home, the sea drew me the adventures of places other than home. Probably the same reason I joined the Navy. I have a visual disability that makes reading without assistive technology very laborious. Even considering my disability, I was able to read and enjoy The Old Man And the Sea because of Hemingway’s easy sentence structure.
I have to admit, I, like many other folks, am drawn to the pre-WWII time in Paris. Hemingway was a part of the great salon, the time and place demonstrated in the movie “Midnight in Paris”. The fact that they made the movie demonstrates of our collective fascination with the time and its contribution to what Hemingway became.
In my ongoing quest to remind us of the value of classic literature, I hope I have piqued your interest. Check out one of his stories.
In our TImes, available on Gutenberg.org
One that seems to be a little lesser-known, although a very beautiful story, “Hills Like White Elephants” is available on Google docs.
Have you ever read any of Hemingway’s work before? Are you motivated to pick up a Hemingway story? Is your motivation increased because I’ve told you his work is easy to read? Tell me about your experience with Hemingway in the comments section below.