Hemingways obsession with death

You know i was reading some books a while back like Hemingway’s short stories and death in the afternoon and all.

I finally got around to reading his biography; anyway i noticed that he really did have a mental condition. I mean a real obsession with death considering the stuff he writes about in his works. In fact i truly find him brave because throughout his writing he wrote of his actual experiences, he was man that was afraid of death but a man that embraced it. I just want to know what you all feel about that?

One of the things I've always liked about Hemingway is his lust for life. In the Sun Also Rises (a personal fave) his descriptions of women, wine, Spain, etc... were compelling enough to make me want to take my own journey there.

Just lovely writing really - there is a ripe lushness to everything; not quite the brilliant technicolour or dreamy opiate writing you get with other writers who were also equally obsessed with death (Keats and McCullers to name a few) but a fitting and beautiful style nonetheless.

As far as prose, his is sparse, simple, to the point. His short stories are excellent and he doesn't waste a word when he doesn't have to. One also has to admire his discipline. As messed up as his personal life was, he was an extremely organised writer who parcelled his day according to his work - hangover, love, depression, whatever... it never got in the way of the work.

I always find it difficult to equate the writer with the person - because for a lot of writers the imagination, fantasy, writing IS what they are. The other details: life, marriage, madness, death, are secondary.

Hemingway killed himself and suffered from impotance and depression for a good part of his life, but I would rather think about how alive his books made me feel.

i beg to differ though, he uses code hero and the iceberg theory in his writting, this is really not simple to understand, but maybe you are very familure with his work so it is easy for you.

Like most good literature, Hemingway's work can be understood on more than one level. The stories and characters in Hemingway are rarely hard to understand and empathize with. What's under the surface (the "iceberg") isn't always so easy to get at -- but that depends, as always, on how much there is under the reader's surface.

Well said Astyanax! When I talked of Hemingway's simplicity and sparseness, I was referring to his prose. Not his errr iceberg.





[edit on 6-6-2006 by nikelbee]