# Ernest Hemingway **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 13, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159 "2013-08-13T20:39:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/1 "2013-08-13T20:39:40Z")
I have never read anything by Ernest Hemingway, and want to know what the big deal is. What should I read first? ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Doom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/2 "2013-08-13T20:44:35Z")
The only thing I’ve read by **Hemingway** was _The Old Man And The Sea_, and only because it was part of school curriculum. It was good, as I recall, partly due to its non-epic length. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/3 "2013-08-13T21:11:14Z")
He uses short words and short sentences. He gets a good rhythm and he repeats a word until it’s like the first time you’ve heard it. He’s relentless in his use of a word or a phrase that works. _ **For Whom the Bell Tolls** _ is probably my favorite by him. _ **The Sun Also Rises** _ also brings the knockout. ---
**Author:** ![FeAudrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FeAudrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FeAudrey)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/4 "2013-08-13T21:14:59Z")
Hemingway said that a short story should be like an iceberg, 6/7ths of it beneath the surface. The short stories are not for beginners. So start with a novel. I’d go with _The Sun Also Rises_, because it’s an important novel as well as being an important Hemingway work. Pair it with Scott Fitzgerald’s _The Great Gatsby_ for a tour of the '20s. I actually like both books, but every reader has different favorites (and dislikes). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/5 "2013-08-13T21:17:09Z")
> [@bup](#): > > _ **For Whom the Bell Tolls** _ is probably my favorite by him. _ **The Sun Also Rises** _ also brings the knockout. I am Carnivorousplant, and I approve this message. My Mother actually liked a short story collection of his. _Not In Our Time_ was one of the stories and may have been the title of the book. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/6 "2013-08-13T21:18:29Z")
\*For Whom the Bell Tolls \*remains one of my favorite books. Just an honest, raw view of war. His style isn’t for everyone, but I enjoy it. _The Old Man and the Sea_ is almost a perfect piece of writing. I’d start there. Many of his short stories are great reads as well if you want to begin there. _The Snows of Kilimanjaro_, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/7 "2013-08-13T21:22:12Z")
I read the Nick Adams stories first, when I was young. Loved them. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/8 "2013-08-13T21:39:53Z")
I would start with _The Old Man and the Sea_ as it is representative of his style, but also short and accessible. From there I would read some short stories (his best work in my opinion). But don’t go in willy nilly. As **FeAudrey** said the story stories can be difficult. Big Two Hearted River Parts 1&2 is not the place to start (it’s great, but don’t start there). Read The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Hills Like White Elephants, and probably A Clean, Well-Lighted Place…maybe Snows of Kilimanjaro. Then on to the big novels. In order read, _For Whom the Bell Tolls_, _The Sun Also Rises_, a _Farewell to Arms_ then…if you still want more, go for _A Movable Feast_, his memoir. Then back for more short stories and maybe more non fiction like _Death in the Afternoon_, or the _Green Hills of Africa_. That should get you through just about everything. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/9 "2013-08-13T23:02:10Z")
I did NOT enjoy _The Old Man and The Sea_ but I LOVED _The Sun Also Rises_. I should re-read Old Man, maybe I’d like it more now… ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/10 "2013-08-13T23:03:59Z")
And then consider what you have read - he is fan wanking himself and managed to get publishers to pay him to fap off to himself. One of the more stultifyingly stupid authors I was ever forced to read in school. Right up there with My Darling, My Hamburger and Old Yaller. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/11 "2013-08-13T23:21:23Z")
For Whom the Bell Tolls and the Sun Also Rises are both excellent places to start. The Old Man and the Sea… is just God-awful. When I read it in high school, my teacher was in love with Hemingway. So the only negative thing I allowed myself to write about it was “Hemingway has brilliantly captured the essence of fishing: hour upon hour of boredom and tedium.” The rest of the essay was BS about the symbolism and deep inner meanings that I can’t remember. The key thing about reading Hemingway for the first time is to remember that there are no Hollywood endings. For example, my favorite of his short stories is “Up in Michigan” where a young girl has a crush on a guy who asks her out… and then he date-rapes her. She walks off, alone. The End. If you are able to appreciate how much more real and true this is than the Disney princess version of the story, you’ll like Hemingway (excepting the Old Man and the Sea, which sucks). If you’re left thinking “You can’t end a story that way!!!” then you’ll probably hate Hemingway. You have to be able to enjoy the soul-crushing demolition of your happy preconceptions to like Hemingway. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/12 "2013-08-13T23:32:35Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > And then consider what you have read - he is fan wanking himself and managed to get publishers to pay him to fap off to himself. One of the more stultifyingly stupid authors I was ever forced to read in school. Right up there with My Darling, My Hamburger and Old Yaller. I’m not sure I understand this. Is it a whoosh? ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/13 "2013-08-13T23:38:18Z")
Yeah, start with “Old Man and the Sea.” You can then move to “For whom the bell tolls” and “The sun also rises.” If you’re curious about bullfighting, “Death in the Afternoon” is a must read. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/14 "2013-08-14T00:12:02Z")
I’ve only read one Hemingway novel, and that was _The Sun Also Rises_. I would not recommend to start with it. Not because it was not ‘good’, but because I really couldn’t find a single thing to like about any of the characters, which made it a rather difficult read to get the feel of a ‘new author’. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/15 "2013-08-14T00:16:42Z")
“In our time” was about as insipid as TSAR but it affected me a lot, mainly in pitying Ernie. Think of a guy who’s had a hard war, who can’t keep a steady job, can’t keep a girl, drinks and brawls all night, sleeps all day, and who finds solace only in trout fishing. I find that more powerful than any character by Tolkien or Dostoevsky. ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/16 "2013-08-14T01:26:05Z")
H is for young men. The more experience you have the less you’ll find to like in his work. Sun Also, his 1st published, is his only good novel because it is the only one that is not written about himself. The characters in Sun are not likable, but that’s the point, they have had everything valuable burned out of them by the world wide cultural suicide that was the war. His 2nd, A Farewell To Arms, has some of the best prose in American writing but rowing across the lake to Switzerland with Catherine he leaves the best part of the story behind (but my mom’s favorite book). By the time he gets to For Whom the Bell his prose is losing its focus because he pretended to be fluent in Spanish and his importing of spanish grammatical idioms into english is just stupid and makes it really hard for me not to rip old man and the sea in half and run screaming naked…most of the short stories are good, some great, get a collection called The First 49. Then get a copy of Bukowski’s Women and wash that taste of hem out of your mouth with a bottle of cheap wine… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/17 "2013-08-14T02:14:37Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > “In our time” was about as insipid as TSAR but it affected me a lot, mainly in pitying Ernie. Think of a guy who’s had a hard war, who can’t keep a steady job, can’t keep a girl, drinks and brawls all night, sleeps all day, and who finds solace only in trout fishing. I find that more powerful than any character by Tolkien or Dostoevsky. Jesus Christ, My Mother liked that? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/18 "2013-08-14T02:15:57Z")
> [@Southern\_Yankee](#): > > I’m not sure I understand this. Is it a whoosh? The man does not like Hemingway, just as I do not like Stephen King. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/19 "2013-08-14T10:06:02Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The man does not like Hemingway, just as I do not like Stephen King. > 🙂 I understand that, it’s the “My Darling, My Hamburger and Old Yaller.” that I don’t get. I figured “Old Yaller” = Old Yeller, but I had never heard of the other one. Had to look it up. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159/20 "2013-08-14T11:14:49Z")
I think that The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber is the best thing he wrote, and a great place to start. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ernest-hemingway/666159.md?page=2)