# Fitzgerald or Hemingway **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022 "2011-01-09T21:00:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pierrot\_Le\_Fou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@Pierrot\_Le\_Fou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pierrot_Le_Fou)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/1 "2011-01-09T21:00:35Z")
Fitzgerald. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/2 "2011-01-09T21:03:36Z")
Hemingway. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/3 "2011-01-09T21:18:52Z")
Also, Hemingway. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/4 "2011-01-09T22:13:37Z")
If I had to choose, Fitzgerald. I’m reading the “Pat Hobby Stories” now - I haven’t read Hemingway in years. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/5 "2011-01-09T22:31:10Z")
I’ve never liked either of them much… and you didn’t give us an option for that. ---
**Author:** ![Merejane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@Merejane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merejane)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/6 "2011-01-09T22:49:36Z")
Fitzgerald. I know it’s very much a matter of personal taste, and that the poll numbers are still low, but I was surprised to see Hemingway beating out Fitzgerald two to one when I first checked this thread. (It was 6 for Hemingway and 3 for Fitzgerald then; now there are two more votes for Fitzgerald.) I’m another one who hasn’t read Hemingway in quite a while, so I admit the comparison for me is partly from memory, but I think almost no one can craft a sentence the way Fitzgerald can: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/7 "2011-01-09T22:59:41Z")
Fitzgerald or Hemingway? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/8 "2011-01-10T01:06:22Z")
Hemingway is one of my favorite authors of all. The poll could be pretty much anyone vs. Hemingway and I would choose Hemingway. I have read Fitzgerald and liked his works. I just like Hemingway better. ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/9 "2011-01-10T01:25:40Z")
Hemingway, reluctantly, since I have no use for either author. I went with Hemingway because better movies have been made of his stuff than of Fitzgerald’s work (although The Last Tycoon was kind of a neat picture, sort of). ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/10 "2011-01-10T06:19:06Z")
Hemingway! Half of you have no idea what you’re talking about. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/11 "2011-01-10T10:43:36Z")
Whenever I try to read Hemingway, my snoring eventually wakes me up. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/12 "2011-01-10T15:29:15Z")
Hemingway. Adjectives should be shot. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/13 "2011-01-10T16:05:04Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Hemingway. Adjectives should be shot. Also adverbs. Two or three times. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/14 "2011-01-10T16:06:10Z")
In what, a bar fight? Neither is any good as an author. ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/15 "2011-01-10T17:38:32Z")
Ella’s a much better singer than Mariel. ---
**Author:** ![Raskolnikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac8455/32.png) [@Raskolnikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raskolnikov)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/16 "2011-01-10T18:28:50Z")
I like Hemingway’s subject matter more but think Fitzgerald’s use of the english language was much better, it came off more educated, a bit tougher to read but more eleoquent. Sometimes reading Hemingway can be a jaring experience, he uses such short sentences and sparse language, unlike any author I’ve ever read. Try reading another contemporary of Hemingways in Faulkner and then Ernest and it will be even more of a gap. I prefer Steinbeck over all of them! ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/17 "2011-01-10T18:38:08Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > In what, a bar fight? > > Neither is any good as an author. Hmm… Figured you’d like Hemingway with all the food and drink you enjoy. In a bar fight, Hemingway would slaughter Fitzgerald. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/18 "2011-01-10T18:41:49Z")
Fitzgerald. Beautiful, evocative sentences. "This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight. " I mean, damn. But then, I like Bradbury too, and Whitman. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/19 "2011-01-10T19:02:32Z")
My favorite novel by the two of them is Gatsby My favorite short story by the two of them is The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (by Hem; with Winter Dreams by Fitzgerald a close second) A tie. Kind of like choosing between Talking Heads and The Ramones for best NYC punk band - same scene but different sounds. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022/20 "2011-01-10T19:06:26Z")
I think at his peak Fitzgerald was the best author to write in English. Unfortunately he didn’t maintain that level for very long. Hemingway was never as good as the best of Fitzgerald, but he was close and more consistently good for his whole writing career. Got to give it to Hem. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fitzgerald-or-hemingway/567022.md?page=2)