Monday, January 22, 2018

Blog 11. "Fathers and Sons." "He's Hard to Describe."

    "What was my grandfather like?  I can't hardly remember him except that he gave me an air rifle and an American flag when I came over from France.  What was he like?"
    "He's hard to describe.  He was a great hunter and fisherman and he had wonderful eyes." (267)

Clarence Hemingway:


Clarence and Ernest when Ernest was 18:


"Fathers and Sons" is from Winner Take Nothing (1933) when Hemingway was 34 and is the last story he wrote about Nick Adams.  Clarence Hemingway committed suicide in 1928.  And so we end the Nick Adams stories the way Hemingway began them: Nick and Henry Adams and Nick and his own son who pesters his father to see his grandfather's grave.  Two fathers and two young sons. 

Be sure to quote in one of the responses below.

1.  Your reaction to the story—and why?  What stuck out to you in it—a moment, a scene, a line?

2.  How is Nick as a father?  How does he compare with—or contrast with—Doctor Adams back in "Indian Camp"?

3.  What's this story about?  If you thought little happened in "Big Two Hearted River," less technically happens here as Nick drives with his sleeping son and reminisces about his father and his relationship with an Indian girl Trudy.  Yet there is so much more action as Nick lets his memory roam—he clearly is better than he was back in "BTHR."  So what's the point of this story?  How do the memories connect into a whole—or do they? 

4.  What was your favorite story that you read in this short term class?  And why? 

That's it, folks.  I had a lot of fun with you in this class.  This was as intellectually rigorous as any of my long term classes—and that's saying something.  Thank you for taking this class as seriously as you did. 


Sunday, January 21, 2018

Blog 10. "Cross-Country Snow." "There Isn't Any Good In Promising."

"It's hell, isn't it?" [George] said.
"No.  Not exactly," Nick said. (254)

Here's Hem and his first wife Hadley and their first child John "Bumby" Hemingway in Austria around 1925:


Schruns, Austria, where Ernest and Hadley and their friends liked to ski.


Hem and his buddies in Schruns:

"Cross-Country Snow" was published in In Our Time, which means it precedes the publication of the war stories we read, but this is clearly a Nick who is older (and not the Nick of "The Three-Day Blow").  Helen is not Marjorie, who Nick thought about going to Italy with in "The End of Something."  George is not Bill—although they seem to have a similar friendship.  And once again war is not mentioned in the story—yet I do wonder why Nick "can't Telemark with [his] leg" (250).  A war injury?

Hemingway married Hadley Richardson, seven years his senior, in 1921(when he was 22) and Hadley give birth to John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway—who would be called Jack—in 1923.  They divorced in 1927 after Hadley discovered Ernest was having an affair with Pauline Pfeiffer.  Hemingway married Pauline in 1927.

For one of the questions below, please quote from the story. 200-250 words.  Some of you have not been meeting that requirement. 

1.   Your response to the story?  What moment, image, or line particularly struck you or stayed with you?

2.  For 9th and 10th graders: on 253:

                            They ate strudel and drank the rest of the wine.
                            George leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes.
                               "Wine always makes me feel this way," he said.
                               "Feel bad?" Nick asked.
                               "No. I feel good, but funny."
                               "I know," Nick said.
                               "Sure,"said George.  
Nick and George share some feeling.  It's not being drunk—this is not Nick and Bill.  But going back to the Iceberg Theory, the answer—what is the feeling George has that Nick recognizes—should be discernible.  So what do you think he's feeling that's "good but funny"?  If you agree with a classmate, add to their reasons: don't simply say you agree, ok?

2For 11th and 12th graders:  same page and 254:
                              "Will you go back to the States?"
                              "I guess so."
                              "Do you want to?"
                              "No."
                              "Does Helen?"
                              "No."
                              George sat silent.  He looked at the empty bottle and the empty glasses.
                              "It's hell, isn't it?"  he said.
                              "No.  Not exactly," Nick said.
                              "Why not?"
                              "I don't know," Nick said.
What do you think is "not exactly" the "hell" George says it is?  (Of course, if it's not exactly hell, it's pretty darn close to it)  Again, this is the Iceberg Theory; and as with the question for the 9th and 10th graders, don't simply agree with each other; elaborate and expand. 

3.  What's the story about?  What is Hemingway looking at here, writing about, in this simple story of two friends skiing?

That's it.  Four more days of short term.  Or as I call it now, "short te—."  That's pronounced "shore-ta!"

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Blog 9. "Big Two-Hearted River." "He Liked To Open Cans."

That line above—"He liked to open cans"—is my favorite line in all of Hemingway.  It might be my favorite sentence in all of American literature.  Scoff if you will.  But it's the perfect encapsulation for me of the Iceberg Theory at work—and working. The story was first published in In Our Time in 1926.  It predates "Now I Lay Me" and "A Way You'll Never Be," though Phillip Young has it following them in the chronology of Nick's life.  Which would mean that this is an after war story. And it is universally read as an after-war story; it is Nick back from Europe and the war and his attempt at healing from the war and his wounds.  It is considered one of his great works.  And students who read it almost always say, "What?  Nothing happens!"

Here is Hem fishing in the 1930s.  And not in Michigan:


And here he is fishing for trout in Michigan:

Hem liked to fish.

1. Reaction to the story?  And why?

2.  I know some of you are thinking, "But nothing happens in this damn story!"  Well, something happens: how is Nick different—perhaps better—at the end than he is at the beginning of the story?  And what happened to make him better?  Quote a couple times in your response.

3.  How do we know Nick is struggling with something in the story?  Speak specifically to how you know this.

4.  "He liked to open cans." Why does opening cans maybe make Nick feel good?

I hope you all enjoyed your little vacation.  Stay warm.  See you—I think—tomorrow.





Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Snow Day.

Hey all. I don't know if we'll have school tomorrow—the cold isn't going away and the roads will still be slippery.  So let's move everything back one day.  For Friday, read "Big Two Hearted River," both parts 1 and 2.  There will be a blog up for it tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day and stay warm. 

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Blog 8. "A Way You'll Never Be." "I Can See You've Been Wounded." 9th and 12th Graders Only.

This is Hemingway in the American uniform that Nick is showing the Italians in the story:


And when Nick talks about—confusingly—advancing the attack on page 160, the attack might look like this: a clip from the 1981 movie Gallipoli by Peter Weir about the New Zealand/Australian/British campaign in Turkey—then The Ottoman Empire—in 1915.

"A Way You'll Never Be" was first published in 1933 in the short story collection Men Without Women.

1.  What moment, image, or quote stayed with you from this story?  Why?  Go ahead and quote from the story.

2.  Today we were talking about Hemingway's writing style and writing choices.  How does this story—stylistically—compare to the first stories we read?  Do you like this new style more than the older style?  Why?

3.  When do you first become aware that Nick has gone "nutty" (160)?  And when do you become aware of how badly wounded he has become—the moment or line that tells you he is truly psychologically sick?  It could be the same answer as the first question—but probably not.

That's good.  See you all tomorrow. 

Monday, January 15, 2018

Blog 7. "Now I Lay Me." "If I Ever Shut My Eyes in The Dark, and Let Myself Go, My Soul Would Go Out of My Body." 10th and 11th Graders Only.

Ernest Hemingway in Italy, 1918.


Italian soldiers, circa 1916.


"Then you ought to get married, Signor Tenente.  Then you wouldn't worry."
"I don't know." (151)

As I said in class on the first day of the term, 19 year old Hemingway served as a Red Cross ambulance driver on the Italian front in the First World War. The Italians were part of the Allied Powers—Great Britain, France, Russia, and ultimately the Unites States—fighting the Central Powers—Germany and Austria-Hungary, and later The Ottoman Empire.  On the Italian front, the conflict was primarily with Austria-Hungary.  Ernest Hemingway was delivering chocolate and cigarettes to troops at the front when a mortar shell exploded nearby.  His legs were peppered with metal shrapnel.
As reported in the Hemingway Resource Center (http://www.lostgeneration.com/ww1.htm):

He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valor with the official Italian citation reading: "Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated." Hemingway described his injuries to a friend of his: "There was one of those big noises you sometimes hear at the front. I died then. I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body, like you'd pull a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner. It flew all around and then came back and went in again and I wasn't dead any more."

This was the seminal experience in Hemingway's life.  It became the subject of his second and third novels and the center of several of his stories (the Nick Adams ones we will read).  Hemingway became a journalist after the war and covered several armed conflicts, primarily the Greco-Turkish War; he went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and as a forty-something writer-turned-war-correspondent he went to Europe in World War Two.

So:

1. Your reaction to "Now I Lay Me"?   What moment or image stayed with you?  Quote in your response.

2.  How wounded is Nick here?  And how do we know this? Pick one detail that shows what's happened to him.  Try to not repeat what others write.

3.  As in all of the stories we've read, there are mysteries to this story.  Why Nick won't use salamanders or crickets as bait; the particular memory he has of home and his mother and father; why he is so unreceptive  to his orderly John's urging him to get married.  Emma C. and Matthew: write about the significance of why he won't use the lizards and crickets for bait.  Mary and Nicholas and Chloe: write about why he uses the story of Nick's parents—how does it fit in this story; and Caroline, Isaiah, and Jack: why not get married? Stick to the story, folks.  

We'll see everyone tomorrow. 

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Blog 6. "The End of Something" and "The Three Day Blow." "Isn't Love Any Fun?"

You can do this assignment tonight or tomorrow during class.  They will be due by the end of class tomorrow.

"...'No," Nick said.  Marjorie stood up.  Nick sat there, his head in his hands. (204)

"...I'm through.  We won't ever speak about it again.  You don't want to think about it.  You might get back into it again." (215)

In The Nick Adams Stories, Phillip Young places these stories after Nick's war experience (which we'll read about next week).  I have changed the order: I just can't accept these stories as being the Nick we will read about in war: wounded, traumatized, even...crazy.  He could be right though: we hear Nick talking about going to Italy with Marjorie in "The Three-Day Blow."  But I stand by my choice. 

 1.  Does Nick in these stories seem like a young man who has been to war?  Why or why not?  Quote in your answer.

2.  What do you think of Nick in these stories?  Like?  Dislike?  Why?

3.  Bill: Nick's good friend.  He is all about Nick's best welfare isn't he—and there's nothing self-serving about him here.  Agree or disagree—and why?  Quote in your answer.

4.  If you were Nick and had to choose between Bill and Marjorie, which would you pick—and why?

That's good enough.  See you all tomorrow!

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Blog 5. "The Killers." "You Better Not Think About It."

In their tight coats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team. (65)

Nick stood up.  He had never had a towel in his mouth before. (65)

"Little boys always know what they want to do," [the cook] said. (66)

Here's a clip of the opening of the story from the 1946 adaptation of it.  It was made again in 1964.  "The Killers" is considered by critics as one of Hemingway's greatest stories and one of the greatest American stories ever.  Originally published in 1927 and appearing in Hemingwayt's second short story collection Men Without Women, it is much anthologized and it is actually widely taught (along with "Hills Like White Elephants," "Soldier's Home," and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber").  Some critics have thought it influenced absurdist and existentialist writers like Samuel Beckett and particularly his classic Waiting for Godot. Some consider it an existential comedy.  Not much happens in this story—but we've been saying that about every story.  Nick is older than he was in "Ten Indians," but not much older.  Why is he is this little town Summit, Illinois?  We don't know and that's important.  What did Ole Andreson do to get him on the hit list of these two gangsters?  We don't know.  We do know what George says in the face of the horror the story presents: "You better not think about it."

1. Your reaction?  And why?  What line or moment or image stuck with you from this story—and why?  Quote in your answer, ok?

2. We said today in class about "The Battler" that it seemed like a "Twilight Zone" episode. A horror story, in other words.  Do you feel anything similar about this story?  If so, how so?  If not, how would you describe the genre, or type, that this story belongs to to a friend?  And why?

3.  In fact, what is this story about to you?  Don't repeat the plot, but think about the theme or themes it develops for you.

4. What does Nick learn here?

5.  Ole Andreson: many critics consider him a hero—as much as one can be a hero in a Hemingway story.  Yes?  No?  Why?

That's more than enough.  Al and Max have been compared, as I wrote above, to characters in Waiting for Godot, Valdimir and Estragon, forever waiting for...Godot, who never appears in the play. Here they are:


Here, from a film version of "The Killers" made by the Russian filmmaker Sergei Tarkovsky:


Monday, January 8, 2018

Blog 4. "The Battler." "They Would Never Suck Him In That Way Again." (11th and 12th graders)

"...Listen, you ever get been crazy?"
"No," Nick said. "How does it get you?"
"I don't know," Ad said.  "When you get it you don't know about it."

This is a trailer for the film adaptation of the stories you're reading, Hemingay's Adventures of A Young Man, released in 1962—the year your book was published, and the year after Hemingway died of a self-inflicted gunshot.  The movie wasn't very successful.  Fast forward to the end and you'll see Paul Newman as Ad Francis, The Battler.


Nick is a few years older from where we saw him in "Ten Indians," now riding the rails by himself in upper Michigan.  And out in the middle of nowhere, he experiences...

1.  Your reaction to the story?  Like?  Dislike?  What stayed with you after reading it?  Quote from it in your response.

2.  "And out in the middle of nowhere, [Nick] experiences...."  What does he experience—in one word. And then explain why that word.

3. I would argue that Nick, cut loose from the ties of community and family, now begins to really see the way the world works—and his unpreparedness for what's out there.  Agree or disagree with that statement.  Explain your answer.

4.  Ad and Bugs: a love story.  Yes or no?  And why?

A map of the region of Michigan where these stories take place:


Sunday, January 7, 2018

Blog 3. "Ten Indians." "My Heart's Broken."

 17 year old Ernest Hemingway.



Hem and his family, upper Michigan.


"Have some more." His father picked up the knife to cut the pie.
"No," said Nick.
"You better have another piece."
"No, I don't want any."

"Ten Indians" finds Nick older than he was in "Indian Camp" and "The Doctor and Doctor's Wife."  It appears to be a story of young Nick's first broken heart when he hears about his "girl" Prudie "having quite a time" with Frank Washburn, the bad news delivered to him by his father while feeding him a big piece of huckleberry pie.  It's a classic coming-of-age narrative; but Hemingway turns in into something else as well.

1. Your reaction to the story?  Like? Dislike?  Why?  And what about it stuck with you, stayed with you—and why? Go ahead and quote from the story.

2.  Even before the end of the story and Nick's "broken heart," we know everything is not wonderful on this Fourth of July, even as Nick and the Garners come home happy from the festivities.  What plays against the general air of gaiety in the story?

3.  Doc Adams: he is the crux of this story.  Is he doing the right thing by telling Nick about Prudence?  Is he looking out for his son—or is possibly something else motivating him?  What do you think?

In answering these, keep your answers separate, okay?  Do 1. Do 2.  Do 3.  Hope you all had a good weekend.

Just for fun.  A Hemingway cat at The Hemingway House in Key West, Florida.




Thursday, January 4, 2018

Blog 2. "The Doctor and Doctor's Wife." "'I Want To Go With You,' Nick said."

The Hemingways: Marcelline, Sunny, Clarence, Grace (Mrs. Hemingway), Ursula, Ernest.


"The Doctor and Doctor's Wife" first appeared in In Our Time.  It is barely, in certain ways, a Nick Adams' story: little Nick appears only at the end.  As many of the Nick Adams stories are, it is very autobiographical. 

The Hemingways, in Ernest's youth, summered in upper Michigan, where this story and "Indian Camp" take place. Clarence Hemingway was, like Henry Adams, a doctor; Grace Hemingway, like Mrs. Adams, a Christian Scientist, which, according to the oracle, Wikipedia, means:

Eddy described Christian Science as a return to "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." There are key differences between Christian Science theology and that of other branches of Christianity. In particular, adherents subscribe to a radical form of philosophical idealism, believing that reality is purely spiritual and the material world an illusion. This includes the view that disease is a mental error rather than physical disorder, and that the sick should be treated not by medicine, but by a form of prayer that seeks to correct the beliefs responsible for the illusion of ill health.

The church does not require that Christian Scientists avoid all medical care—adherents use dentists, optometrists, obstetricians, physicians for broken bones, and vaccination when required by law—but maintains that Christian-Science prayer is most effective when not combined with medicine. Between the 1880s and 1990s, the avoidance of medical treatment led to the deaths of several adherents and their children. Parents and others were prosecuted for, and in a few cases convicted of, manslaughter or neglect.

1. Everyone: Your reaction to the storyWhat particularly struck you, or stayed with you, about it? Quote once in your response.
 
2.  9th and 10th graders: If someone in anther class asked you what this story was about, what would you say?  Don't simply say, it's about a doctor and his wife: but think about what this is telling us about Henry Adams, the protagonist of it—it's his story, really. 

2. 11th and 12th graders only: Today in class, I think it was Emma—Jones—who asked the question of why does Doctor Adams respond to Nick's query of "'Do many women [kill themselves]?'" with "'Hardly ever.'" I said to Emma that this story might answer the question.  So: how does this story answer Emma's question? Or: how does it give some explanation or context for the way Doctor Adams behaves in "Indian Camp"?

3. Everyone: this is Henry's—and his wife's—story.  But Hemingway does put Nick in at the end.  Why?  What do you see is the purpose of having little Nick—"sitting with his back against the tree, reading"—in the story?  Or: if we read the stories in this collection as moments of initiation for Nick—as moments which will help shape him into the adult he will become—how does this story function in that context?

200 words, just like last night.  Below: Hemingway's passport photo on his way to Paris, where he will write In Our Time.









Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Blog 1. "Indian Camp." "But Her Screams Are Not Important. I Don't Hear Them Because They Are Not Important."

"Indian Camp" is the first story in Hemingway's first major work In Our Time, published in 1925 when he was all of 26 years old.  It was a critical success. As the reviewer in The New York Times wrote:

Mr. Hemingway packs a whole character into a phrase, an entire situation into a sentence or two. He makes each word count three or four ways. The covers of his book should strain and bulge with the healthful ferment that is between them. Here is an authentic energy and propulsive force which is contained in an almost primitive isolation of images as if the language itself were being made over in its early directness of metaphor. Each story, indeed, is a sort of expanded metaphor, conveying a far larger implication than its literal significations. 

Critics—and readers—picked up on what you said in class today: the way Hemingway writes as if for a sixth grade test, the way each word takes on greater meaning because of the scarcity of words in the writing, the way he "packs a whole character into a phrase, an entire situation into a sentence or two."  And in this story he introduces us to Nick, his father, and the universe they inhabit—which he will develop as he keeps writing about Nick.  So:

1. Everyone respond: your reaction to the story?  Like?  Dislike?  Why?  And what line or sentence or image stays with you after you've set the story down?  Quote from the story.

2.  9th and 11th graders: what is your impression of Doctor Adams?  Is he good father?  A bad father?  Explain.

2. 10th and 12th graders.  This is generally seen as an initiation story.  How so?  And what does Nick do with his new knowledge? 

3.  Everyone: does this story  have a happy ending?  Why or why not?

Write about 200-250 words in response to the three questions. Enter your response in the comment link at the end of the blog post.

A young Ernest Hemingway:


And the first edition of In Our Time: