Hemingway Rising

Hemingway, a prominent figure of literature and fame, innovated the form of fiction literature in America. His name defines ubiquity; his art, writing, work, and life are presented in the comments and reviews found in The New York Times and in other articles and magazines. Therefore, many knows of him, and even those who never read his work. His novels revolutionized what fiction is and what it was. The simplicity of his writing style captured the reader, and his written tales resembles the traveler's eyes, wandering about in distant places, yet captures vividly the details of the scenes. His work went beyond the limits of the pressures put upon on writers and became the head of a new style of writing that influenced later generations.

He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. His father taught him the ways of a hunter and fisher, and made camping his past times. He goes to Chicago operas, concerts, and museums with his artistic mother. Hemingway maintained physical fitness participating in boxing sport, anyhow a moderate athlete,he focused more on writing for his high school. This would contribute to much of his success: his eagerness to learn how to write. After high school, he went on to take a job as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. Here, he will learn the principle of a writing style, writing his journal reports, and worked for the periodical until World War I. Eager for adventure, he signed up for the war, but he was rejected. Due to his poor vision, he rather volunteered for Italy's battlefront as an ambulance driver. However, he hardly saw action, so he decided to participate in lending chocolates, cigarettes, and postcards to the soldiers near the combat zone. In June 8, 1918 after his call for duty 1 month ago, he almost died from an explosion off a mortar shell and from suppressing machine gun fire during regress. Hemingway was then escorted to a hospital in Milan. This experience contributed to one of his greatest novel, A Farewell to Arms, published in 1929. In Milan, he fell in love with a beautiful nurse lady Agnes von Kurowsky, but their relationship ended when he returned to Oak Park in 1919.

In Oak Park, he attempted to write his first fiction but it was not accepted. He didn't stay long in his hometown, and went on to work to write for The Toronto Star Weekly in Toronto. It was here, in 1920, that he met Hadley Richardson and married her in 1921. In addition, his wife convinced him to accept Toronto Daily Star's offer for a journalist work to cover Europe. In Europe, he observed the Greek and Turkish war, and met famous writers such as Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and especially F. Scott Fitzgerald whom he made friends with in Paris. This is a significat moment in his life as he went on to produce his most important works between 1923 and 1929 which made him famous.

Hemingway published Three Stories and Ten Poems in Paris in 1923. The work reflects the influence of Gertrude Stien and Sherwood Anderson in the three stories, but his self-written poetry were not as impressive. Three Stories and Ten Poems fell into the hands of a prominent critic that pushed forward Hemingway's reputation. When Hemingway returned to the United States, he finished working on his first novel in his home country titled In Our Time in 1925. The published novel incorporated the stories from the sketch edition of In Our Time (1924) and Three Stories and Ten Poems, reformed and added to the longer, improved version. In Our Time focuses on a character, young man named Nick that inherits the author's characteristics, and his experience in Italy during World War I. The novel also includes a short story of Nick falling in love with a nurse in a hospital, which becomes a full-time plot in A Farewell to Arms.

He then published The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises. The latter, more importantly, is a statement in favor of the Lost Generation or the generation effected by the Great War. The Sun Also Rises is very signficant, not only popularizing bull fighting events fromSpain to english-speaking countries, but expressed how a group friends dealt with life after thewar. His characters had a life with no goals or future, but simply lived - however, it was the density of characteristics of these personages which the readers admired. The Torrents of Spring is his actual first novel in the U.S. but denied by Boni and Livewright publishers because it made a travesty of their greatestwriter Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway's close friend. Many scholars believed that Hemingway did this because some thought of him as Anderson's desciple but he wanted a man of his own; it worked.

Hemingway's final work in the 20s is the novel A Farewell to Arms. This is Hemingway's Romeo and Juliet, as he called it. It was kind of an autobiography of Hemingway, but it has the elements of fiction. The success of this work secured Hemingway's reputation brought by The Sun Also Rises. When A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929, it sparked a small controversy pertaining to the plot. Everyone were confounded; what kind of protagonist in a war novel is a deserter rather than a hero? Despite this trend, it made Ernest Hemingway extremely famous, considering that the novel became a film in 1932. Do not err though, for his fame was the product of his simplicity and concise prose found in his style.

What is most important about his style was experience. With this element, it made his novels honest and authentic. Hemingway experienced World War I, Spanish bull fights, women, and traveled to different parts of Europe. Without this element, any kind of writing that focus on a certain subject without the backup of experience, is void! This was the key, which many writers of a later generation, owe to Hemingway. One can argue that most of his writings talks about death, but his name and influence lives on in literature. One of the most eminent writer in America, Ernest Hemingway.