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: : : : I've always wanted to make the pont that up until the time he wrote this : : : : I don't belive that Hemingway ever "hunted a man," : : : : either in anger or in war. He goes on the say in the article that : : : : once you hunt something big, e.g., an elephant, hunting something : : : : smaller is not as satisfying. And that for himself, once he started : : : : fishing for marlin in the Gulf Stream, no other type of fishing : : : : was quite as good. : : : : Thanks : : : : Pjk : : : I wonder about Hemingway. In a way, he's a minimalist, i.e., in the way he writes "simply" without all the characters and events that complicate a story. Pjk mentions Malraux, farther down in this message board. Malraux complicated things, but Hemingway does not. Yet, here we have Pjk pointing out that Hemingway was easily disatisfied, once he had hunted an elephant or fished for a marlin. It seems he was always going for the big symbol, the thing that would represent it all, whether in a brief, beautiful short story, or in the big animal that he hunted or fished. I guess, where I have my reservations is in Hemingway's "monumentalism", i.e., he seems to have worshipped the "big", the big elephant, the big marlin. The Big Experience. I wonder if he really ever knew the quiet at the center of his being. Zak : : : : Obviously Hem liked to live life large, always looking for the big elephant, the elusive kudu, the largest marlin, the perfect bullfight. But as Jane points out in reference to A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Hem was very well aware of the little moments, the quiet moments; possibly it is the little moments within the big moments that define one's character. Grace under pressure. The quiet at the center of being. The focus of the fishing trip in the Bimini section of Islands in the Stream is not the action of the catch (despite its excitement) but David: how he handles catching the fish, his maturation from boy to man, as evidenced by the concern of those on board. : : Did Hem ever know the quiet at the center of his being? Probably more than he cared to. Was he ever comfortable with it? Obviously not. He was an insomniac, horribly depressed and empty after finishing a book, terribly insecure with his women to the point of threatening suicide, and of course, blew his head off when he realized that he could not remember what he needed to and wouldn't be able to write it if he did. The quiet at the center of his being. : : Matt M. : This last part about "Did Hemingway ever know the quiet...?" IMO the answer is yes, : Hemingway was very introspective, about himself, about other people, but especially : about his work. But "HEMINGWAY BAGS BULL ELEPHANT" or "HEMINGAY FIGHTS GIANT MARLIN" : or "ORDONEZ DEDICATES BULL'S EAR TO HEMINGWAY" make better headlines when other people : wrote about him. This is hinted at in the article "Sights of Whitehead Street: A Key : West Letter" in which he tells of the problems of being a "tourist attraction" on the : island. And I've been thinking that if you wanted to demonstrate the difference between : Hemingway the writer and Hemingway the everything else, look at the difference between : Harpo Marx the harpist and Harpo Marx the everything else. There seems never to have been : a more rapt musician and Harpo when he was playing, as if there were nothing else in the : world, and Harpo the prankster puttin ghis leg into someone else's hand. Was Harpo ever : introspective? Yes, when he was playing. Was Hemingway? : hth : Pjk :

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