quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Overwritten? I could not possibly disagree more. Hemingway was a master of trimming the fat from his stories. Some of his stories, it is clear that parts have been edited out of the original manuscript, as you will see below.

Here is the beginning of A Moveable Feast. In the very first sentence, it is clear that Hemingway has trimmed his story. He actually opens in mid-thought.

To wit:

Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall
was over. We would have to shut the windows in the night against the
rain and the cold wind would strip the leaves from the trees in the Place
Contrescarpe. The leaves lay sodden in the rain and the wind drove the
rain against the big green autobus at the terminal and the Café des
Amateurs was crowded and the windows misted over from the heat and
the smoke inside. It was a sad, evilly run café where the drunkards of the
quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of
dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness. The men and women who
frequented the Amateurs stayed drunk all of the time, or all of the time
they could afford it, mostly on wine which they bought by the half-liter
or liter. Many strangely named apéritifs were advertised, but few people
could afford them except as a foundation to build their wine drunks on.
The women drunkards were called poivrottes which meant female
rummies.

Forgive me, gentlemen, but in ths case, I have to say "Pearls before swine" though it is not my intention to project porcine personalities upon your persons.

I have a soft spot in my heart for A Moveable Feast. I was lucky enough in my youth to spend a summer traveling around Europe, and a couple weeks was in Paris. Hemingway was already my favorite writer, so Hemingway writing about his youth in Paris was a natural. A Moveable Feast was one of the books I brought to read on the plane trip over. Have revisited it several times in the intervening years. Still love it.

Across The River And Into The Trees is another favorite for similar reasons. But that was a different trip when I was older, as Hemingway was older when he wrote it. Not his best work, but a sentimental favorite nonetheless. And, yes, I stopped in at Harry's Bar in Venice to toast the man.

Titles. Another reason to love Hemingway. Short stories or novels; he took his titles seriously, and it showed. He's got some great titles, and they usually seem to express the essence of the work, or at least characterize an important element, just the way a title should. I love his titles.