Almanac of Story Tellers: Ernest Hemingway

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of July 21st

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 202nd day of the year, leaving 163 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1899, the novelist Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Ill.

    He told his stories of machismo and love amidst war in language that begat a style in 20th Century literature: Short, declarative sentences, eschewing modifiers, preferring action over description.

    His life was full of the same exploits he wrote about -- foreign adventures,  traditional manly pursuits such as hard drinking, deep-sea fishing, and bullfighting. He wrote about the courage and glory of men at war, but also about the losses suffered through those actions.

    Hemingway worked as a journalist and war correspondent, although he often participated in the wars he covered as much as he returned dispatches about them.

    He began his career as a reporter in Kansas City, then enlisted in World War I, then moved to France, where he was a war correspondent and writer of  short stories. His debut collection,  In Our Time, was published in Paris before hitting New York.

     His first novel, The Sun Also Rises, is based on his own experiences and begins one of his recurring themes: American and British expats travelling to Spain to watch bullfights. It was not well received at the time, but now is considered one of his finest works.

    He wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls based on his experiences covering the Spanish Civil War. A Farewell to Arms is based on his experiences in World War I. 

    After critics panned his book Across the River and Into the Trees in 1950, Hemingway wrote what may be his greatest novel, The Old Man and the Sea. It was a best seller and won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for literature. Two years later, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, with the committee recognizing the strength of The Old Man and the Sea, and "his mastery of the art of the narrative . . . and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style."

    He died in 1961 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.