Comments on: America’s Most Commodified: Ernest Hemingway

By: Some Comments on the Impressiveness of a Certain Photograph of Ernest Hemingway « biblioklept

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 04:28:01 +0000

[...] famous at this point for his image than his actual work, get over it. In fact, I’ve already been there and gotten over it. On to the [...]

By: Truegen

Truegen — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:41:46 +0000

For more information on Ernest Hemingway, visit this great web site: Timeless Hemingway.

By: bob tomorrowland

bob tomorrowland — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 02:31:02 +0000

“Commodification results in a kind of lazy cultural shorthand that pre-empts the need to actually read the author and discuss their works: the author instead becomes a signifier of an abstracted ideal, a rubric of adjectives that the consumer can use to “identify” with their own life.”

Music to my ears, Ed. Keep on keeping on.

By: teamgaia

teamgaia — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 21:20:36 +0000

re: “farewell to arms” – i totally agree. escape fantasy.

embarrassingly, i forgot about hunter s. thompson and bukowski. HST’s crusher-style hat, red tinted glasses and cigarette holder are fast becoming as emblematic as Nietzsche’s ‘stache and Hemingway’s beard-o’er-turtleneck. and that’s pretty interesting, given that a whole generation of kids are VERY familiar with the film adaptation of “Fear and Loathing…” yet haven’t read the novel or “The Great Shark Hun” or his short pieces for any number of magazines printed over the years. and yet, the Depp character of that movie is becoming the icon. why think about the searing criticism of the political cads of the 60′s when you’ve got a handsome Pirate driving a sharkfin convertible through the center of a technicolor midfuck?

By: ed biblioklept

ed biblioklept — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:53:40 +0000

first, i’m glad that i’m not the only person with this type of (exasperating) experience, so thanks phil!
second, longlunch (or is it ms. gaia?) your post is excellent. i totally agree with you that hemingway is an easy commodity (however he’s certainly not the only one–consider shakespeare). and i agree with you too that it’s hard to see who the next literary icon-cum-archetype will be…
i would completely rule out guys whose work represents a brand or a franchise, like grisham and clancy and stephen king–these guys are great at churning out stuff that plays well as a film–but they lack the persona of someone like bukowski or henry miller or hunter s. thompson. anne rice? i forgot about her conversion to christianity. does that help or hurt?
if i come off as ragging on hemingway, i will point out that “a clean well-lighted place” is still one of my favorite short stories. on the whole though, i think hemingway’s reading doesn’t hold up well to a lot of contemporary reading styles–by this i mean that all of the perspectives are very much The White Man in Charge. i reread “a farewell to arms” a few years ago; i remember having loved the book in high school. i realized though that all the loss and emptiness at the end, all the “nothing” that passes for existential philosophy is really just an escape fantasy, a chance to abandon wife and child and go on some other (infantile and destructive) adventure.

By: teamgaia

teamgaia — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:52:32 +0000

While far from being great writers, I think you stand a better chance of seeing guys like Tom Clancy and…um…the guy who wrote The Firm and The Pelican Brief sold as commodities in the future moreso than any “great” writer of today. In fact, I’d venture to say that Hemingway may be the only example that one could ever find of an author’s widespread commodification.

In your first post, you brought up Nietzsche as an example of a writer / philosopher whose complex ideas have been distilled into an erroneously construed set of popular expectations. In the way that his positivity and romantic ideas about mankind have been distorted, his work is somewhat cheapened. Yet, this is vastly different than having a chair or sheets or playing cards or any number of bars named after you.

The thing is, Hemingway was as much a symbol of consumption and material advancement as he was for anything else. In fact, the aesthetic associated with him has far outlasted the merits of any one of his books. Whereas Nietzsche gives us insight, Hemingway, with his everpresent themes of loss and detachment — sexually, emotionally, et al. — gives us nothing but escapism. Ultimately, because it’s very easy NOT to read the more complex subtext in his work, his work is appealing to the fraternity set in the same way that any thoughtless action movie would be.

That said, I would still consider myself a “fan” of Hemingway’s. While I don’t go in for the safari shit or the Key West shit or the depressing scenes of Spain at siesta shit, I admire his writing style. And I think that on a pop-lit level, that’s what he’ll be remembered for the most. He’s easy to read, his stories are about stuff that a lot of guys like to do (drink, fish, complain about women) and, as his appearance resembles that of Santa Claus, he seems completely trustable. So, I doubt we’re looking at some kind of archetype to be repeated. Instead, I see the same commercialism at play with Hemingway that I do with the icons of Elvis, Marilyn, Einstein, etc.

By: PSC

PSC — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:11:48 +0000

lol…My mother in law purchased a Hemingway chair for us years ago (it now resides in our junk/weight room):

“This chair is a genuine Hemingway chair! It cost a lot of money. You know, he is a great writer, definitely my favorite!”

“Really? Which book did you like the best?”

“Oh, um…The Grapes of Wrath was my favorite!”

[......????]

Phil