A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
A man can be destroyed, but never defeated.
—Hemingway
He had a reputation: his works are still celebrated to this day;
He had money: his royalties made him a rich man;
He had honors: his writings made him a Nobel laureate;
But shortly after he won the prize, he ended his life at the age of 62 with a shotgun.
He was Ernest Miller Hemingway. As one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, his work was distinctive and unique at the time. His first novel, The Sun Also Rises, was published in 1926 and immediately became a classic. This was followed by Farewell, Weapon (1929), For Whom the Death Knell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952). In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature for The Old Man and the Sea.
In his lifetime, he wrote thirteen novellas, more than eighty short stories, a screenplay, and some poetry.
Born in 1899 in Oak Park near Chicago, Hemingway's parents were healthy, hard-working, and capable people who were well educated, versatile, and well-adapted to the society in which they lived. They are grateful for the legacy of European culture they have inherited, but at the same time they are proud to realize that the United States has successfully transformed this legacy.
Hemingway's father was a brilliant physician who also enjoyed hunting, shooting, fishing, sailing, camping, and adventure. He has the complete wilderness survival skills of a forester and has taught them to his son.
Hemingway's mother was very intelligent, strong-willed, and accomplished in many ways. She reads widely, writes beautiful prose and exquisite verses, draws, designs and makes furniture, sings well, plays different instruments, and writes and publishes original songs. The parents not only pass on to their children all the cultural heritage they have received, but also add something new.
Hemingway was the eldest son and the most beloved. In many ways, Hemingway's parents were exemplary parents, and Hemingway also developed his own high reading and literary talents, as well as a skilled sports enthusiast and all-round athlete.
From an early age, Hemingway refused to accept his parents' religion, and he had no desire to be the kind of son his parents wanted. As a teenager, Hemingway seemed to have made up his mind, and was very determined, intending to develop with his talents and all his hobbies. He wanted to be both a celebrity and a happy life. It is a romantic, literary idea, and to some extent moralized, but with no religious content in it. Hemingway's rejection of religion was characteristic of adolescent intellectuals, and it was part of his rejection of his parents' moral culture.
The story is long, but Hemingway's literature and achievements are recognized, why did he finally choose to end his life?
His last photograph was of a walk near a home he bought in Idaho, and the sad expression was self-evident. Even so, he was still standing, still alive; but he could no longer think. His father committed suicide out of fear of suffering from a fatal illness. Hemingway feared, however, that his illness was not fatal: on July 2, 1961, after ineffective treatment for depression and paranoia, he loaded two shotguns into his best British double-barreled shotgun and blew his entire skull cover away.
Why did Hemingway long for death? This phenomenon is not uncommon among writers. Hemingway created his own code based on honor, authenticity and loyalty. He turned his back on all aspects of this code, and this code also turned his back on him, and perhaps more seriously, he felt that he had turned his back on his art. Hemingway had many serious faults, but there was one thing he never lacked: artistic honesty. It was like a lighthouse illuminating his life. The task he set for himself was to create a new approach to English writing and fiction writing; he found success. This was one of the great events in the history of our language, and now it is an indispensable part of our language. He poured great, creative skill, energy and patience into the task. The task itself was difficult, but much more difficult, as he found, was to maintain the high standards of creation he himself had established.
This was already clear to him in the mid-1930s, which also exacerbated his usual depression. Since then, his short stories have rarely succeeded and deteriorated. If Hemingway had been a little less artist, this kind of thing might not have been very important to him, as a man; he could have written and published inferior novels, as many writers have done. But when what he wrote couldn't keep up with his best work, he knew his knowledge was no longer up to his mark. Then he asked for help with alcohol, even during working hours. In the 1920s, Hemingway was first seen writing with a glass of St James' brand of rum in front of him. This habit is initially done occasionally, then becomes intermittent, and then cannot be changed. It is said that in the 1940s, he woke up at 4:30 a.m. and "usually immediately began drinking while standing and writing, with a pencil in one hand and a wine glass in the other". The impact this had on his work was entirely conceivable and disastrous. An experienced editor can always discern works written with the help of alcohol, no matter how talented the author is.
Hemingway was a man killed by his own art, and the lesson of his life is worth learning from all intellectuals: art alone is not enough.
Hemingway's book Farewell, Weapon,
Originally written as A Farewell to Arms.
Arms, in English, has both weapons, strength, metaphors for war, but also arm bends, hugs, metaphors for love.
And this is also the two main lines of the book, both farewell to war and love.
Unfortunately, we were unable to find a similar pun in Chinese.
The above general content is excerpted from "Intellectuals"
Tower of Babel BOOKS well-known cultural brand. The future is a height.