Getting Started with Nothingness #4

Ernest Miller Hemingway HEM-ing-way July July was an American novelist short-story writer and journalist Known for an economical understated style that influenced later th-century writers he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken blunt public image Some of his seven novels six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature Hemingway was raised in Oak Park Illinois a suburb of Chicago After high school he spent six months as a reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded by shrapnel in In Hemingway moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and was influenced by the modernist writers and artists of the Lost Generation expatriate community His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in In Hemingway returned to the U S where he settled in Key West Florida His experiences during the war supplied material for his novel A Farewell to Arms In Hemingway went to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War which formed the basis for his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls written in Havana Cuba During World War II Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris In his novel The Old Man and the Sea was published to considerable acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction On a trip to Africa Hemingway was seriously injured in two successive plane crashes leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life He committed suicide at his house in Ketchum Idaho in Early life Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July in Oak Park Illinois an affluent suburb just west of Chicago to Clarence Edmonds Hemingway a physician and Grace Hall Hemingway a musician His parents were well-educated and well-respected in Oak Park a conservative community about which resident Frank Lloyd Wright said So many churches for so many good people to go to When Clarence and Grace Hemingway married in they lived with Grace’s father Ernest Miller Hall after whom they named their first son the second of their six children His sister Marcelline preceded him in and his younger siblings were Ursula in Madelaine in Carol in and Leicester in Grace followed the Victorian convention of not differentiating children’s clothing by gender With only a year separating them Ernest and Marcelline resembled one another strongly Grace wanted them to appear as twins so in Ernest’s first three years she kept his hair long and dressed both children in similarly frilly feminine clothing Grace Hemingway was a well-known local musician and taught her reluctant son to play the cello Later he said music lessons contributed to his writing style as evidenced in the contrapuntal structure of For Whom the Bell Tolls As an adult Hemingway professed to hate his mother although they shared similar enthusiastic energies His father Dr Clarence Hemingway taught him woodcraft during the family’s summer sojourns at Windemere on Walloon Lake near Petoskey Michigan where Ernest learned to hunt fish and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan These early experiences instilled in him a life-long passion for outdoor adventure and living in remote or isolated areas Hemingway went to Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park between and where he competed in boxing track and field water polo and football He performed in the school orchestra for two years with his sister Marcelline and received good grades in English During his last two years at high school he edited the school’s newspaper and yearbook the Trapeze and Tabula he imitated the language of popular sportswriters and contributed under the pen name Ring Lardner Jr a nod to Ring Lardner of the Chicago Tribune whose byline was Line O’Type A remembrance garden to honor Hemingway was erected in front of the high school in After leaving high school he went to work for The Kansas City Star as a cub reporter Although he stayed there only for six months the Star’s style guide which stated Use short sentences Use short first paragraphs Use vigorous English Be positive not negative became a foundation for his prose World War I Hemingway wanted to go to war and tried to enlist in the U S Army but was not accepted because he had poor eyesight Instead he volunteered to a Red Cross recruitment effort in December and signed on to be an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross Motor Corps in Italy In May he sailed from New York and arrived in Paris as the city was under bombardment from German artillery That June he arrived at the Italian Front holding the ranks of second lieutenant A R C and sottotenente Italian Army simultaneously On his first day in Milan he was sent to the scene of a munitions factory explosion to join rescuers retrieving the shredded remains of female workers He described the incident in his non-fiction book Death in the Afternoon I remember that after we searched quite thoroughly for the complete dead we collected fragments A few days later he was stationed at Fossalta di Piave On July right after bringing chocolate and cigarettes from the canteen to the men at the front line the group came under mortar fire Hemingway was seriously wounded Despite his wounds he assisted Italian soldiers to safety for which he was decorated with the Italian War Merit Cross Croce al Merito di Guerra and with the Italian Silver Medal of Military Valor Medaglia d’argento al valor militare For his deed he was promoted to first lieutenant A R C and tenente Italian Army He was only at the time Hemingway later said of the incident When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality…