Hemingway penetrates a formidable myth to make room for something true.
Arts and Culture
Myths, received ideas, and ancient controversies tend to obscure the work of a great writer, making it almost superfluous to the legend. This is especially true of Ernest Hemingway, whose myth has proved particularly seductive to those who make movies and commercial television. Hemingway’s work is understood almost entirely in biographical terms, as an extension of his personal virtues or, less charitably, as a product of his pathologies. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s mission, in their three-part, six-hour
Hemingway, airing nationally on PBS affiliates, is to provide a more naturalistic portrait of Hemingway the man and thereby return us to the indelible work itself. They have succeeded marvelously.
Art Burroughe
‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities’ wrote Voltaire.
At Politics in the Pub (Tuesday, 12 January, 2021), Max Igan rampaged across the spectrum of human experience like an inchoate scattergun. He invited us into a tortured, crazed, binary world, reminiscent of Christian apocalypticism, ruled by a ‘sub-species so evil you can’t imagine,’ indulging an insatiable appetite for adrenochrome, ‘brain-juice’ harvested from children. ‘Did reality change, or did they just replace our brains?’ Igan mused, before warning that ‘if “they”
can do it, “they” already done it’. Igan then speculated that the “they” may live somewhere beyond the poles.