“I do not really trust the frank and simple-hearted bachelors …” – so can any respectable person say when he hears the usual talks “for life”. But these words belong not only to a respectable person, but to Ernest Hemingway themselves, more precisely to one of his heroes. And if you do not really need to talk about basil music, then the classic of American prose does not believe one generation of readers, since both the author and his characters are real. Just three books, and the reader will look into life, which was about 100 years ago, will draw parallels and feel the taste of lost illusions or passionate kiss. So let’s go: three books – three trips to the world of Hemingway
“Fiesta. And the sun descends ” Ernest Hemingway
Why do writers become classics? Perhaps the answers to these questions need to be sought by literary critics, and every generation of readers simply opens a close and understandable world created by the author. The heroes of the Hemingway novel meet on a daily basis in the streets of the distant geographically and chronologically (a novel written in 1925) of Paris, but their feelings are close to those who survived the horrors of war and the bitterness of postwar years. The “lost generation” of the 1920s pours strong drinks a real disappointment and despair in an attempt to adapt to a peaceful life. True feelings, sincere emotions and inner balance are what they are looking for but do not find. Or they find and can not hold on, thinking about the trials of effort. Bright, accurate and absolutely realistic sketches from the life of the heroes – a characteristic “Hemingway style” – give readers the pleasure to feel (if only imagined) on the nightly Parisian streets, in restaurants and cafes, to breathe the mountain air of the Pyrenees (of course, conditionally, but Being full of enthusiasm), to shudder from the ecstasy of the crowd in the battles of bulls … And to be disappointed with the heroes of Hemingway. But tomorrow will again be fiesta, which means that the sun will come, there will be a new day, and with it a new hope.
“Farewell, Weapon!”
I wonder how many people have read the novel, how many scholars have researched it? For some reason, it recalls the winged saying of Tolstoy: “All happy families are similar to each other, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But now it’s not about the philosophical notion of family happiness, now about perception. Everyone who took on the novel of an American skeptic and realist, is his Hemingway. Understanding the logic of world perception of a person who survived the war, may not all. But to feel the bitterness, pain, hardness of the heart … Like the heroes, the author felt it all himself, so so sincerely and naturally described everything that happened to the heroes. As a telegraph tape is swift and as a stream of consciousness is fluid, the Hemingway style cuts readers’ consciousness into pieces. And only love saves from the fears and the horror that brings the war.
“Ernest Hemingway. Life’s Artifacts” Michael Katakis
Letters, photos, memories – all this is in the book by Michael Katakis on the life of Hemingway. Writer and photographer Michael Katakis became the editor of the literary heritage of American classics shortly after meeting with the son of Hemingway. For two years, Katakis collected the memories of his contemporaries, receiving the “blessing” of Hemingway’s son, Patrick, in the form of a preface to the book. And no matter how much the works of the great Hema were researched, but the stories and memories of those who personally communicated with the writer create a portrait of us not only one of the most mysterious writers of his century, but a person. Of the 11,000 photos stored at J. Kennedy’s library, only 400 were found on the book’s pages, but which ones! 30 years of dating with the son of Hemingway and the maximum immersion in the creative legacy of a legend made Michael Katakis create a full-fledged biography, with which Ukrainian readers were able to meet in September, although in the home of Hemingway the book was published only in October. If you have not yet discovered Hemingway, get acquainted with it using the book of Katakis. And then Hemingway will necessarily enter into your life.
These and other books are waiting for you at the “Lviv Chocolate Workshop” at the address: Zhytomyr, 7, Peremohy Square. Immerse yourself into new world!
Translated by Aliona Matushevich
