For whom the bell tolls

A few weeks ago I was at a friend’s house and saw a book of short stories by Ernest Hemingway on the shelf. “Is he good?” I asked. I’d never really been a fan. I knew him more by his reputation as drunk, a womaniser and adventurer, than as a writer. Perhaps he is most famous for popularising running with the bulls in Pamplona. He was a writer loved by my father’s generation and a “man’s man” – together enough to put me off for a long time.

I borrowed the book and - as I was going through a phase of insomnia – hardly put it down for a week. He is such a skilful and minimalist writer. He writes well about places – whether the lakes of Michigan, the Alps, or the African veld - capturing their feel in a few words. He imbues his stories with suspense and plays beautifully with social tensions – between men and women, the young and the old and particularly between the working and “leisured” classes. He is certainly not PC. His stories focus on drinking, whoring, war stories and big game hunting. But that doesn’t make them any less insightful, or any less telling of human dynamics. My favourite in the short stories was “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber:” a tale of fear, loathing, adultery and murder on an African game shoot. It’s kind of exciting to find a new (to me) master writer. I hope his novels are as good as his short stories.

Hemmingway once bet his colleagues that he could write a short story in six words. They took the bet and lost. Here’s the story:
“For sale. Baby’s shoes. Never worn.”
He thought it was his best piece of writing. Ever.
Wired recently ran an article inviting leading contemporary writers to do the same. None came close to capturing my imagination with so few words.