Comments on: What would Joe DiMaggio do? – Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea http://waituntilnextyear.com/2010/02/04/what-would-joe-dimaggio-do-hemingways-the-old-man-and-the-sea/ Putting off what could be done tomorrow, today Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:29:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Steve http://waituntilnextyear.com/2010/02/04/what-would-joe-dimaggio-do-hemingways-the-old-man-and-the-sea/#comment-642 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:43:36 +0000 http://waituntilnextyear.net/?p=734#comment-642 Funny about the high school students – when I was at school, many of my essays interpreting books or poems were labelled ‘obscure’, as I often seemed to go off on some sort of symbolic flight of fancy, looking for a deeper meaning. In fact, a lot of subtext was avoided at school. We studied A Streetcar Named Desire and pretty much ignored any possibility of there being a gay subtext. But then again, it was a room full of insecure teenage boys.

I think Hemingway probably was being playful. He seems to be such a careful writer, that it would all be planned out and thought through intently. There is that paradox of being plain-spoken actually creating more mystery.

I guess I think in any book the story should always be the focus, and should be strong enough to harbour any meaning, real or imagined. The real skill of a writer is integrating that meaning so it doesn’t just feel bolted on.

As for if subtext/meaning/symbolism is meant by a writer – I’m not entirely sure if it matters. I think whatever we get out of Art is pretty much valid. But I do think we give artists too much credit sometimes. Chance has to play a part.

Switching media, how many songs have been analysed to death, when the writer just came up with something off the top of their head in fifteen minutes? Or how many paintings have been intently studied that were just created for a commission, or were thrown together in a fit of inspiration with little dedicated thought?

]]> By: Paul http://waituntilnextyear.com/2010/02/04/what-would-joe-dimaggio-do-hemingways-the-old-man-and-the-sea/#comment-641 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:42:42 +0000 http://waituntilnextyear.net/?p=734#comment-641 Ha! Don’t let a high school student read that last quote. That was the perpetual argument, from what I can remember: how do we know they meant to do that? They want to say that writing is just writing, a story is a story, and every author they didn’t read meant nothing greater than the words on the page, the people in the story. I remember being skeptical.

And with Hemingway here, he might be telling us the truth. If he is, wonderful, but he’s not saying anything about writing in general, only this book. It would be dangerous to say that Hemingway speaks for everyone when he says this. We have to give authors credit for intentionally using symbols in order to give the readers a little bit more to chew on.

That being said, I think that in high school, teachers sometimes go a little far in giving the author too much “genius” credit, telling the students that they meant everything the teacher happens to come up with. Can we not just concede, at least a little, that the great authors we read are people, too? Capable of error, not necessarily geniuses all the time? Not every word is the golden breath of God, but we’re sometimes led to believe this.

Hemingway of course could be playful here, inviting people to explore the symbolism in his work. By saying there is no symbol, doesn’t it make us curious to find out if there really is?

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