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The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Angst, Authorship, Critics: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Angst, Authorship, Critics: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself (view source)
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{{quote|He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and his duty was to write of it; but now he never would.{{sfn|Hemingway|2003|p=17}} }} | {{quote|He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and his duty was to write of it; but now he never would.{{sfn|Hemingway|2003|p=17}} }} | ||
“Snows” is a complex and beautifully told story, certainly one of Hemingway’s best. The structure, however, seems fragmented and the tone is dark.{{efn|Kenneth Johnston suggests that Hemingway wrote the story “to exorcise his guilt feelings for having neglected his serious writing.”{{sfn| | “Snows” is a complex and beautifully told story, certainly one of Hemingway’s best. The structure, however, seems fragmented and the tone is dark.{{efn|Kenneth Johnston suggests that Hemingway wrote the story “to exorcise his guilt feelings for having neglected his serious writing.”{{sfn|Johnston|1984|p=223}} He reminds us that Hemingway had published no novel since ''A Farewell to Arms'' (1929) and not much short fiction. The critics were not kind.}} So, what is happening? This story is a tale not of what is but of ''what might have been''. To use Jennifer Harding’s useful term, the story is all about ''counterfactuals''. | ||
{{quote|The central theme of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” I believe, is the exploration of unrealized alternatives and the coincident judgments of these alternatives by characters, narrator, and implied author. The explorations of “what might have been”—which appear in some form in every section of “Snows”—unite the story’s fragments and provide the key to its total thematic effect, inviting the reader to participate in the process of judgment.{{sfn|Harding|2011|pp=21–22}} }} | {{quote|The central theme of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” I believe, is the exploration of unrealized alternatives and the coincident judgments of these alternatives by characters, narrator, and implied author. The explorations of “what might have been”—which appear in some form in every section of “Snows”—unite the story’s fragments and provide the key to its total thematic effect, inviting the reader to participate in the process of judgment.{{sfn|Harding|2011|pp=21–22}} }} | ||