EARLY HEMINGWAY

I have been reading some early Hemingway that I never read before. I used to agree with the late avant-garde writer Ron Sukenick that Hemingway was an overgrown boy scout. I didn't want to read how to put up a tent or how to cross-country ski or how to catch a catfish.

But lately I've been reading some early Nick Adams stories, and frankly some of them don't make much sense. At least to me. But what do I know?

In one story, "Indian Camp," Nick goes with his father, a doctor, to deliver a baby by Cesarean section, of an Indian woman off in the woods. They go there across a lake, by rowboat, and the woman is on a bunk in a shanty. She is screaming in pain, and the baby is breech.

They boil water and the doc uses a jack knife and he seems to do a good job. So the baby and the mother are safe. Whew, a relief.

But then, they discover that the squaw's husband is dead, in the upper bunk, his throat cut from ear to ear. They assume he committed suicide.

I don't get the point. This event doesn't make sense to me, in its symbolic action. What is Hem trying to say here? And how do you cut your own throat? Seems dubious to me.

Then there is some dialogue between Nick and his dad about suicide and dying. None of it seems meaningful. It seems flat.

Nick asks his dad if dying is hard. His dad says, "No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends."  

Huh? So what?

The whole story seems pointless. Several of these stories are like that. Maybe the genius is there, but I don't see it.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle