Hemingway

I've not long finished reading A Farewell to Arms and have to admit that I fell for the lucid power of Hemingway's prose. The style is sparse but evocative and the product of a profoundly masculine experience. And that is, of course, the problem - even allowing for the strictures of Barthes in The Death of the Author (which properly posits that an author has no sovereignty over his/her words) it is near impossible to read Hemingway without being affected by his acknowledged brutisness. This is particularly so if one has just seen (and if you haven't you really must - it's on iPlayer) Ken Burns' typically magisterial documentary on the writer's life. Hemingway was a bit of a pig, particularly to his women. He loved bull-fighting, big game hunting, and alcohol. None of this makes him acceptable to modern sensitivities. But good old Barthes had a point - put your preconceptions aside and admire the quality of the writing.