The short stories of Ernest Hemingway are masterpieces of modern literature.
In today’s episode of the Hardcore Literature Podcast, we’ll be breaking down, analysing, savouring, appreciating the following Hemingway short stories:
- ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’
- ‘Hills Like White Elephants’
- ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’
We’ll also discuss Hemingway’s theories of writing, and his adventurous and troublesome life.
This is the volume of Ernest Hemingway short stories I recommend.
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (Hardcore Literature Podcast S4 E2)
If you enjoy this show, you might like the Hardcore Literature Book Club.
We’ve got some short story masterclasses for Chekhov, Turgenev, and Maupassant coming up – all writers Hemingway adored – and we’re currently deep reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, an author Hemingway revered and learnt a lot from.
Check out the Book Club here.
It’s all completely self-paced and there’s a great group discussion going on right now. So thank you very much to my patreons. Your comments in the book club have been thrilling, insightful, and inspirational, and your support helps this show continue as membership helps pay for hosting, editing, and time costs.
Timestamps:
- 0:00 the stories we’re discussing today
- 2:35 a technique for reading a Hemingway short story
- 3:20 Hemingway’s legacy and influence
- 4:00 the greatest Hemingway parodies were by Hemingway himself
- 4:30 “a technique in search in a subject”
- 4:50 subtext and the art of ellipsis (leaving things out)
- 5:50 “write one true sentence”
- 8:00 bad advice in the writing community (and writer’s block)
- 8:55 was Hemingway a good novelist?
- 9:30 Hemingway and objective war reporting
- 10:00 the art of the vignette (The Sun Also Rises)
- 10:20 Hemingway the Nobel Prize Winner (The Old Man and the Sea)
- 11:00 did Hemingway really find writing difficult?
- 11:30 the art of compression and omission (the iceberg effect)
- 12:00 Hemingway the hard-boiled poet
- 12:30 Hemingway’s flash fiction: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”
- 13:28 Hemingway’s life and times
- 13:45 Hemingway the war correspondent and journalist
- 15:30 Hemingway’s “boxing” matches: Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev
- 17:00 Hemingway’s fist fight with poet Wallace Stevens
- 18:00 the stereotype of the “masculine” writer
- 18:30 the Hemingway vs Faulkner literary feud
- 21:30 Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, the Lost Generation and Imagist Movement
- 23:00 Hemingway’s hyper-focus on masculinity (Mishima style overcompensation?)
- 24:30 Hemingway’s recommended list of books for writers to read
- 28:00 Ernest Hemingway’s Paris Review Interview
- 29:23 ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’
- 41:35 ‘Hills Like White Elephants’
- 52:56 ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’
- 1:05:00 let me know your thoughts on Hemingway
- 1:05:20 thank you to the Hardcore Literature Book Club Patrons
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