Brilliant analysis here, Blaise. I especially liked your inclusion of Hemingway's op-ed piece about the veterans sent to Florida--I had no idea about any of that, and it's always fascinating to read a writer's nonfiction alongside their fiction.
I too was piqued by the Labor Day hurricane reporting. Interesting how much macho myth-making was built on delicate feelings towards the dispossessed (dispossessed men, we should say). And it's a testament to his God's-eye gifts that he also had the imaginative/empathetic range to sketch out characters like the grain broker. Guess two hundred pieces of shrapnel have a tendency to disincline a person away from political/economic ideology, and pay mind instead to the human costs those beliefs exact.
Love how you brought the Keys into Litverse again, too. Made me want to sip a mint julep on a veranda and write until my hand gives out.
Haha... got another one incoming about Henry Flagler and the railroad that got wiped out in the hurricane later this month! Thanks for the love, as always.
Brilliant analysis here, Blaise. I especially liked your inclusion of Hemingway's op-ed piece about the veterans sent to Florida--I had no idea about any of that, and it's always fascinating to read a writer's nonfiction alongside their fiction.
I too was piqued by the Labor Day hurricane reporting. Interesting how much macho myth-making was built on delicate feelings towards the dispossessed (dispossessed men, we should say). And it's a testament to his God's-eye gifts that he also had the imaginative/empathetic range to sketch out characters like the grain broker. Guess two hundred pieces of shrapnel have a tendency to disincline a person away from political/economic ideology, and pay mind instead to the human costs those beliefs exact.
Love how you brought the Keys into Litverse again, too. Made me want to sip a mint julep on a veranda and write until my hand gives out.
Haha... got another one incoming about Henry Flagler and the railroad that got wiped out in the hurricane later this month! Thanks for the love, as always.