Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was one of the best known American writers. He was born in 1899. his native city is Illinois. He did not stay there all his life, however. Cuba and Paris became his adopted homes. Of course he lived in the USA as well. Apart from this he undertook many expeditions to Africa where he hunted wild game.
Ernest Hemingway worked as a newspaper reporter. That is also why he was interested in public affairs.
During the First World War he served in a hospital unit. During the Spanish Civil War he remained in Spain as a war correspondent. His life was interesting and full of adventures.
Ernest Hemingway belonged to the group of writers and artists that called themselves “the lost generation”. Hemingways work includes a social critique and the atmosphere of public life. He tended to naturalism. He used a language that was concise, understandable as well as literary. His books are characterised by frequent monologues.
During his life he loved hunting, bullfighting and fishing. His life was varied and wild. His books reflect that.
For whom the bell tolls – he reacted to the Spanish Civil War by celebrating mankind. He pointed to the danger that threatened everyone. He described three days of the American volunteer Jordan and his relationship with the Spanish girl Maria.
The old man and the sea – the setting of this novel is Cuba, the city of Havana and later on the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. The action covers a very short period of time.
The idea was the lastingness of human life and its timeless calling: man can be destroyed but not defeated. The author pointed out the human dependence on nature and the mutual permanent struggle between the two. According to Ernest Hemingway it is not possible to gain mastery over nature.
All this is symbolised by the positions of the little boy and the old man, the gap between generations, the search and discovery for something new. Man carries victory hidden inside him.
The action concerns an old Cuban fisherman Santiago, who went out to sea to catch fish. Manoli is the boy who used to go with him as his helper. For forty days they had no luck, they did not catch even a single fish. For this reason the boys parents forbade him to go out to sea with the old man any more. Santiago had to catch fish on his own.
One day he recognised that it is exactly eighty-four days since he last caught a fish. He went fishing. Suddenly something bit. It was a big fish that dragged the old man along the sea with it for several days. But Santiago won.
On the way home, sharks swam by the ship several times an ate the fish. Only a skeleton of the bog fish remained. The boy was sad at the bad luck of his friend so he decided to join him at sea again.
A Farewell to Arms – Frederic Henry is the hero of this book. He is a disciplined and courageous person, but he feels detached from life. He is a young American ambulance driver with the Italian army in the First World War. Frederic Henry meets a beautiful Red Cross nurse called Catherine Barkley. Henry tries to seduce Catherine. But it is not until he gets wounded in the leg by a trench mortar shell and is taken to a hospital in Milan to convalesce, that he meets up with Catherine again who is working at the hospital.
Henry and Catherine begin a passionate affair but he has to leave Catherine when he is better to return to the battle and the war front.
Henry decides to desert the Italian Army, knowing he faces certain death. He reunites with Catherine who is pregnant with his child.
They escape to Switzerland, which is a neutral country and not involved in the war. They spend a happy time in Switzerland. They plan to marry after the baby is born. He attempts an unsuccessful Caesarian section and Catherine dies in childbirth.
Other books include: The Green Hills of Africa, Death in the Afternoon, The Fifth Column, etc.
 In 1954 Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
I read The Old man and the sea. Its interesting and instructive book.