A decorated Korean War fighter pilot, James Salter is a formidable artist in his own right; his 'Burning the Days' and 'A Sport and a Pastime' are superb. In many respects, Salter is more Hemingwayesque than the subject.
I do not know anything about Salter, but I do love my Hemingway. Growing up in rather sheltered environments, I used to read Hemingway to get some insight into the way that men think. I wasn't happy about his promiscuity or about his chauvenism, but I loved him anyway like a too-loyal wife. I believe that I have read all of his novels, but, strangely enough, I hated, "The Old Man and the Sea" that won the Pulitzer. For me, it dragged on, and on, but I must re-read it as an adult. The other area where we differed was his love of cats, while I am seriously allergic. Now, his house in Key West is full of cats bred from the original Hemingway cats. I am not happy with the way in which my "macho man" killed himself; but he spent time in Japan, "The Snows Of Kilmanjaro" and perhaps he thought it was the honorable way to die-everything is relative. The noble simplicity of his writing has been much admired and much copied. Ironically, I did not cut this comment short!
A decorated Korean War fighter pilot, James Salter is a formidable artist in his own right; his 'Burning the Days' and 'A Sport and a Pastime' are superb. In many respects, Salter is more Hemingwayesque than the subject.
ReplyDeleteI do not know anything about Salter, but I do love my Hemingway. Growing up in rather sheltered environments, I used to read Hemingway to get some insight into the way that men think. I wasn't happy about his promiscuity or about his chauvenism, but I loved him anyway like a too-loyal wife. I believe that I have read all of his novels, but, strangely enough, I hated, "The Old Man and the Sea" that won the Pulitzer. For me, it dragged on, and on, but I must re-read it as an adult. The other area where we differed was his love of cats, while I am seriously allergic. Now, his house in Key West is full of cats bred from the original Hemingway cats. I am not happy with the way in which my "macho man" killed himself; but he spent time in Japan, "The Snows Of Kilmanjaro" and perhaps he thought it was the honorable way to die-everything is relative. The noble simplicity of his writing has been much admired and much copied. Ironically, I did not cut this comment short!
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