Ken Burns “Hemingway” on PBS tonight

We watched part 1 last night and enjoyed it. We are recording the rest as well. I was impressed by the photos of the nurse he fell for during his stay in the hospital during WWI. Agnes Von Kurowski was really a knockout good-looking woman. She shot him down, as she was quite a bit older than he was (26 vs. 19) - calling him "kid" a lot. Her sensitive written dismissal of him broke his heart from all reports, and I can sure understand that. Definitely the quality gal that got away. "A Farewell to Arms" and others of his works were largely based on his sad experience with her, and it was clear that Hemingway could never let her go in his mind.

John

 
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I never read "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and saw the movie long ago. Did I get this right from this 2nd Hemingway episode? That "Robert Jordan" (Gary Cooper) was fighting against Fascist Franco but was also on the side of Stalin who sent forces into Spain to fight Franco? I know nothing of this Civil War, but was Hemingway duped by Stalin to consider him a freedom fighter before WW2? Did he not see the Soviet threat then, or did anyone else during 1936-39 when the civil war occurred? Sorry if my history is off there.
 
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I don't think Jeff Daniels was right as the voice/reader for Hemingway's
statements/observations. In college I used to go to the library's
listening booth and listen to Hemingway reading things he'd written.
(The performance was on a large vinyl record, so it was the dinosaur
era, eh?)

Hemingway had a much rougher and raspier voice than Daniels has.
Just does not sound right to me.
 
I probably read everything Hemingway wrote before I was thirteen. If that was a wasted life I would like to read about someone that led a more interesting one, Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind...different life altogether. Something about Hemingway spoke to me, even as a kid. I've dug around and re read a few of the books I read back when and he still has that way of pulling me into his narrative. I loved Clemens too, theres another interesting sumbitch.
 
Kinman said:
I probably read everything Hemingway wrote before I was thirteen. If that was a wasted life I would like to read about someone that led a more interesting one, Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind...different life altogether.
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There's that Nobel Prize for literature too. I don't think they give those out in Cracker Jack boxes.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954 - NobelPrize.org
 
Wyatt Burp said:
Tonight on our PBS channel (Channel 6 here) they're running the Ken Burns film on Ernest Hemingway at 8:00 Pacific Time if any one's interested. Looks like part one of maybe four tonight. We visited his house in Cuba in 2019 but the film crew here got to walk around and film inside. 1,000s of his books and manuscripts and all his stuff is still there as he left it when Castro confiscated everything, including his famous boat shown here with his dog's graves. And his upper office.
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You should read Hemingway's Guns. Apparently many of them were taken from the home in Cuba
 
When Mrs. Pawncop and I visited his home in Key West several years ago, I bought a copy of the book about his guns. Interesting reading.

Watched the series on PBS, a very complicated individual and while his writing was certainly important his personal life had many lessons on what not to do.
 
We're on the same page..

SMSgt said:
I'll have to catch a replay. I know Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney, who both flew bomber missions over Germany during WWII, did not care for Hemmingway, considering him something of a grandstanding hot dog.
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In the "Documentary" he is said to have considered Patton a "showman", humm!
 
I don't think the idea with authors is that you consume their writings because you "like" the author, the way teenies like pop stars. :)

I read a lot, but I never really got along with Hemingway's style and flow. Definitely not beach reading for entertainment for me. But as the documentary shows, he had both an interesting life (in various ways) and was a milestone in American literature.

As for Ken Burns, the guy had me with "The Civil War". Other good ones were "Lewis&Clark" and "Prohibition". And anybody who can make baseball interesting to a foreigner can make anything interesting.
 
By the way, re: Ken Burns, if you want to see an absolutely pitch-perfect parody, go to Youtube and do a search for "2020: The Newest Ken Burns Documentary".

I'm not going to link to it here, as it mentions a few things that might scratch forum rules. And you may not like the drift. But I was in tears laughing. The flow, the music, the narrative, the voices. They just got Burns.
 
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SMSgt said:
I'll have to catch a replay. I know Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney, who both flew bomber missions over Germany during WWII, did not care for Hemmingway, considering him something of a grandstanding hot dog.
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Walter Cronkite was another "dirt bag". He did all VietNam members a disservice with his reporting that basically turned most folks against the War and Veterans. I hope he is with the Devil.
 
tt66 said:
We watched it last night and have plans to watch the next two episodes. I enjoyed last night, I had no idea of his early travels. I am more interested in his Cuba and Key West days.

My wife is a Hemingway fan, and she likes cats. When we were in Key West a couple of years ago she took the tour of his home just to see his cats. Now we have 2 polydactyl cats of our own. Even though I am not a cat person, they are pretty cool.

Whiskey and Gypsey.
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Well for not being a cat person, I see 3 cats in the one photo you posted. Sorry, but you're hooked.:D
 
My wife taped them all but didn't see them and we'll watch them today. Part of the reason Hemingway's wife chose a house so far from the center of town in Havana was to keep him out of the bars. Yet today there's a bar at the parking lot of the house itself.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyrPfTOqoKY[/ame]
 
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