A Farewell to Dowd

"I have always been a Fitzgerald girl. What could be more gorgeous than “The Great Gatsby”?  If you perused Hemingway in college in the first flush of feminism, he seemed like a relic. As F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, Hemingway needed a new wife for every big book. And even when he was cheating on a wife with her friend, he painted himself as a victim of predatory and trusting women." Maureen Dowd

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How boring, yet another feminist single woman sniping at "Papa."  I first heard this line of bilge from a college girl long ago when I was more interested in her than in her opinion on literature.  She said that Ernest wrote "divinely" but that his message of masculine inner (and outer) life was unacceptable.  That was it for me.  There were other fish in the sea.  (She married a friend of mine)

I love Hemingway's work.  He, Conrad and Kipling are the most imortant influences on my writing.  His style, described somewhere as the "iceberg theory" is something that I aspire to but have never been able to fulfill in fact because of the constant pressure from readers to be told more.  More!  More!  Nevertheless, an Israeli officer who did me the honor of reading "The Butcher's Cleaver" said that "in some books you have to read between the lines.  In this one you have to read between the words."  I hope so.  Everyone says that Hemingway could write dialogue.  That he could do, but anyone who has read "The Big Two Hearted River" and thinks he has no talent except for dialog is mistaken.

Hemingway can be rough on women.  The message in  "...Francis Macomber" is clearly that of male liberation from a psychologically  "castrating" woman, but, are there no castrating women?

On the other hand, the account of Cantwell's feelings for Renata in "Across the River and Into the Trees" is a symphony dedicated to the essentially hopeless love of a dying older man for a girl so young tht he calls her "daughter."  I think this novel is one of his most underrated works.  He thought so too.  Perhaps that was because he had revealed so much of himself in it.

I am surprised that Dowd would write such a column.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/dowd-a-farewell-to-macho.html?ref=maureendowd

Comments

[Fred]

Sadly it is not "Farewell to Dowd". She's gone downhill and has learned little by reading Hemmingway. I agree with Richard Sales comments on Hemmingway's writing ability. (from To A Young Reader: By Richard Sale)

[Medicine Man]

I'm not surprised; Dowd has issues.

In her own writing, she is quick to set herself up as the arbiter of what is acceptable masculinity. It is especially revealing how readily she will employ misogyny herself when it suits her, especially when critiquing men she disagrees with. It is an interesting device for someone who is allegedly a feminist.

Maybe Hemingway hits too close to home for her?

[rjj]

Dowd is too perfect. I think she is outsources her columns (or maybe rents her byline) to a male misogynist.

[FB Ali]

As a boy, I was overwhelmed by Hemingway's writing. I was a voracious reader, but no other book had such a lasting impact on me as "For Whom the Bell Tolls". On much more than just my writing style! I think some of the choices I made in my life were affected by the experience of reading the book (and watching the original version of the superb movie that Sam Wood made).

[LeaNder]

On the other hand, the account of Cantwell's feelings for Renata in "Across the River and Into the Trees" is a symphony dedicated to the essentially hopeless love of a dying older man for a girl so young tht he calls her "daughter." I think this novel is one of his most underrated works. He thought so too. Perhaps that was because he had revealed so much of himself in it.

Thanks for this comment, Pat. It somehow reminds me of an American playwright, I once studied, who got himself into troubles touching on the Lolita subject, maybe not romantic enough, but at the time the early 80's it was hard to get a copy. Still I remember there was a group of American feminists protesting the play: Women against pornography.

Americas Puritan soul is sometimes not so easy to understand, especially if one encounters the paradox that the three-penny-love stories feeding the female-readers-market a German editor who handled translations once told me, no way this could be translated so directly, it needed distance some erotical layers of silence or secrecy. ...

[LeaNder]

sorry really bad editing:
... paradox ... three-penny-love stories feeding the American female-readers-market is sexually too explicit from a German editor's point of view.