0 Green Hills of Africa (1935)

I recently read Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway for the first time, but I think I recall my parents might have owned a hardcover copy of it. The illustrations in my paperback—called "decorations"—struck familiar chords anyway. I had the impression it was a novel, but it's actually nonfiction, a travel adventure dressed up in some of the clothes of fiction such as the usual Hemingway alternation between description and dialogue. A brief Foreword condescendingly and somewhat pretentiously implies he is working the territory we now call "creative nonfiction," the "nonfiction novel," and/or "new journalism." To be fair, Hemingway was there long before Truman Capote or Norman Mailer. It's possible to make the case for Green Hills as a species of novel, but chiefly it bears comparison to a Hemingway novel, which does reduce its innovation quotient somewhat. My favorite parts were when he talked about, or showed people talking about, reading and literature. Some of the hunting scenes were good too. But as usual Hemingway's awfully huge ego squats in the middle of everything like an overweight gorilla, and stinks up the joint a little. We are made privy to his petty jealousies over the hunting successes of another, perfectly likable man. Hemingway's squeeze on this safari, unbearably referred to as "P.O.M." (we find out what it stands for at the end, but I've forgotten and looking for it is somehow altogether too depressing), is a case study in what has been called—just as unbearably, I admit—"codependency." It's a creepshow. Now I know I've been complaining a lot about Hemingway's stoic, long-suffering shtick, and I suppose I should be happy he is exposing himself warts and all here. But I'm not. And why? Because he seems determined to depict these character flaws as unchangeable facts of life that must be borne under, delving into overly detailed rationalizations. It's the abuser cycle of eruption and contrition, with no sense that it can be dealt with and changed, or even that it's particularly a problem to be addressed, except confessionally. So we are back to the stoic and long-suffering. Even so, if one can look away from that (and you see it's hard for me), there are many lovely passages here, and I certainly enjoyed it more than my recent revisits to the two more celebrated novels.

In case it's not at the library.

Detail: Green Hills of Africa (1935)

0 A Moveable Feast (1964/2009)

In 1975, I might have liked A Moveable Feast best of all the books by Ernest Hemingway I read. But among people I knew who disliked him it was singled out for additional revilement for its various self-aggrandizing qualities. So I wasn't sure what to expect many years later, and after disappointments with revisits to two of his more highly regarded novels. As it turns out, my interest in memoir trumped my growing suspicions that Ernest Hemingway is a charlatan, and I enjoyed it as much I had the first time. It's Hemingway's usual wooden-block alternations between description and dialogue, and his usual stoic nonsense, but it's also gossipy and fun, sometimes malicious (notably his acid treatment of Ford Madox Ford, which is cruel). On that score, Hemingway's description alone of a conversation he overheard between Gertrude Stein and, presumably, Alice B. Toklas, makes the book. His memories of F. Scott Fitzgerald are good too, providing views new for me into Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Hemingway's admiration for The Great Gatsby is so sincere and unqualified—he also praises Tender Is the Night, but I have the impression he was almost in awe of Gatsby. I like how Hemingway judges Fitzgerald as a writer, which in turn makes him willing to put himself through the agonies he describes, trying to be Fitzgerald's friend (and remembering always that the first presumption with Hemingway should probably include acknowledging the usual, and obvious, self-aggrandizement, which is real). I also like everything about Ezra Pound here, starting with his very appearance at all. Mostly he comes across as a kind of well-dressed, well-mannered beatnik, which is interesting. Even more interesting, Hemingway omits any discussion at all of Pound's World War II adventures on the side of the Italian Fascists and the consequences suffered.

On the other hand, noting the multiple dates of publication (and also that Ernest Hemingway died in 1961), I think it has to be said that A Moveable Feast is now officially a mess. Hemingway never felt he had it done before he died, and the first edition was the result of his fourth wife Mary's compositing among the fragments. The latest version from 2009, "The Restored Edition," was composited by Sean Hemingway, Ernest's grandson by his second wife, Pauline; among other things, Sean and his father (another of Ernest's sons) felt Pauline was not treated fairly in the first edition. In fact, the memoir mostly features Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, though there is some discussion (briefer and more elliptical in "The Restored Edition") of their breakup and of Pauline. I'm not about to get into the middle of such internecine conflict. Both editions are essentially the same book, and they are both very good. There might be more material in the latter edition, and I particularly liked the Fragments section appended at the end, where you get a nice feel for how Hemingway worked, like watching multiple takes of the same scene from a movie one after the other. The best way to read A Moveable Feast now just might be to read them both (though note: the earlier one appears to be a little harder to acquire, which is probably only going to get worse).

In case it's not at the library.

Detail: A Moveable Feast (1964/2009)

0 A Farewell to Arms (1929)

If a revisit to The Sun Also Rises was disappointing, A Farewell to Arms was worse. The only redeeming part of it, to at least start with the good, was the war scene of retreat and confusion in the last third, when our faithful narrator must finally jump into the river to escape. The love story I thought was hideous—juvenile, empty, unbelievable. If there are or were women like Catherine Barkley in the world, they are harder now for me to take seriously—that whole stoic, long-suffering, plucky figure seems to me mostly a relic of abandoned values and passé. Seems to be, let me say, as we know that all things pass and all things return again and that's how we do it. But in this post-feminist early 21st century a character like that seems to me irrelevant. The first time I read this, circa 1975, I found the ending moving and touching, and I should say that this time I was again affected by it. All sentiment, of course, because this time I also raged against it on another level—I mean, what obvious manipulative claptrap. He leaves the war, tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. Events defy belief. It's too much. In this novel over and over it is the silently suffering stoic, sucking it all up and never making a peep about the pain. People nowadays may talk too much about pain and emotions—but people of that age certainly did not talk enough. Thus A Farewell to Arms seems to me more than anything else just dated. War is hard, but this story is hard in remarkably uninteresting ways. There are numerous conversations here that include apologies for saying too much, requests to stop saying so much, etc. I like to think that this is all a thing of the past, but we'll know better a hundred years from now. Meanwhile, of course, there are the usual Hemingway strengths, such as they are, some I had not noticed before, or forgotten, such as the extreme brevity of the first chapter, which gives it the feel of a curtain-raising invocation, and brings a kind of initial high that I only wish had been merited by what follows.

In case it's not at the library.

Detail: A Farewell to Arms (1929)

0 The Sun Also Rises (1926)

What I remember best about reading Ernest Hemingway "way back when" was that most of my reading friends disliked him to varying degrees of intensity, and thus he became something of a guilty pleasure for me, whose novels and stories I consumed in great chunks. But since then I have not returned to him much, at least until recently, for various reasons, not least that there was no longer any peer pressure mitigating against liking him. I noticed there were some changes to the blurbs on his books: he now has done "more to change the style of English prose than any other writer in the twentieth century" and is charged with paving the way for Raymond Carver. Thus encouraged, I embarked on his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, which I read first—again, in one great gulp—in 1975 or so, and went through again in the '80s. Even back then I was troubled by the appearance of the word "nigger," and even more, on that score, by the black jazz drummer whose dialogue is reported as "......" Fine—whatever. Allowances need to be made for historical context. Yet it still seemed offensive, because so gratuitous. But fine—leave that alone. I was more than horrified, this time, to find the style of writing dreadfully opaque—straightforward nouns and verbs, yes, but always concerned with superfluities, banal description alternating with banal dialogue. And then the premise. What hokum. I mean, I can handle the heavy-handed symbolism of castration by war. But making the eunuch the narrator? And, worse, the stoic sufferer? Too much. Almost laughable. Then there's the problem of the Lady Brett Ashley, who is thoroughly unlikable. She and the eunuch deserve one another, but it's fairly evident we're intended to find the two of them noble and heroic, or at least indulge their drunkenness as understandable. All right, but I'd preferred they remained passed out for the duration. I understand this novel is considered significant perhaps more for its stylistic, formalistic qualities than as a war novel or any other kind of novel (profligate youth, post-WWI manners, "lost generation," Roaring '20s, whatever). And, right, you can't miss the sizzle and electricity of the language, and I appreciate the connection to Carver. But this is such a simple-minded exercise of unexamined privilege that it mostly trumps all for me now. Enough with the silent heroics. Whine a little, why don't you. You were grievously wounded. For all the acclaimed pellucid qualities of the language it is remarkably ponderous, inflating itself to comical proportions. "......" indeed.

In case it's not at the library.

Detail: The Sun Also Rises (1926)

0 Manhattan (1979)

USA, 96 minutes
Director: Woody Allen
Writers: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
Photography: Gordon Willis
Music: George Gershwin
Editor: Susan E. Morse
Cast: Woody Allen, Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Meryl Streep, Anne Byrne Hoffman, Bella Abzug, Wallace Shawn, Michael O'Donoghue

I was once pleased to call Manhattan my favorite movie, prized above all others, desert island selection (never mind how you play those), etc. By the early '90s and the time of the Woody Allen / Mia Farrow tabloid spectacle I was more interested in forgetting it. In the event of the movie question, I quietly started calling another movie my favorite—City Lights, which has distinctive affinities—and didn't even bother to look at Manhattan again for a very long time.

It's the Tracy character and narrative thread causing the problems, of course, with the awkward (and unmistakable) overtones of predatory sex. I don't actually believe Woody Allen is a pedophile, or anything other than a somewhat boorish and clueless person. I also don't think it's enough to say that his personal life doesn't matter, only the work does. That's a sensible approach and one that mostly works with, say, Roman Polanski. But looking at Manhattan again closely underscores how determinedly Woody Allen interjects himself, on a very personal basis, into the center of his pictures.



Start with the opening sequence, which has claims on a place as one of the greatest movie openings ever. The magnificent climax to George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" plays, and a montage of Gordon Willis's stunning black and white photography unfolds. I have a note to myself asking if this is Willis's greatest movie, and I mean it, though his credits elsewise are boggling (notably the whole Godfather franchise). Long shots of the New York skyline. Skyscrapers. Street scenes. Central Park. New York in winter. New York in spring. An unbelievable shot of Yankee Stadium with a passing train. And then fireworks. It is an amazing, brilliant tone poem, setting the mood perfectly for a love song to a city.

But just ahead of this beautiful mess sits Woody Allen (as Isaac) with his stammering patter and stand-up comic instincts, making cheap gags: "Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.... Oh, I love this.... New York was his town, and it always would be."

That's what struck me most. I was impressed all over again with the photography and music in Manhattan, and by other points as well, such as the complexities and mechanics of the story. It's a narrative worked out well, much better than Allen usually does. Diane Keaton (as Mary) is solid as a rock, as always (especially when working with Allen)—watch how good she is at phone calls. So is Mariel Hemingway (as Tracy)—and for that matter, the Tracy thread is not written to be particularly flattering to Allen. It actually comes with a good deal of sophistication and insight.

But the furshlugginer Woody Allen gags! They do not stop! Here he is early, discussing his own self-declared most profound question of courage: "That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it." Talking with his best friend: "When it comes to relationships with women, I'm the winner of the August Strindberg award." In a fight with an ex-wife (played by Meryl Streep in a delicious turn): "My analyst tried to warn me, but you were so beautiful I got another analyst." Running for shelter with Mary from a sudden storm: "Come on, it's an electrical storm! Do you want to end up in an ashtray?" Discussing Tracy with friends: "I'm 42 and she's 17. I'm older than her father. Can you believe that? I'm dating a girl wherein I can beat up her father." On the way home from a date with Mary: "You look so beautiful I can hardly keep my eye on the meter."

Yes, I understand this is like complaining that Alfred Hitchcock movies are too suspenseful. It was this constant stream of gags as much as anything that appealed to me about Woody Allen movies in the first place, and for a long time. But Manhattan always was something different—far more ambitious, and, indeed, capable of realizing its ambitions. It is an absolutely gorgeous film. There is the famous opening, and nearly as well known a scene in a darkened planetarium museum space with Isaac and Mary getting to know one another, with brilliant use of black space and lines of white to define features, such as Mary's profile. Even small throwaway scenes, such as apartment interiors, are staged and shot memorably.

The story is blithe and chattery but intricately conceived, with a perfect impossible situation at the center of it in the characters of Isaac and Tracy, a story that actually plays out beautifully across the arc of the movie, and doesn't ever really cheat. It is an impossible situation. Isaac knows it and always knows it. Tracy doesn't begin to glean it until the very end. It is likely doomed, but there is still hope. It's a resolution for me on the order of Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, with practically every point in harmony and believable and tied up neat as a bow. That's remarkable for anyone, but especially for Woody Allen.

So one forgives the instinct for gags, perhaps feeling sad noticing again as they come and come and come. But what are you going to do? One of the problems with classic comedy films—this is equally true for me with City Lights now, by the way—is that the magic of the comedy and the laughs can become thin and less predictable, even as stronger elements survive unblemished. I could speculate about the execrable Interiors from just the year before, which was suffocatingly parched of humor, let alone gags. Perhaps Allen felt constrained to bring that element back in.

Or perhaps, almost certainly we know now, it's the only way Woody Allen knows to play anything. So that's how he plays Isaac. Honestly, can you think of anyone else who could have? None of my complaints means he didn't create a stone masterpiece in Manhattan. When all is said and done, and for all my painfully enumerated difficulties with Woody Allen, this remains one of my very favorite movies.

Top 10 of 1979
During my time in the desert vis a vis Manhattan I claimed Apocalypse Now as my favorite of the year, and it is indeed a worthy effort. I don't hesitate to recommend the longer Redux version, though I like to have a copy of the original around too. The first time I saw the Richard Pryor movie is the hardest I have ever laughed anywhere, I believe, and Alien rounds out a very strong first four. After that it's rock 'n' roll movies, plus Cronenberg and Tarkovsky. Final tally: stupendously excellent year (hovering under: The Marriage of Maria Braun, The China Syndrome, Being There, The Black Stallion, Nosferatu the Vampyre).
1. Manhattan
2. Apocalypse Now
3. Richard Pryor: Live in Concert
4. Alien
5. Hair
6. Quadrophenia
7. Rock 'n' Roll High School
8. Stalker
9. The Brood
10. Breaking Away

Didn't like so much: All That Jazz, Kramer vs. Kramer, Mad Max, Quintet, The Tin Drum

Gaps: Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens, Best Boy, Life of Brian, 1941, Real Life

Detail: Manhattan (1979)