Midwest Monday: Ernest Hemingway

Via.

The first thing I ever read by Ernest Hemingway was one of his short stories, titled "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." My sophomore English teacher handed it to me, and given my total and absolute dislike of the man (my English teacher), I barely glanced over the story. I didn't even know that Hemingway had written it until two years later.

My senior year of English, we read For Whom the Bell Tolls, and although I wasn't totally sold on it, I thought that Hemingway was a pretty interesting guy; I mean, he had survived two plane crashes, was married four times, and had a home with six-toed cats. Also, he wrote for The Kansas City Star. Which, to be honest, was a pretty unexpected thing to hear. (I am from KC. I love The Star, but it is not the New York Times by any stretch of the imagination.)

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago). His family owned a summer home in Michigan, where his passion for the outdoors and wild/rustic lifestyles began. When he graduated from high school, he moved to Kansas City, MO, where he worked as a cub reporter for The Star.

Hemingway wasn't on the staff of The Star long, but while there he used The Star's style guide as the foundation for his writing. Below are quotes pulled from the Star stylebook that Hemingway once referred to as, "the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing."

• "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative."
• "Never use old slang." (Well, I'm f*cked.)
• "Eliminate every superfluous word."

Hemingway's ties to Kansas City were further alluded to in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. The protagonist of the novel, Jake Barnes, is a reporter from Kansas City. While this background is just that - background - I feel like there was some sort of acknowledgement on Hemingway's behalf that Kansas City (and the Midwest in general) served as the foundation for his person and his writing.   

If you're interested in reading more, The Kansas City Star has a portion of its website dedicated to Hemingway's time at the Star and his other connections to Kansas City. It's by no means an exhaustive list on Hemingway's connections to the Midwest, but I feel like it's an interesting place to start. 

 (I feel like this was kind of a bare-bones approach to Hemingway, but I don't think there's much more I could have said about him that hasn't been said already.)