Book Notes: "Ernest Hemingway on Writing" by Larry W. Phillips

Ernest Hemingway on Writing by Larry W. Phillips

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Phillips puts together a collection of quotes from Hemingway's work and also from a number of letters and interviews. I am not sure Hemingway would have been happy about this book, although Mr Hemingway's fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway gave the editor (Phillips) permission to use the various quotes from Hemingway's major works. Phillips' major contribution is putting together Hemingway's thoughts on writing in one convenient place. Other than that, it smacks of someone getting to publish a book simply because the subject is famous. It is a very quick read and I enjoyed reading it, but I was a little disappointed that it is just a series of quotes organised thematically. Worth a read, worth keeping to refer back to, but reading about Hemingway just isn't the same as reading Hemingway.



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Book Notes: "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As Hemingway's first novel, it is certainly beyond my comprehension how he could ever understand so much at the age of 27. I am reluctant to disclose too much for fear of spoilers, but the conclusion to the story is very real. The bullfighting is described in ways that make me want to see one, yet simultaneously I am appalled at the thought. Hemingway seems to have felt the same way. He also describes concussion in a way that can only be described by someone who has suffered several concussions. There are no lies in this work. I am becoming accustomed to the meandering first three-quarters of the typical Hemingway plot. It isn't hard work but it isn't gripping either. He seems to lull you into a comfortable sense of normalcy which doesn't end but the last quarter builds and builds to a climax in the last sentence that unfolds the final emotion. With the conclusion to "A Farewell to Arms" I burst into tears. With this novel I exclaimed, "That fucking sucks!" Hemingway's work is seriously brilliant while incredibly timeless. I am not sure whether it is simply cultural alignment or not, but the connection between the pedestrian and the nostalgic intertwined with the exotic European setting connects one's past to Hemingway's past to the power of two. He takes you to the place he has been and then where he is in the story. I am convinced this is the result of his technique of writing as the protagonist in the first person while excising, completely, the presence of the narrator. Brilliant stuff!



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NBN Co slashes rollout targets due to skills shortages

It's no surprise that NBN Co. has had to revise its roll-out forecast. Centrally-controlled approaches make it difficult to engage multiple businesses at multiple levels and no doubt much of this is a result of the inefficiencies created by one entity trying to deal with many businesses in many locations: it doesn't take much to imagine how difficult it is for one management group to deal with geographically-dispersed groups. As a consequence, NBN Co. has negotiated with other monoliths who experience the same management problems. I have regularly stated that the problem with any centrally-controlled approach is the inefficiency of its necessarily large bureaucracies - it simply takes too long to deliver practical solutions to numerous areas. Today's announcement by NBN Co. confirms this view, and was eluded to by NBN Co. chief Mike Quigley:

The problem is we are just not seeing the ramp up of construction workers on the ground that would be needed to deliver these targets.

Saffire @UC: Flexible Learning Through Original Video Content

There was a cartoonist highlighting major points from our presentations earlier this morning. Here is the caricature of my session:

Here are the two videos I referred to in my presentation today:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxanRmt2syA2N3Y2Vk05NW9FVVk/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxanRmt2syA2bExDczdPbFJpWUU/edit?usp=sharing

See the twitter hashtag #ucsaffire for further details. Here are some of the responses to my presentation:

Book Notes: "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I must admit that while I have been mesmerised by anything Hemingway for some time now, it was a bit of an effort to get through the first half of this book. While my attitude towards the book changed each time I got back into it, I think the source of the problem for me was the emptiness that can only be expressed by those who have first-hand experience of large-scale conventional war. Nonetheless, and despite the historical background to the story, I found it to be written clearly in the present tense. Yet I couldn’t help but sense the emptiness I had once felt when I was about seven years old. I remember visiting, for no particular reason, an old war widow, who gave me two shillings (five cent pieces - one for me and the other for my sister) but then she cried and pointed to the faded photographs of her husband and her brothers who were all killed in the Second World War. The empty feeling of the interior of her dark house with its art deco furniture and the smell of stale tobacco smoke accompanied me throughout “A Farewell to Arms” and I think I avoided it until I decided that I would finish it off in one go. As the climax emerged suddenly towards the end of the book, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. By this stage of the plot the war was almost an afterthought for the main characters and bits of classic Hemingway emerge (beards, boxing, and booze). But by the end, I needed some quiet time to emotionally recover. I’ve never cried from reading a book before. I still don’t like this book. Nevertheless, it is truly magnificent and how somebody in their mid-twenties could comprehend so much beggars belief. It can only be genius.



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