I will admit that Ernest Hemingway is not my favorite writer. I appreciate his style; I have enjoyed the books of his I've read. But I've never felt the connection to character that defines my favorite works.
It's not him. It's me.
And I didn't feel any connection to the Hemingway I met in Paula McLain's "The Paris Wife." Not that McLain likely intended me to.
McLain, a Clevelander (woo-hoo!!!) has penned a fictionalized account of the relationship between Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson.
This Hemingway is self-centered, ambitious and monogamy-challenged. His wife struggles to not lose herself in a marriage so dominated by his needs.
Hadley sees herself through her husband's eyes - whether it's what he thinks of how she dresses or styles her hair or her ability to discuss his work.

McLain has crafted a wonderful slice of life of Paris in the 1920s, with just enough real detail that it enhances her story rather than detracts from it. When I'm reading fiction based to a degree on fact, I like to get the sense that I'm learning a little about an era or a real person, not be hit with so much data so I feel like I'm reading a textbook. Paris Wife strikes the right notes.

This is among my favorite passages. In one graph, I get a sense of the city and learn a whole lot about both Ernest and Hadley.

It rained nonstop that spring, but even in the rain, Paris was Ernest's smorgasbord. He knew it all and lovde to walk through it at night especially, dropping into cafes to see who was there and who wasn't. He was recognizable everywhere with his long, unruly hair and tennis shoes and patched jacket, the quintessential Left bank writer. It was ironic to see him become the very sort of artist that had made him cringe two years before, and a little painful for me, too. I missed him and I wasn't sure I recognized him all the time, but I didn't want to hold him back. Not when things were finally beginning to hit for him.

And did I mention the author is from Cleveland! (And now I want to go back and re-read "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Sun Also Rises.")

Sit in with the Beauty and the Book book club as they chat with McLain.

- Tricia Ambrose

I gave Nicholas Sparks a hard time for criticizing Cormac McMarthy, but author-vs.-author smackdowns are nothing new.

Michelle Kerns, The Book Examiner, was kind enough to compile 50 of the best authorial insults. Here are some of my favorites.

Ernest Hemingway, according to Vladimir Navokov:
As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early ‘forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.

Bells, Balls and Bulls would be an excellent name for an unauthorized Hemingway biography (or, at least, a Hemingway blog.)

William Faulkner, according to Ernest Hemingway:
Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes — and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one.

Yeah, Hemingway’s one to talk. He wrote with a pencil in one hand and a drink in the other. In fact, new game — read a Hemingway story and try to guess when he passed out on the page.

Voltaire, according to Charles Baudelaire:
I grow bored in France — and the main reason is that everybody here resembles Voltaire...the king of nincompoops, the prince of the superficial, the anti-artist, the spokesman of janitresses, the Father Gigone of the editors of Siecle.

Baudelaire took the Joakim Noah route and didn’t just diss the man. He dissed the locale. (Personally, I thought Voltaire was clever when I read him in college. Now, I realize how worthless cleverness is.)

John Updike, according to Gore Vidal:
I can’t stand him. Nobody will think to ask because I’m supposedly jealous; but I out-sell him. I’m more popular than he is, and I don’t take him very seriously...oh, he comes on like the worker’s son, like a modern-day D.H. Lawrence, but he’s just another boring little middle-class boy hustling his way to the top if he can do it.

See, Gore, this is why nobody likes you.

Bret Harte, according to Mark Twain:
Harte is a liar, a thief, a swindler, a snob, a sot, a sponge, a coward, a Jeremy Diddler, he is brim full of treachery, and he conceals his Jewish birth as carefully as if he considered it a disgrace. How do I know? By the best of all evidence, personal observation.

I am disappointed that Bret Hart never tried to avenge his namesake. Hart v. Twain — the sharpshooter v. the sharp wit — I’d drop $30 on a pay-per-view to watch.

As a final stray link, enjoy some passive-aggressive library signs.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

Lapham’s Quarterly has a diagram of what rooms famous artists (writers, composers and painters) used to create their work.

My favorite — Victor Hugo apparently would write naked in his bedroom, telling his valet not to bring his clothes until he was finished writing. (That valet is an unsung hero and suffered for all of us.)

John Cheever would don a coat and tie, descend to his basement, strip to his underwear and, then, write. (I imagine Ric Flair has a similar routine.)

People make a big deal out of the fact that Virginia Woolf wrote while standing. Well, Ernest Hemingway would stand with a pencil in one hand and a drink in the other.

Demosthenes would shave half of his head while working on his orations. That way, he would not be tempted to leave his home until it was finished.

Most of the writers seem to go out of their way to create an atmosphere of discomfort while working, which would support Matt Shoard’s theory that complacency makes for lousy literature.

I think modern writers have an enemy even more nefarious than complacency, the Internet. The Web offers a multitude of distractions to tempt the weak-willed. Let’s say you’re working on the Great American Novel and need a synonym for “smelly.” Go online. Find the word “fetid.” While online, check your Facebook page and maybe a forum you frequent. Update your Twitter. Check the price of a Scottie Pippen throwback jersey. Watch an episode of Bones on Hulu.

And now you’ve wasted an hour of your life. In that hour, Hemingway could have finished six pages and a fifth of vodka.

On an unrelated note — love books? Want to write for The Rumpus? Want to write for The Rumpus about the last book you loved? Follow the link.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

The cliché used to be that history was written by the winners. Then, Max Lerner revised it, saying “History is written by the survivors.”

Now, Ernest Hemingway’s grandson has proven history can be revised by the progeny.

Seán Hemingway has re-edited his grandfather’s memoir “A Moveable Feast,” casting Papa as equally culpable in his first divorce.

First, some back story is in order. Hemingway divorced four times. “Feast” included the story of how Hemingway left his first wife, Hadley Richardson, for her friend, Pauline Pfeiffer.

“Feast”—which was cobbled together posthumously by Hemingway’s fourth wife using unpublished scraps—placed the onus for the divorce primarily on Pfeiffer. Hemingway is portrayed as the prey, Pfeiffer as predator.

Seán Hemingway is Pfeiffer and Hemingway’s grandson. He has included other unpublished Hemingway passages in a new edition of the memoir. If the new passages do not exonerate Pfeiffer, they make Hemingway equally guilty.

I’m not here to hash out Papa’s romantic history. My question is this: How valid is this sort of revisionist history?

I’d argue that it’s fair for three reasons.

One, “A Moveable Feast” was never a Hemingway-sanctioned manuscript. He made it clear that it was an unfinished piece shortly before it died. So it can’t be treated as an accurate history, or even as an accurate portrayal of how Hemingway wanted to be remembered.

Instead, it can only be treated as how Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, wanted him to be remembered.

Similarly, this new edition is how Seán Hemingway wants Hemingway (and his grandmother) to be portrayed.

Two, both are still using Hemingway’s words. It’s not like Mary or Seán Hemingway wrote unauthorized biographies. Even if Hemingway’s stories are not edited as he would have liked, at least they are his stories.

While Hemingway’s mind could change (as proven by his several divorces), at least the words Seán used were true to his grandfather when he wrote them.

Finally, any nonfiction that involves an opinion or supposition is a fallacy. Margaret Atwood wrote:

It’s impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many.

We cannot write things exactly as they were. (This is something I struggle with everyday as a newspaper writer.) Even the most objective writer must still decide what details are worth including, what statements merit quoting.

You can try to be fair. You can try to be objective. You can try to be accurate. Ultimately, you must admit what you write is an account of the events, not the account of the events.

This doesn’t mean Mary, Seán or even Ernest Hemingway are liars. It just means most things in life are subjective. “A Moveable Feast” is no exception.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

I'll admit your question had me thinking, Jason. Which "classic" author did I think was the most overrated?

The whole idea of the "classic" author reminds me of school and of teachers who seemed determined to suck the enjoyment out of reading by touting authors as "classic" rather than focusing on their stories.

(As an aside, I didn't have any of these teachers, but I know a lot of people who did. I still have nothing but fond memories of Sister Angele. She would assign multiple books to be read at any given time. Some we never discussed at all. Others we would be asked to write an impromptu essay on in class. Still others would be dissected for a week. I loved it!)

So, back to your question...

I'm not claiming to have read every work considered a classic or even any work by every author considered a classic, by any stretch.

I guess, if forced, I'd have to say Ernest Hemingway.

For the simple reason that while I have read several of his works ("The Old Man and The Sea," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Sun Also Rises")I don't remember anything that stands out.

Granted it's been a while since I've read them, but I haven't read "Jane Eyre" in more than two decades and I still recall Charlotte Bronte's description of the moors and the moody Rochester. It's been the same amount of time since I read "Madame Bovary" and I still remember feeling sorry for Gustave Flaubert's Emma even as she annoyed me.

In fact the only thing I recall about Hemingway is that my 10th-grade English teacher (not Sister Angele) made a comment about an observation I made in an essay I wrote on "The Old Man and The Sea." (Such moments were among the highlights of my high school years, what can I say.)

As I've said before, Jason, for me it's all about character. I like a good plot too, don't get me wrong, but that's not what sticks with me. I have been known on more than one occasion to read a book jacket and think that story sounds appealing. Then I get a chapter in and meet the characters and realize I've already read the book.

The best part of this whole exercise has been that I now want to go back a reread some of the classics.

So thanks, Jason.

- Tricia Ambrose