Abstract

The Last Words of E. H

Author Ernest Hemingway Reading is a recent addition to the growing library of writers reading from their works. Some of the excitement of the creative act may be suggested in such recordings, carried by the cadence and resonance of the author's own voice. Often the work gains meaning through the author's intonation. Ernest Hemingway Reading offers a number of improvisations along with the readings. The selection, which best displays Hemingway's changing moods and masks is In Harry's Bar in Venice. It is Hemingway's own parody of Across the River and Into the Trees shortly after the novel appeared in 1950. If Ernest Hemingway Reading has allowed Hemingway to have the last laugh, it also provides his readers, who have apparently taken him far more grimly than he seems to have taken himself, the opportunity to listen for and appreciate the Hemingway wit.