Hemingway vs Kerouac

Hemingway. Lock thread.

Hemingway influenced writers for agood half a century or more. Kerouac was a cult figure with a devoted following.

Truman Capote to thread.

this is a great question about knee-jerk affiliations with "taste" and i don't have an immediate answer, because on closer inspection i don't buy them as opposite sides of the coin

Let the challops begin

I would never say I'd want to be Hemingway. Apparently, at some point he felt the same, too.

Hemingway. Lock thread.

― Treeship, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 8:58 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've never managed to finish a Kerouac novel. Or a movie based on a Kerouac novel. Or Kerouac's wikipedia entry.

i feel some residual fondness for kerouac and am not crazy about a lot of the shit hemingway spent his time writing about (bullfights, yeesh) but yeah this is pretty mismatched. the hemingway short stories alone are better than all of beat literature put together.

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My dharma is the road. Your dharma is...

hemingway

For Sale: On The Road (two copies), never read.

Hemingway. I've only read "On The Road" by Kerouac but it felt like a piece that caught the zeitgeist before dating quickly and badly.

I have a good friend who has a long-standing, deep yet puppyish enthusiasm for everything to do with the beats and is always urging me to read more. It's an uncomfortable subject because almost everything I've actually read has been a brutal disappointment. The exception is Burroughs when I first read him as a teen, but I couldn't imagine wanting to read him now.

In fact Burroughs v Hemingway might have been a slightly fairer fight, but Hemingway still wins easily.

hemingway by some distance

not much suspense in waiting for these results

Was a massive Kerouac stan as a teen. Never really revisited as I don't especially want to sully that enjoyment, but maybe one day I'll grid my lions and go back to The Subterraneans or Big Sur. Definitely owe him a debt as a gateway to a whole other world of literature though. Appreciated Hemingway but never really loved him, so maybe I'll throw Jack a vote here.

i was a massive kerouac stan in college. i expect big sur holds up as a document of consuming alcoholism

I prefer Jack. I generally found Hemingways prose to be boring bar the short stories

Big Sur, Dharma Bums, Subterraneans are all still classic to me, but I think I too was fortunate to have read them as a teen. I don't feel a strong need to revisit them.

I did revisit On the Road, several times, but lastly when the Original Scroll came out. It wasn't a favorable or enjoyable re-read. The misogyny and racism disguised as 'ah them cool negroes!' did not sit well with me, at all. I know for a fact I did not notice this when 17. Glad to have read it again and be able to signify this, but yeah, that was certainly the last time I'll ever read On the Road again.

His Dharma/Buddhism writing holds up, for me, though.

Hemingway's novels are variously flawed and I understand why people find it easier to rep for the best of the short stories. But there's intermittently great work in the novels and Fiesta/The Sun Also Rises, is a coherent piece of work that would rank high among my favourite novels.

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Was a massive Kerouac stan as a teen. Never really revisited as I don't especially want to sully that enjoyment....Definitely owe him a debt as a gateway to a whole other world of literature though.

^^^

Big Sur was the fourth or fifth I read and it killed my enthusiasm. Wasn't ready yet at 16 for the sad alcoholic downslope to all the adventure. Weirdly it's the book I remember the most from 25 years later. Still wash (rather than wipe) my ass to this day.

for whom the bell tolls probably the best "action" novel i have ever read in terms of efficiently sketching where things and people are in space, the stakes, the flow of events. massive problems with the love story but that's kinda taken as read with these two dudes unfortch :(

Think I'll vote Hemingway for being more interested in experimenting with the writing itself, whereas Kerouac is sure interesting as writing but maybe more about lifestyles

Reading Road is like falling asleep; one moment I'm aware of the world, conscious - and then at some point, when I lose focus for a second, the rhythm or something kicks in I'm dreaming.

Kerouac makes me ashamed of being gay.

I love “a clean, well lighted place”

https://i.imgur.com/A1Ye1W7.jpg

Regained a copy of the pressing that I read in high school