How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? (1950)

As someone else said, there's not enough room here. I'm not particularly fond of Hemingway, but not because I take his carefully fashioned pith as evidence that he has no "literary talent." And I don't think it's useful to conclude, on seeing that my tastes are at odds with some majority, that they must have been swayed by anything "like...some shadowy cabal."

Suffice it to say that breadth of vocabulary is a poor rubric for evaluating literary works, almost without exception. For Hemingway and many others, it is better to have the words at hand than forcibly to use them. For a reader, it is worth reflecting on why a writer chose the words they did, rather than assuming they could have done no differently. Much of the history of high-brow English literature consists of taking old forms and making them more nearly vulgar. More than a century before Hemingway, Wordsworth made a name for himself for his vernacular—to pick an example out of a hat. Closer to Hemingway's time, Mark Twain famously cut down James Fenimore Cooper for failing to "[e]schew surplusage" or "[e]mploy a simple and straightforward style"[1], adages that Hemingway can be said to have written by, at least in his best-remembered works. Hemingway fulfilled—or continued to work toward—one of the stronger and more common impetuses in English literature and criticism: to write using ordinary language, and to do so exactly.

I would add that it is useful in the study of literature and literary criticism to dislike something, particularly if it is an entrenched part of whatever canon you find yourself surrounded by. It means you have something to think about, concerning the work, yourself, and others. Which are the three most important things with regard to art—not in any particular order.

[1] http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html

Hemingway eventually developed a tendency to self-parody. Jonathan Yardley, who used to review for the Washington Post, said that "Bad Hemingway" contests were pointless, for Papa had long ago retired the prize. And he was not well served by his mid-century admirers, who couldn't always tell the good from the bad. (The same happened to D.H. Lawrence, I think) One can find oneself reading the earlier, better Hemingway by light of the later, which is unfortunate.

I haven't read much in years, but some time ago, I opened A Farewell to Arms, and I must say that the first few pages are beautifully written.

His style of writing that you find boring is exactly what has made him a great writer.

The notion of conveying a powerful message or story as simply as possible is not an easy task, albeit seeming so.