The Hemingway Short Story: A Study in Craft for Writers and Readers

by Robert Paul Lamb

Overview

In The Hemingway Short Story: A Study in Craft for Writers and Readers, Robert Paul Lamb delivers a dazzling analysis of the craft of this influential writer. Lamb scrutinizes a selection of Hemingway's exemplary stories to illuminate the author's methods of construction and to show how craft criticism complements and enhances cultural literary studies. The Hemingway Short Story, the highly anticipated sequel to Lamb's critically acclaimed Art Matters: Hemingway, Craft, and the Creation of the Modern Short Story, reconciles the creative writer's focus on art with the concerns of cultural critics, establishing the value that craft criticism holds for all readers.
Beautifully written in clear and engaging prose, Lamb's study presents close readings of representative Hemingway stories such as "Soldier's Home," "A Canary for One," "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen," and "Big Two-Hearted River." Lamb's examination of "Indian Camp," for instance, explores not only its biographical contexts — showing how details, incidents, and characters developed in the writer's mind and notebook as he transmuted life into art — but also its original, deleted opening and the final text of the story, uncovering otherwise unseen aspects of technique and new terrains of meaning. Lamb proves that a writer is not merely a site upon which cultural forces contend, but a professional in his or her craft who makes countless conscious decisions in creating a literary text.
Revealing how the short story operates as a distinct literary genre, Lamb provides the meticulous readings that the form demands — showing Hemingway practicing his craft, offering new inclusive interpretations of much debated stories, reevaluating critically neglected stories, analyzing how craft is inextricably entwined with a story's cultural representations, and demonstrating the many ways in which careful examinations of stories reward us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807162293
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	08/03/2015
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	863,595
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Robert Paul Lamb received his doctorate in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University. He is author of Art Matters: Hemingway, Craft, and the Creation of the Modern Short Story and coeditor of A Companion to American Fiction, 1865—1914. He was named the 2008 Indiana Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

I Full Encounters of the Close Kind

1 Really Reading a Hemingway Story: The Example of "Indian Camp" 3

Prologue: The Contexts of "Indian Camp" 3

Failure: The Original Opening 14

Triumph: The Achievement of "Indian Camp" 26

Coda: Coming Full Circle in "Fathers and Sons" 84

II How Craft Readings Contribute to Understanding Stories

2 Dueling Wounds in "Soldier's Home": The Relation of Textual Form, Narrative Argument, and Cultural Critique 89

3 The "Pointless" Story: What Is "A Canary for One"? 112

III Metacritical and Metafictional Hemingway

4 Hemingway on (Mis)Reading Stories: "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" as Metacriticism 153

5 Hemingway on (Mis)Writing Stories: "Big Two-Hearted River" as Metafiction 167

Acknowledgments 193

Notes 197

Works Cited 215

Index 225

Editorial Reviews

"This volume is a must-read for anyone interested in short fiction; those who know that craft matters deeply to the meaning and enjoyment of short fiction will value this thoroughly researched, beautifully written book." — CHOICE

"[An] outstanding study.... Robert Paul Lamb has given us new ways to understandHemingway's craft." — Hemingway Review

From the Publisher