70 Days With Hemingway And Me

Borrowing from a device used by Hemingway, I’d like to conclude my observations about The Torrents of Spring by mentioning – as an Author’s Final Note to the Reader – one of his literary sources: Henry Fielding. Quotes from Henry Fielding begin each of the four sections of Hemingway’s first novel. For example (from Part […]

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I noticed something as I lay on the blanket in the park reading The Torrents of Spring, Hemingway’s first novel, published in 1926: Hemingway writes novels the way screenwriters write movies. Screenwriting, according to Robert McKee, is writing on the knife-edge of the now. Whether it be a flashback or a flash forward, what an […]

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At precisely 6:50 pm, at Thornapple Park, I finished Hemingway’s first novel, The Torrents of Spring. I have many thoughts to share, many rabbit holes down which my mind has scampered. First, however, I intend to read the book again. Perhaps twice more. It’s at this time, after I’ve completed a project, that I’d want […]

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I find it hard to believe that Scripps — who knows intimate details of Chicago, Grand Rapids, and (seemingly) Paris and all points beyond — wouldn’t know where Cadillac is, even though it’s a mere 52 miles south of Mancelona. Grand Rapids, by way of contrast, is 150 miles south Mancelona. Yet he’s heard of […]

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I finished Part One (“Red and Black Laughter”) of the four parts that comprise The Torrents of Spring. Now I will return to page one to re-read it. Observations: 1. The main character in Part One (“Scripps O’Neil”) starts out in Mancelona (“Scripps left Mancelona. He was through with that place. What had a town […]

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I have been reading The Torrents of Spring sitting, cat-like, in a sunbeam on our balcony overlooking the water. Here’s what I’ve noticed (so far) about Hemingway’s first novel: 1. It’s set in Michigan, where I was born, raised, and still live. (“Yogi Johnson stood looking out of the window of a big pump-factory in […]

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With my leather-bound edition of Hemginway’s first novel, The Torrents of Spring, in hand, I begin my day. The first day of the 70 I will spend with Ernest Hemingway. I have never read The Torrents of Spring. I know nothing about it. All I know is that it was published in 1926.

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