(Honoring online comics criticism written or published in 2012. A call for nominations and submissions.)
This is part of a semi-annual process to choose the best online comics criticism. The first quarter nominations can be found here.
When I survey the field of comics criticism, it sometimes occurs to me that the popularity of a piece is frequently inversely related to the amount of effort and thought put into writing it. Why then do individuals continue to produce long thoughtful articles? The truth is that they don’t or rather not with the kind of frequency the form actually needs, and especially not when the work is done gratis. But putting these things aside, perhaps it is in the nature of these writers to go to such lengths. We can put some of this serious writing down to a sense of personal endeavor, academic training, and the intense hobbyist with a competitive spirit.
There is also the question of critical communities. If a community favors the latest costume changes, creative team shifts, and the latest news from the big two then news hungry one-upmanship will probably be the norm. If the central idea of a community is to contribute to a critical project centered on comics (social, aesthetic etc.), then the tone of the articles will follow suit. The quality of the articles will be dependent on the taste and discipline of the editor and the commitment of a core team of writers; both these factors engendering a critical climate in which only writing of a certain quality is to be expected of all who contribute. A piece meal promotion of more elevated writing will depend far too much on the individual writer’s proclivities and drive to sustain quality (a central problem with an earlier incarnation of TCJ.com.) This is especially true for comics criticism where amateur sites have a disproportionate influence and editorial influence severely curtailed.
Reiteration: Readers should feel free to submit their nominations in the comments section of this article. Alternatively I can be reached at suattong at gmail dot com. Web editors should feel free to submit work from their own sites. I will screen these recommendations and select those which I feel are the best fit for the list. There will be no automatic inclusions based on these public submissions. Only articles published online for the first time between January 2012 and December 2012 will be considered. I have included some Hooded Utilitarian articles in the selection, mainly from people who I have little to no contact with. Readers (but not contributors) of HU should submit their own nominations for this quarterly process.
[Matt Seneca burning some pompous rubbish…apparently]
Sarah Boxer on Krazy Kriticism. At one point in her article, Boxer writes:
Now that Krazy Kritics have gotten their dearest wish — all of the SundayKrazys published in book form — what will happen to Kriticism? Will it yield to real criticism?…One essay in Yoe’s collection, Douglas Wolk’s “The Gift,” offers a ray of hope. Wolk finds something new to analyze in the strip — its peculiar pace: “The real comedy of Krazy Kat is almost always slower than its surface humor, which is appropriate for a strip whose central joke is miscommunication on a grand scale. The one way you can’t read it for pleasure is quickly.”
While Boxer offers a nice survey of Krazy Kat criticism, this revelation seems more like stating the obvious than anything novel. Not that stating the obvious isn’t useful but it should be correctly labeled as such. Her more interesting point, I think, is that Krazy Kat lacks development, a claim which I think is not indisputable but worth discussing.
Steven Brower on Kirby’s collages.
Robb Fritz – Moves Like Snoopy. Fritz’s article doesn’t have the beauty of language which I usually associate with nostalgia-tinged pieces and a lot of the interest in it stems from the collection of quotations from various sources. You can certainly see the seams where the research was fitfully stitched in. It didn’t work for me but that doesn’t mean it won’t work for some.
Kelly Gerald on Flannery O’Connor and the Habit of Art. This is actually an excerpt from the afterword to an upcoming collection of cartoons by Flannery O’Connor. I suppose this only goes to show that people put in an effort when they’re in print (and presumably paid for it.)
Lee Konstantinou on Metamaus (“Never Again, Again”)
Bob Levin on Manny and Bill, Willie and Joe.
Farhad Manjoo on Editorial Cartoons. The news that editorial cartoons are “stale, simplistic, and just not funny” is about as fresh as the idea that superhero comics suck. Manjoo’s insights into the inferiority of Matt Wuerker’s (Pulitzer prize winner) cartoons are also not particularly challenging. Furthermore, the suggestion that political cartoons should be excluded from the Pulitzer PR game is somewhat nonsensical. If the Pulitzer committee was seriously interested in offering prizes only to the best works of American literature and journalism in any one year, they would put serious consideration into adopting and liberally using a “No prize this year” category. As it is, they don’t. Nonetheless, I’m putting this here simply because someone outside the comics reading room finally noticed the obvious. It should also be noted that he does offer some other poor alternatives to political cartoons.
Hannah Means-Shannon – Meet the Magus Part 1 (The Birth Caul) Part 2 (Snakes and Ladders). This article is a bit of a departure for Sequart.org, a site which focuses largely (but not exclusively) on medium to long form articles on superhero and mainstream titles.
Evie Nagy on Tarpé Mills & Miss Fury (“Heroine Chic”).
Meghan O’Rourke on Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?
Katie Roiphe on Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?
Matt Seneca – Why You Hate Grant Morrison (Life on Earth Q Part 3). This piece was recommended by Noah but, in my opinion, it’s not Seneca doing what he does best. It has a kind of novelty appeal since Seneca hardly ever does negativity but he still needs a few more practice swings to get used to the feel of the hatchet.
Jason Thompson on Shigeru Mizuki. As evidenced by the poll 2 years ago, Thompson’s articles for his House of 1000 Manga column are a big favorite in the manga blogging community.
Kristy Valenti on Astro City and the White Man’s Burden.
Chip Zdarsky – Who Writes the Watchmen? From the first quarter of 2012. Nominated by Jones.
At The Hooded Utilitarian
Eric Berlatsky on Los Bros Hernandez (Parts 1 and 2).
Corey Creekmur – Remembering Locas. This is from the tail end of March but wasn’t included in the previous listing. Nominated by Jeet Heer.
Sharon Marcus – Wonder Woman vs. Wonder Woman
Andrei Molotiu – Built by a Race of Madmen. From the first quarter of 2012. Nominated by Gary Verkeerts.
Katherine Wirick on Watchmen: Heroic Proportions.
At TCJ.com
Prajna Desai on Bhimayana.
Jeet Heer – Crumb in the Beginning
Ryan Holmberg on Tezuka Osamu and The Rectification of Mickey.
Ken Parille – Six Observations about Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Archive Are You My Mother?
Dash Shaw on Jeffrey Brown’s Cat Comics.
Kent Worcester on British Comics: A Cultural History.
The Jack Kirby: Hand of Fire Roundtable (Parts one, two, and three). Organized by Jeet Heer and starring Glen Gold, Sarah Boxer, Robert Fiore, Doug Harvey, Jeet Heer, Jonathan Lethem, and Dan Nadel. I have no doubt that this roundtable will be on many people’s short list of best comics criticism for the 2012. It’s messy, sometimes incoherent, occasionally funny and, towards its close, reasonably informative. Some of the participants are true blue Kirby experts which makes it all the more disappointing they weren’t pushed in the right direction or milked more thoroughly. As James Romberger suggests in the comments of the third section of this roundtable, this should have been extensively edited so as to ensure a sensible flow of ideas (not to mention the excision of ridiculous amounts of noise). Personally, I would have preferred fully worked-out essays as opposed to a mailing list discussion.
I had hoped that TCJ.com would expend its energies on topics and comics which have had 1/100th of the exposure Kirby’s comics but I think that would be asking too much. There has been a consistent devotion to the comics of Kirby in The Comics Journal since its inception and TCJ.com and Jeet et al. merely extend this tradition. The lack of a balancing voice in the exchange is also telling. Sarah Boxer’s dissent (in the third section of this debate) while amusing hardly constitutes a proper reassessment of Kirby’s influence and real worth.
Rob Clough.
Which Rob Clough piece are you nominating?
I’m finishing Hand of Fire and I can hardly distinguish it from fan criticism.
You’re actually reading a book about Kirby? Is this a case of know thy toxin?
I respect and admire Charles as a scholar and I read everything he writes. It’s too bad that he just put negative criticism of superhero comics (there’s no negative criticism of Kirby) and other negative things in there “for the record,” moving quickly on without engaging anything. Apart from that I could easily get the “history” of Marvel and the “history” of DC (or Kirby bibliographic history) from lots and lots of fan lit, thank you!…
Not to mention describing plots and repeating the same idea in different parts of the book. Where’s the editor when you need her?
By the way, as a much needed antidote I’m going to read next Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil by Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence.
“there’s no negative criticism of Kirby”
Do you mean there’s no negative criticism in the book, or no negative criticism of him to talk about, because nobody ever criticizes him?
>>> It’s too bad that he just put negative criticism of superhero comics (there’s no negative criticism of Kirby)
Just guessing since I haven’t read the book, but it’s probably not meant to be that kind of book? Less about appraisal than finding the source and form of Kirby’s “greatness”?
Noah: there’s no negative criticism of Kirby to talk about. Maybe Art Spiegelman saying that Kirby’s art is Fascist art is all there is. It’s not even worth mentioning fans saying that he did better work with Stan Lee than he did as a solo artist, of course…
Suat: you’re right, but isn’t that too fannish for an academic book? We can almost see Charles drooling over one of Kirby’s double-page spreads. I’m saying this, but I agree that that’s the strongest part of the book.
I don’t know whether it qualifies, but I’d submit for consideration a discussion about Rob Liefeld by Alec Berry and Shawn Starr: http://alecreadscomics.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/an-extreme-dialogue/ (originally published on Spandexless http://www.spandexless.com/2012/05/spandexless-reads-05-31-2012/).
Those guys made me reconsider *Rob Liefeld*. Maybe not radically change my opinion of his work, but still.
Thanks for the suggestion, Jaelinque. I’m not totally convinced that it deserves inclusion. Defers too much on the side of Liefeld by minimizing and obscuring problems. I don’t think the aesthetic language is in place or sufficient to advance the claims that Liefeld is a good-great artist. It’s all a bit overblown. Matt Seneca did something similar (but shorter) 2-3 years back. Noah liked that one. I’ll certainly remind the judges of your link to see if they’re more convinced than I am. A few snippets from the introduction for those interested in such things:
“Liefeld, in stark contrast, took Kirby’s line work and added onto it (a reverse Vince Colletta of sorts) filtering it through Manga sensibilities and supercharging each page. If Panter was a reductionist, Liefeld was an expansionist. Throwing lines on top of lines, cross hatching each image like a schizophrenic who was about to discover the inner workings of the universe…”
“Being critiqued for his lack of realism, a feature which his art has never attempted to capture, is missing the point of Liefeld. His art is decadent and expansive. It’s telling that this is what the masses of pseudo-critics jump onto.”
“I’d describe Liefeld as Kirby-lite. I can’t think of any other artist in the past twenty years who has had as great an impact on the medium as Liefeld; he created hundreds of characters and defined the mediums style for a decade, but Kirby is Kirby.”
Suat: “Defers too much on the side of Liefeld by minimizing and obscuring problems.”
A familiar tactic. Did they say that the stories are ridiculous, for instance?
Re: Stories. Not exactly “ridiculous” but I think they did criticize them a bit. They’re pretty indefensible. The Liefeld advocacy is mainly on the side of his art.
I didn’t have the patience to read it all, but I did a half-hearted attempt and the little I read I found out wasn’t that bad (they mention Gary Panter and Brian Chippendale, so it can’t be completely awful, right?). Seriously though: saying that Liefeld is a Kirby heir apparent is like saying that George Lucas is indebted to Kirby’s Oedipian shennanigans. The man may be important in the insular world of superhero comics, but so what? Why are we supposed to care, exactly? _Star Wars_ is still trash and so are every single comics Liefeld as ever churned out.
After reading _Hand of Fire_ I reread some Kirby comics. I didn’t touch the material for decades. I’m appalled by how bad these comics really are. The fact is that I found the advertisements in the comics far more interesting than the comics themselves. Kirby’s status can only be explained by those infected by this Daisy B-B Gun advertisement: “In marksmanship competition, a boy learns to act like a man. Daisy’s 99 “Champion” B-B Gun teaches the same lessons.” (_Mister Miracle_ # 12). Talk about the civil religion of Nationalist Zeal and cannon fodder formation!…
That was awesome, Domingos.
I read some kirby not that long ago, and it can be a bit of a shock how bleh they can be. Still…I do enjoy looking at the pretty pictures. Which is actually the case for Star Wars as well — the visual invention is really enjoyabel (or at least it was before Lucas fucked them up with the crappy CGI).
Ah, how the cosmic balance of the universe maintains itself! From a grotesquely absurd dismissal of a great talent…
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…I don’t have any trouble imagining [Hemingway] writing crappy superhero comics instead of crappy prose.
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…we move on to hagiographic praise of an, er, exceedingly modest one, over at http://alecreadscomics.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/an-extreme-dialogue/ . Sorry for quoting at such length, but this stuff is priceless:
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Alec Berry:
Liefeld may not produce deep or even always technically efficient comics, but the one thing he has up on a lot of creators is his uncontainable energy, passion and overall voice. That stuff overpowers the mechanical flaws, for me, and while all the energy and love only produces over the top action, I feel that’s wildly appropriate, especially for superhero comics.
A guy like Liefeld humbles the medium, drawing us back from the ever present desire to legitimize what’s created and what’s read; the experience reminds a reader of the childlike wonderment which can be associated with the artform as well as the slightly exploitative element associated with the superhero genre.
And the best part … all of Liefeld’s work is genuine. He’s a genuine motherfucker making the comic books he wants to make while knowing exactly what it is he’s making. He’s not kidding you like a Matt Fraction Mighty Thor pitch which tries to get religious or is made out to be the next great work in modern comics. If Liefeld tells you’re getting a comic about Youngblood fighting terrorists, that’s exactly what you’ll get, no unnecessary varnish applied throughout.
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Good gravy! Talk about meaningless praise. A retardate frantically scribbling with a crayon can be even more “genuine” than Liefeld. The very lack of ambition or depth (any attempt to do so made ludicrous by the example given) is held up as refreshing.
Which actually reminds of P.R. types and propagandists blathering on about how Reagan “made us feel proud to be American again,” how George W. “had the common touch.”
Liefeld: “He’s the best there is at what he does.” For what it’s worth…
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Shawn Starr:
Liefeld was selling 1 million copies of X-Force a month at the age of twenty-two. To put that in perspective, I’m twenty-two and do not sell 1 million copies of X-Force each month. In addition to simply selling comics by the metric ton, Liefeld single handedly defined a decade of comic art, and was a founding member of Image Comics, which, depending on who you ask (*cough* Gary Groth*cough*) represents one of the biggest leaps forward in comic publishing since the inception of the Direct Market.
What makes Liefeld, well, Liefeld is his style. When you look at one of his pages or creations it just screams Liefeld, he imbues everything he touches with his essence. If Cable wasn’t weighed down by 500 pounds of guns and ammo, then he wouldn’t be Cable. And that’s Liefeld. Everything he creates is extreme, an action movie on every page, and not just a “failed movie pitch” that comics have recently become the repository for, a genuine action movie.
If Panter was a reductionist, Liefeld was an expansionist. Throwing lines on top of lines, cross hatching each image like a schizophrenic who was about to discover the inner workings of the universe if only he could just ink one more line. And then throwing on some Manga infused speed lines to drive the point home.
His pages are a truly awesome experience.
…You say Liefeld’s work plays to the lowest common denominator (in much kinder words), which in some respects is true. There’s no grand theory of life to be found in Youngblood. The first issue has some basal levels of satire, however strained, but it’s not particularly refined or biting. It’s definitely not Watchmen, but then again it was never trying to be. He just wanted to make fun comics, which is something few creators even attempt today. You call it genuine, I call it true to itself. It’s all the same.
As an aside, the criticisms of Liefeld are largely unfounded. Sure he ignores anatomy, but so does Ware, Crumb, and for a more mainstream and generally excepted example Jim Lee.
His style is an extension of himself, not a light-boxed photo from the recent Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, it’s “abstract” and should not be constrained by the idea of realism.
Being critiqued for his lack of realism, a feature which his art has never attempted to capture, is missing the point of Liefeld. His art is decadent and expansive. It’s telling that this is what the masses of pseudo-critics jump onto. Realism is largely a constraint on art that individuals try to pass off as valid criticism against something they don’t understand. Kyle Baker summed it up best “in art, as in life, ‘realism’ is for the uncreative.” Of course this is what they latch onto, because they don’t or can’t understand what it is Liefeld is doing.
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Yes, because they haven’t the aesthetic perceptiveness or intellectual capacity to “get” Liefeld.
And as for Baker’s line, what’s first important for most visual artists is that they master realistic rendering, that when they take off into unrealistic/cartoonish/stylized realms, that basic grounding is there.
And might as well say, “Sure, Liefeld ignores anatomy, but so does Picasso, Grosz, Munch, Bacon…”
Not that Liefeld is utterly worthless, but as an attempt to grant him his due, these comments fail utterly except as examples of fannishness run amok. At least Starr and Berry then proceed to make more thoughtful and perceptive remarks, when “dialoguing.”
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Noah Berlatsky says:
I read some kirby not that long ago, and it can be a bit of a shock how bleh they can be [ https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/07/bursting-with-boredom/ ].
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Coming from the guy who dismissed Hemingway as a “crappy prose” stylist, we should expect nothing less.
And pronounced him a “mysogynist” to boot. Why am I not surprised? Hemingway was a “manly man,” therefore he must hate women, ’cause that’s the way all those unabashedly masculine pigs are.
Except he was far more complex than that predictable Women’s Lib 101 reading:
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…perhaps no major American writer has exhibited a more contradictory combination of machismo and hypersensitivity, of heteronormative and homoerotic impulses, of laconicism and expressiveness. Recent scholarship has given us an admittedly more complex Hemingway, “interested” in homoeroticism and sexual role exchange [which he actually enacted with his wife], and even gender performativity.
…For Hemingway to assert masculine authority, that is, he must disavow dominance–especially physical and sexual dominance–in favor of traits he suggests are more epistemologically adequate to modern conditions.
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_1_52/ai_n27054032/pg_5/
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Denis Brian presumes Capote’s harsh comment on Hemingway’s gender draws on his knowledge about the bisexual theme that appears in Hemingway’s manuscripts, which, after radical cutting and editing by Tom Jenks, are posthumously published in 1986 as The Garden of Eden. Whether Capote actually knows about the manuscripts or not, it is clear that Brian considers that the couple’s exchange of sexual roles in The Garden of Eden could arouse not only Capote’s but also other people’s curiosity about what is concealed behind Hemingway’s hypermasculine heroism. As Jenks says, The Garden of Eden “shows a lot of the tenderness and vulnerability that was usually obscured by his [Hemingway’s] public image” (qtd. in McDowell). Needless to say, the publication of The Garden of Eden has accelerated the critical inclination to reconsider Hemingway’s gender and sexuality. As Susan F. Beegel puts it, “the posthumous Garden of Eden has forced critics to confront for the first time themes of homosexuality, perversion, and androgyny present throughout Hemingway’s career in short stories like…
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http://www.genders.org/g39/g39_tanimoto.html
Hemingway has some pretty definitively misogynist stories. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (sp?) doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for doubt. Sometimes he just left women out altogether (The Old Man and the Sea) which was better.
Are you suggesting that homosexual themes preclude misogyny? Because you should probably read some Eve Sedgwick, then….
I wish Stephen Crane had the cultural position Hemingway appears to. He’s much like Hemingway if Hemingway had a brain and was not an asshole. And without the stupid pompous modernist faux naif prose style.
I haven’t read the Garden of Eden, though, so maybe that’s good. Anything’s possible….
I think Hemingway’s position has been fraying/deteriorating a bit for awhile now… (Fitzgerald seems fine)…but still ahead of Crane by a wide margin–lots of those supposed “naturalists” (Crane, London, Norris, Dreiser) seem to be less and less appreciated… That’s just my sense of things, though, with nothing to back it up. Crane’s “The Monster” is too good.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Hemingway has some pretty definitively misogynist stories. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (sp?) doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for doubt…
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I happened to have within arm’s reach a fat paperback of his short stories which I’d picked up at an antique store for a buck last weekend. Which — thanks to dipping into tastes of it — made the charge that he wrote “crappy prose” rankle all the more.
Started to read the story there; but the online version at http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/macomber.html made it possible to easily copy-and-paste the relevant segments.
The thing is, does having one character saying/thinking misogynist things make it a “misogynist story”? Those who’d say, “Alam Moore hates women ’cause they get raped all the time in his stories” (never mind that he always shows it as an ugly, hideous act, not the titillating “she’s actually enjoying it” exploitation that the noisome Milo Manara does) would certainly agree.
If that character was an idealized, obvious extension of the author’s ego (Rand’s John Galt, say), the argument might hold merit. As it turns out, however, that “saying/thinking misogynist things” character, despite his prowess as a hunter, is hardly shown as overall admirable:
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…when [Wilson, the white hunter] saw Macomber’s personal boy looking curiously at his master while he was putting dishes on the table he snapped at him in Swahili. The boy turned away with his face blank.
“What were you telling him?” Macomber asked.
“Nothing. Told him to look alive or I’d see he got about fifteen of the best.”
“What’s that? Lashes?”
“It’s quite illegal,” Wilson said. “You’re supposed to fine them.”
“Do you still have them whipped?”
“Oh, yes. They could raise a row if they chose to complain. But they don’t. They prefer it to the fines.”
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Moreover, this happens fairly early in the story; “prepping” us to react to the character, giving insight into his personality and what follows from him:
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[American women] are, [Wilson] thought, the hardest in the world; the hardest, the cruelest, the most predatory and the most attractive and their men have softened or gone to pieces nervously as they have hardened. Or is it that they pick men they can handle? They can’t know that much at the age they marry, he thought. He was grateful that he had gone through his education on American women before now because this was a very attractive one.
…When she left, Wilson was thinking, when she went off to cry, she seemed a hell of a fine woman. She seemed to understand, to realize, to be hurt to him and for herself and to know how things really stood. She is away for twenty minutes and now she is back, simply enameled in that American female cruelty. They are the damnedest women. Really the damnedest.
…So, Robert Wilson thought to himself, she is giving him a ride, isn’t she? Or do you suppose that’s her idea of putting up a good show? How should a woman act when she discovers her husband is a bloody coward? She’s damn cruel but they’re all cruel. They govern, of course, and to govern one has to be cruel sometimes. Still, I’ve seen enough of their damn terrorism.
…So she woke him when she came in, Wilson thought, looking at them both with his flat, cold eyes. Well, why doesn’t he keep his wife where she belongs?” What does he think I am, a bloody plaster saint? Let him keep her where she belongs. It’s his own fault.
“Do you think we’ll find buffalo?” Margot asked, pushing away a dish of apricots.”
“Chance of it,” Wilson said and smiled at her. “Why don’t you stay in camp?”
“Not for anything,” she told him.
“Why not order her to stay in camp?” Wilson said to Macomber.
“Your order her,” said Macomber coldly.
“Let’s not have any ordering, nor,” turning to Macomber, “any silliness, Francis,” Margot said quite pleasantly.
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Furthermore, rather than Wilson aiming his criticisms upon all women, it’s American women he targets. Making his stuff more of a cultural criticism.
If one says “Fundamentalist Muslim men and culture treat women like crap,” does that make one a man-hater?
When the story (published in 1936) switches from Wilson’s to an omniscient authorial voice, what we get is not misogyny, but a cooly analytic description of a specific marriage; rich man and “trophy wife” dynamics…
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His wife had been through with him before but it never lasted. He was very wealthy, and would be much wealthier, and he knew she would not leave him ever now. That was one of the few things that he really knew. He knew about that, about motorcycles—that was earliest—about motor cars, about duck-shooting, about fishing, trout, salmon and big-sea, about sex in books, many books, too many books, about all court games, about dogs, not much about horses, about hanging on to his money, abut most of the other things his world dealt in, and about his wife not leaving him. His wife had been a great beauty and she was still a great beauty in Africa, but she was not a great enough beauty any more at home to be able to leave him and better herself and she knew it and he knew it. She had missed the chance to leave him and he knew it. If he had been better with women she would probably have started to worry about him getting another new, beautiful wife; but she knew too much about him to worry about him either. Also he had always had a great tolerance which seemed the nicest thing about him if it were not the most sinister.
All in all they were known as a comparatively happily married couple, one of those whose disruption is often rumored but never occurs, and as the society columnist put it, they were adding more than a spice of adventure to their much envied and ever enduring romance by a Safari in what was known as Darkest Africa until the Martin Johnsons lighted it on so many silver screens where they were pursuing Old Simba the lion, the buffalo, Tembo the elephant and as well collecting specimens for the Museum of Natural History. This same columnist had reported them on the verge as least three times in the past and they had been. But they always made it up. They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him.
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What a quandary! How to cut this Gordian Knot?
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Wilson had ducked to one side to get in a shoulder shot. Macomber had stood solid and shot for the nose, shooting a touch high each time and hitting the heavy horns, splintering and chipping them like hitting a slate roof, and Mrs. Macomber, in the car, had shot at the buffalo with the 6.5 Mannlicher as it seemed about to gore Macomber and had hit her husband about two inches up and a little to one side of the base of his skull.
Francis Macomber lay now, face down, not two yards from where the buffalo lay on his side and his wife knelt over him with Wilson beside her.
“I wouldn’t turn him over,” Wilson said.
The woman was crying hysterically.
“I’d get back in the car,” Wilson said. “Where’s the rifle?”
She shook her head, her face contorted. The gun-bearer picked up the rifle.
“Leave it as it is,” said Wilson. Then, “Go get Abdulla so that he may witness the manner of the accident.”
He knelt down, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and spread it over Francis Macomber’s crew-cropped head where it lay. The blood sank into the dry, loose earth.
…Then he walked over to the motor car where the woman sat crying in the corner.
“That was a pretty thing to do,” he said in a toneless voice. “He would have left you too.”
“Stop it,” she said.
“Of course it’s an accident,” he said. “I know that.”
“Stop it,” she said.
…“There’s a hell of a lot to be done,” he said. “And I’ll have to send a truck off to the lake to wireless for a plane to take the three of us into Nairobi. Why didn’t you poison him? That’s what they do in England.”
“Stop it. Stop it. Stop it,” the woman cried…
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So, where Agatha Christie would start a story, Hemingway leaves us wondering, deliberate murder, innocent accident, or subconsciously-deliberate “mistake”?
Were this to be a “pretty definitively misogynist” story, why would Hemingway “leave a whole lot of room for doubt” as to the nature of the final act? With even Wilson undecided?
There are plenty of strong, admirable women in Hemingway, such as Pilar in ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ or Cathy in ‘A Farewell to Arms’.
And I love Stephen Crane…but I can’t help pointing out that his 3 most famous works, ‘The Red Badge of Courage’, ‘The Blue Hotel’ and ‘The Open Boat’ feature no women characters whatsoever.
The best Hemingways are the Nick Adams stories.
Yeah; I really don’t like the Nick Adams story.
That’s true about Crane’s stories, and something I hadn’t really thought about. On the other hand, he did write Maggie, Girl of the Streets (which I believe I’ve read, but don’t really remember at all…)
Mike, for pity’s sake, just link to the damn thing; you don’t need to copy the whole story.
He leaves it ambiguous because that’s modernism. And whether it’s an accident or not, the point is she kills him. I think Alex is a lot better off pointing to different works than you are trying to defend that one. I don’t think Hemingway was equally misogynist in all his writing, but that one is pretty bad.
Oops, I tell a lie.There is one woman character in Badge, Henry’s mother way at the beginning.
Can’t say I’m much of a fan of the Nick Adams stories either, save for “The Killers”…
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Mike, for pity’s sake, just link to the damn thing; you don’t need to copy the whole story.
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Sorry about that! (But if some folks can’t read a post that’s but a few paragraphs long, how are they going to bother reading a story that’s over 30 pages long in a book?)
Charles was kind enough to send me a copy of his book for review, but I have had reservations about doing so. I already thought I wouldn’t be doing him any favors…my problems are completely different than those of Domingos, but I now think it would be a bad idea to even attempt to discuss it on HU. Life is just too fucking short.
I don’t think Stephen Crane’s famous for his feminism. Neither Noah or I suggested that to be the case. I don’t think Maggie, Girl of the Streets really changes that (though it’s been awhile since I read it). He is good on exposing the ridiculous performance(s) of masculinity, however…including, if I remember right, in The Blue Hotel.
“The Hills Like White Elephants” is an interesting Hemingway story from a feminist perspective. It’s about a man encouraging/bullying a woman into getting an abortion. It seems to me to be a critique of the man’s blase attitude toward the woman, her body, their relationship, and the baby. His attitude is basically, “The baby’s inconvenient, you should get rid of it.” He takes no responsibility (other than financial) for his role in their relationship or the conception of the child…nor does he even bother to ask the woman her opinion on the matter. Insofar as the story is a critique of the man’s attitude…it can certainly be read as “feminist.” Of course, it’s also so typically terse that it’s not definitive that the woman too isn’t under critique. And, of course, abortion itself is a complex issue in feminist circles. Nevertheless…Hemingway’s positioning on gender issues isn’t always so clearly patriarchal.
I like the Adams stories myself…”Big Two-Hearted River” was the one that stuck with me.
Speaking of Nick Adams, “Indian Camp” seems opposed to Nick’s dad when he says that the woman’s pain doesn’t matter.