Hemingway in Knoxville

Dear all,

Today I skipped town and drove two hours north to Knoxville to explore more of the state and with the hope that a change in venue would help prime the writing pump. As per custom (my own), I parked on the outskirts of town and biked into the city. I chanced upon the lovely market square and continued on to the Old City. A used bookstore caught my eye. I entered and thumbed through a coffee table book on Ernest Hemingway. I have always been and continue to be a sucker for Hemingway. So, here is a journal entry from 2007 that I wrote after rereading my perennial favorite The Sun Also Rises.

“December 10, 2007

Today I finished reading The Sun Also Rises for the fourth or fifth time. What an extraordinary and engaging piece of writing. What struck me this time around was the discrepancy between the tremendous awareness of and sensitivity to weather, language, emotion, etc. that Hemingway had to have had to create such a work (at 26!) and the utterly misguided and bankrupt approach to life his characters take. It is so clear and so tragic how completely caught each character is in his or her desires and delusions. The book could almost serve as a textbook on how to cultivate misery and ensure unhappiness. And yet they’re also so charming and intelligent and sophisticated—and so missing the point. The book also reminded me how disastrous it is when people with money and power and influence fall under such madness. Because of the relative weight of their influence, their misguided decisions have huge ripple effects—just as the tragic actions of our current president have touched nearly every person alive.

And to think that Americans, with all our wealth and power, are acting just as madly as Brett Ashley and company, and that our madness is spreading. How disconcerting it all is. The word that always comes to mind is “thrashing”, as in we are thrashing about for happiness in an evermore doomed and destructive manner. It is a crazed behavior, an addictive behavior. It has made us blind to the subtle yet surpassing beauty of nature, of contemplation, of community.

This madness has always existed, yet never have our actions carried so much consequence, never have there been so many of us, and never have the snares that pull us into ignorance been so virulent, pervasive, and effective.

Rebekah Hart and I had a wonderful and affirming conversation last night about how to go about “the work”, both personally and in community. We face many of the same questions—whether to engage “within the belly of the beast” or to position ourselves somewhat outside the fray so as to nourish ourselves in the aim of nourishing others. She spoke of her experience with Joanna Macy and her “work that reconnects” pedagogy. What I found most interesting was that the workshops begin with a time to explore and acknowledge the grief we feel at our disconnectedness with nature and the destruction we have brought to the environment. This seems to me a very wise and necessary step to truly begin to address the bigger issues of our time.”