[On March 19th, 1951, Herman Wouk published The Caine Mutiny. That’s one of many important American novels set on ships, so this week for its 75th anniversary I’ll AmericanStudy Caine and four others, leading up to a weekend tribute to a colleague studying maritime meanings!]
On three texts which we can pair with Ernest Hemingway’s famous final novel.
- “Big Two-Hearted River” (1925): I included the beautiful final story in Hemingway’s debut collection, In Our Time, in this prior post, but didn’t really address in that brief section the story’s central focus on fly-fishing, as both an actual pastime and a symbolic representation of Hemingway’s recurring protagonist Nick Adams and his identity and world. I think it’s quite telling and really powerful that more than 25 years after the publication of Hemingway’s first book, he would return to a fishing story for his final major publication (in this case a deep-sea rather than a river-based fishing story, but nonetheless), and would likewise seek to depict both the gritty realities and the symbolic meanings of that activity.
- Dreaming in Cuban (1992): I don’t imagine too many folks have put Hemingway in conversation with the late 20th and early 21st century Cuban American author Cristina García. But I think there’s an interesting comparison to be made here, related to both titular elements in García’s debut novel about Cuban immigrants/refugees in the U.S.: Hemingway’s story is set in Cuba (where he was also living at the time, as he had been for many years); and its protagonist Santiago is portrayed as constantly dreaming of places other than that current home, and especially of the Spain from which he had emigrated as a child. Moreover, there is no context more relevant to Cuban Americans (at least over the last 75 years) than the water, as illustrated most powerfully by the Mariel Boatlift.
- The Perfect Storm (1997): Sebastian Junger’s “true story of men against the sea” was famously adapted into the 2000 film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg; similarly, Hemingway’s 1952 fictional story (albeit one apparently based on a fisherman’s true story about which Hemingway had heard during his time in Cuba) of a man against the sea was quickly adapted into a 1958 film starring Spencer Tracy. But I think the deeper comparison (and certainly the more relevant for this week’s series) has to do with that subtitle of Junger’s, and with the way in which so many writers have used the ocean to create symbolic stories of the limits and yet the inspirations of our struggles with both nature and ourselves. Hemingway’s protagonist survives where Junger’s tragically did not, but, as Papa knew as well as any of us could, the fight never ends.
Next nautical novel tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Nautical novels you’d nominate or other shipboard stories you’d share?
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