I liked hearing him tell this tale. Andy was honest about his character in that moment. I found it humorous his recollection of that event. He didn't say he totally disliked his writings just his attitude. Enjoyed his tale.
Hemmingway traveled with the heroes, and did not travel with the correspondents. Since when do correspondents demand things a wartime environment? Hemmingway was a badass and obviously didn't automatically give his respect to anyone, especially a large group of traveling correspondents. Some people think they should respect everyone no matter what, guys like Hemmingway make you earn his respect. Thats just how it is.
I definitely see Andy Rooney's point of view: he holds no man as God. And Ernest Hemingway, whose writing can be impeccable and whom I personally admire and love, could be a pompous self-centered jerk sometimes.
@TR3790 I find it funny that you say this and basically fall into the same thing. People are free to have their opinions. Even somebody's don't have to be liked by nobody's.
Fitzgerald was insane and did insane things. Do you even know about his stories?? Please look them up. And if I could just offer you one lesson in life, which is that being a jerk to someone is sometimes warranted, so persecuting someone for that without examining the context is unfair.
It's funny that the top two comments represent extremes of opinion. Why can't Rooney be right, in a way, and Hemingway also be great? By most accounts, Hemingway was an immense jerk. Some of his writing did stink. Lousy anecdotes like this one are the fruits of a life spent pissing people off. Also, Rooney has been culturally important (although, hardly to the degree that Hemingway was), so there's no need to speak about him in such harsh terms, either.
In our time like it or not that about sums it up. If the haves can be reduced to a 5 min puppet show on Utube what does that leave for the rest of us, the have nots? But alas the sun also rises on the rest of us so why not Key West? Obviously there are no snows of Kilimanjaro to see there it's to warm, dah. However I'm sure ther're a few old men and the sea surrounding the joint is still filled with giant Marlin. You've got to admit it's a nobel trade.
Spite for the sake of spite. Big deal, he got into a scuffle over hotel rooms in the middle of world war 2. Shame on Andy Rooney for trampling on the grave of one of the greatest writers that ever was. Doesnt matter if Hemmingway was a jerk (I'm sure he was), his writing is what lives on, and no whiny old man can take that away, even with some gossipy babel that he conjures up.
Rooney (of all people!) finds Hemingway's style "mannered"! Now THAT'S richly comincal. Post-modernism is, by definition, anything but "artificial". Great story (since at least Roony was there). But these and all of his narrow- minded, rude final judgements and decades of mannered, shallow, crankiness, however endearing, at least earlier in his career, he can kindly stick, as we and such old-timers say, "where the sun don't shine".
I believe the telling that E. Hemingway was quite the asshole to many people. I think that his writing style was important and that his work is of very good quality. This coming from a comparative literian. But who knows, perhaps I have no judgment.
who's going to be remembered? not andy rooney, the guy who claims he always considered himself a "writer" over anything else. how come i've never read anything by you mr. rooney? because none of your writing is worth 10 seconds of my time. don't bash hemingway just because he was an asshole to you. when he's considered one of the best writers of all time. where are you on that list andy rooney?
I even hope there is a time when no tourists are around. Maybe Sunday mornings? It's quiet enough that you can still hear for whom the bell tolls. Anywho I'd like to keep this a very short story so suffice it to say that the natural history of the dead is that alchohol probably played a larger factor in Ernie's life than say men without women. Given that, I close wishing Ernest a farewell to arms. They can be dangerous when taking with vodka spiked dacquries. Don't you think so ?
You'd ever notice how some nobody always tries to diss a somebody? People still know who Hemingway was. 50 years from now - in 2061- they still will. No one will remember who Andy Rooney was in two years.
what a kindergarten speech ! if thats all of the prove he needs, to insult a person as a " jerk",xpecially e.hemnigway, i dont wanna know what he must think of himself, in those creepy dark moments, when he is alone and facing his demons of anger and vanity, sreaming to be feed by his frustration, that he ,even if he tryed for a hundred years, wouldnt be able to even write done a three word sentence, that would quarter as deep as mr Hemingways work. poor old man
Putting a shotgun barrel in one's mouth and pulling the trigger is not a very literary way to go out of this world as Hemingway did in 1960...as well as grossing everybody out in the house.
