Dateline: Toronto - Hemingway Style

Hemingway Style

Many of the stylistic techniques and themes that would characterize Hemingway's writing were first put to use for the Star. In a dispatch from Spain in 1922 Hemingway would write a passage reminiscent of his Pulitzer-prize winning The Old Man and the Sea:

But if you land a big tuna after a six-hour fight, fight him man against fish until your muscles are nauseated with the unceasing strain, and finally bring him up alongside the boat, green-blue and silver in the lazy ocean, you will be purified and will be able to enter unabashed into the presence of the very elder gods and they will make you welcome." Ideas later surfaced in The Old Man and the Sea. "At Vigo, in Spain, Is Where You Catch the Silver and Blue Tuna, the King of All Fish, The Toronto Star Weekly, February 18, 1922

On assignment for the Toronto Star, Hemingway also wrote about his first bullfight in a lengthy feature ("Bull-Fighting Is Not a Sport—It Is a Tragedy", The Toronto Star Weekly, October 20, 1923). Bullfighting would become a major motif in Hemingway's writing, appearing in The Sun Also Rises and Death in the Afternoon. Hemingway's stories also displayed his characteristic sparse use of language, attention to detail, and ear for dialogue.

A humorous streak is also present in much of Hemingway's newspaper writing. Humor, however was not common in Hemingway's later writing, possibly because the humor reminded him of journalism, or because he believed the humor was simply not appropriate in serious literature. All the literary and humorous flourishes in Hemingway's writing have led to suspicion that Hemingway's stories may have included details that were embellished.

Hemingway himself would grow to disavow his newspaper writing, and did not wish for it to be compared to his later publications. Hemingway reportedly would become infuriated at such comparisons.