Was Hemingway's writing too bleak?
Bleak is a word for people who don’t look close. Life is hard. It can break a man. But it doesn’t have to beat him. There’s courage. There’s resilience. Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. He fights the marlin. He loses it. But he doesn’t give up. He endures. That’s not bleak. That’s how it is. That’s a man. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. That’s the truth.
Ask Ernest Hemingway the follow-up →