Mass Population Movements And William Faulkner

I am in the process of reading "The Unvanquised" by William Faulkner. As I sometimes do, I found a quotation in the middle of the book which I am compelled to write about today. This is that quotation below:

"...he nor they could not have known what it was yet it was there--one of those impulses inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people at intervals and drive them to pick up and leave all security and familiarty of earth and home and start out, they don't know where, empty handed, blind to everything but a hope and a doom."

"The Unvanquised" the book from which I drew that quotation is a fairly well known book by William Faulkner which was published in 1934, minety-one years ago, long before anyone on earth imagined that Russia and Ukraine would now be more than three years engaged in a war of aggression which was started, perpetrated, and perpetuated by Vladimir Putin and Russia, no one else. As a result of that war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been forced to feel one of "those impules inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people". As a result, just as Faulkner in his book was describing the mass exodus of African American slaves from the defeated south after the Civil War had ended. But Ukraine is not now, and has never been defeated in the last three plus years of this war. Yes, many of their people have become refugess for a variety of reasons within the greater reason of having been faced with the possibility of death if they remained in Ukraine. They have picked up and left all security and familiarity they have ever known, started out empty handed and blind to everything except a hope of a safe future in some other peaceful country and the overwhelming and inexplicable doom they have known quite well ever since the day Putin declared his war of aggression and invaded their country. They have traveled to dozens of other countries around the globe, some simply to cross the borders of Ukraine into Poland or another much safer European nation. Others have traveled across the planet and hundreds of thousands of them have come to America over the years of war chasing that hope. From January 20, 2021, until January 20, 2025, those people who came to America had that hope while living in a country which was compassionate, welcoming, and rational in its approch to them and their forced exodus from home. Now, from January 20, 2025, their hope has been destroyed and, once again, all they can see is that doom which they fear so justifiably. America is now in the hands of the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world, TRAITOR Trump who is working daily to attempt to force Ukraine and its democratic government to surrender to their attacker and surrender much of their country, their land, and their hope to that attacker, that dictator Vladimir Putin and to his Russian Agent, the TRAITOR Trump.

I was stunned as I read that quotation above from William Faulkner and realized just how applicable it is to the treachery of TRAITOR Trump who has abandoned ever promise the United States made to the Ukrainian people and their democracy in order to support his Russian master. Just a few days ago in Alaska, the world watched as TRAITOR Trump kowtowed to Vladimir Putin and his design to destroy Ukraine and its democracy. We watched the world's worst dictator being welcomed to American soil by the world's worst TRAITOR and would be dictator, TRAITOR Trump. We watched as the two of them attempted to decide the fate of a sovereign nation and its people without a single representative of their interests in the room. We watched the attempted murder of the nation of Ukraine in order for TRAITOR Trump to appease and attempt to legitimize his Russian owner. Just yesterday, we watched the President of Ukraine being ignored by TRAITOR Trump as he disembarked from his plane at the airport in Washington, DC, after TRAITOR Trump had rolled out a red carpet for their would be destroyer and dictator in Alaska. But Ukraine does have allies across Europe in several countries, the European Union, and NATO. But can Ukraine and their supporters actually win this conference room war against them? We don't know. But what we do know that they cannot win it if the American people also surrender to Putin and TRAITOR Trump. We must not do that. We must support Ukraine and their fledgling democracy. We must be the nation our Founding Fathers intended us to be.

TRAITOR Trump, Putin, Ukraine, and Putin's Dream Of A Eurasian Empire

 

Over the last several days, TRAITOR Trump has made numerous claims that he could "end the war in Ukraine even before I took office".  But there is a great deal of deception, misdirection, dishonesty, and outright lying in those statements.  Two days ago, on September 27, 2024, President Zelenskyy deigned to meet with man, other than Vladimir Putin, who presents the greatest danger to Ukraine and the very existence of democracy both in Eastern Europe and the United States of America.  I have no idea why President Zelenskyy would bother to hold such a meeting when the very existence of the country he has protected for the past several years is at stake.  After the meeting, TRAITOR Trump did as he always does in any situation, and tried to make himself look the answer to a problem which he is totally unfit to be involved in.  He said, in part, "We’re going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled and get it worked out," Trump said, standing next to Zelenskyy while speaking to a small group of reporters ahead of their closed-door meeting. "It has to end. At some point, it has to end. He’s gone through hell. His country has gone through hell."    Like everything which crosses TRAITOR Trump's lips, there are just enough nuggets of near truth in it to mislead the naive listener.  Yes, at some point Putin's War Of Aggression against Ukraine must end, and it must end with a free, democratic Ukraine which is how it began.  TRAITOR Trump went on to make the outrageous claim that he and President Zelenskyy "have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin."  There is not and never has been a legitimate reason for anyone to believe that TRAITOR Trump and President Zelenskyy have anything near a positive relationship.  But the nugget of near truth in that second quotation from TRAITOR Trump's press conference after the meeting is that fact that he has "a good relationship with President Putin."   If you want to see how positive TRAITOR Trump's relationship with Putin is just look at the still photograph below of the two of them at the notorious press conference at the G7 meeting in 2018 in which TRAITOR Trump publicly undercut all 17 US intelligence agencies and stated that he believed Putin's denial of Russian involvement in the theft of the 2016 US election in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.   This photograph tells the astute viewer everything you need to know about whatever relationship exists between Putin and TRAITOR Trump.  Putin is obviously pleased, striving to control his sense of power and achievement while TRAITOR Trump is cowed, controlled, disempowered, and obviously unable to hold his head up in public.  That photograph is all you need to know about what happens when these two criminals are in the same room.  One is in charge while the other is powerless. 

 

Now let's look at how that relationship of power and control would influence any discussion of what Putin would do in Ukraine.  What TRAITOR Trump either does not know or is not allowed to discuss in public is that Putin has no intentions of stopping his War Of Aggression in Ukraine.  He has far larger plans based on the work of the Russian political philosopher whom he quotes regularly in public, Ivan Ilyin who lived from 1883 to 1954.  Putin has, on dozens of occasions, discussed his strong belief that Ilyin was the most important political thinker in the history of Russia.  So what does that have to do with Ukraine?  Ilyin believed and wrote extensively that he believed that Russia should control all of Eurasia, a political belief known as Eurasianism.  Putin has often said that he wants Russia to control all of Eurasia "from Vladivostok to Lisbon", an area that encompasses most of Eastern Europe and a major chunk of Asia.  Just as President Biden and most of the leaders of NATO know and understand what Ilyin believed and wrote.  They also understand Putin's belief that Ilyin was correct and Russia is entitled to control all of Eurasia. Putin will never stop at Ukraine if he is allowed to win.  And if TRAITOR Trump is allowed to illegally occupy the White House again, he will allow Putin to do "whatever the hell he wants to" all the way from Vladivostok to Lisbon.  Only a strong NATO with a fully committed United States, along with a mutually supported Ukraine can stop Putin from continuing his War Of Aggression into his dream of a Russian Eurasia.   This misbegotten dream of Putin's which was originated by Ivan Ilyin is a primary reason Sweden and Finland stepped forward after decades of neutrality to join NATO.  They know they would also be on the list of countries which Putin would attempt to conquer if he is not stopped in Ukraine.  

The Yale University historian and author, Timothy Snyder, discusses Putin's dream of Eurasia "from Vladivostok to Lisbon" in his excellent book, "The Road To Unfreedom".  Read it!  Believe it!  Tell everyone you know that TRAITOR Trump, Putin's Puppet, cannot and would never attempt to stop Putin in Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, or any other country in that vast area.  He would not and could not because Putin owns and controls him just as he proved in that press conference at the G7 meeting in 2018.  DO WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING ALL ALONG, VOTE STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC, EVERY ELECTION, EVERY RACE! 

Reflections On Reading "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway

 I have not read nearly enough of the works of Ernest Hemingway over the years and I have made an attempt lately to correct that mistake.  I began by rereading "The Nick Adams Stories" recently and wrote about it on this blog.  I had read those stories years ago and I had also read some of Hemingway's other classic stories which have been included in anthologies through the years.  But I had sadly neglected reading his novels which were the primary motivators for his having been awarded both the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize.  I have never heard a single serious student of great literature ever rationally belittle the fiction of Ernest Hemingway.  I do not believe that I ever shall.  Both those awards were granted to "The Old Man And The Sea", but I  have never heard any serious student of great literature disparage any of his other novels as having been any less worthy of the awards.  He was a phenomenal writer and is generally mentioned on that short list of America's greatest writers.  My version of that short list would include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Pearl S. Buck.  While some of you might argue mildly against the inclusion of any of those people on such a list, most would not.  I do not intend to turn this blog post into a discussion of any writer, prize winner, or unawarded nominee.  But I do want to say that I have long wished it was possible to read the entire body of work of every winner of both the Nobel and the Pulitzer.  Each of them is deserving of that attention and study from any serious aficionado of great literature.  I do not expect to be able to complete that list in one lifetime but I am trying.  

Ernest Hemingway--Photo by Getty Images

To get to the point of this blog post, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is generally an undisputed masterpiece and fully deserves that descriptor.  I have always known that it is a great novel.  I simply had never gotten around to reading it and I am sorry that I waited so long.  In my blog post about "The Nick Adams Stories", I stated that  "Nick Adams loved to fish, hunt, drink, and have sex and those are three of the areas of life in which Ernest Hemingway wrote at a level which few writers ever achieve."  There is little writing about fishing or hunting in "For Whom The Bell Tolls".  This is a novel about an American volunteer in the Spanish Civil War and the great majority of the writing is about war.  But there is also quite a bit of sexual writing which plays a key role in the character development in the novel and the relationship between the protagonist Robert Jordan and his Spanish girlfriend Maria.  That relationship only lasts about three days and yet, in many ways, it is the most important relationship in the lives of both characters.  There is also some discussion in the novel of hunting, but primarily the hunting of men in a war.  Fishing is only referred to in passing near the conclusion of the novel when the protagonist notices a trout rising to the surface of a stream over which he is preparing to dynamite a key bridge.  But those sections of the novel reinforce my opinion that the area of life in which Ernest Hemingway did his best writing are war, sex, hunting, and fishing.  

In this novel, Hemingway also addresses the issue of suicide even more directly and at more length than he did in "The Nick Adams Stories".  But very near the end of the novel, he has the protagonist Robert Jordan refuse to allow a compatriot to shoot him as he is too severely wounded to flee with his band of Spanish revolutionaries.  That is quite interesting in light of the fact that the author eventually chose to end his life via suicide by gunfire.  But his best writing in more than one book often addresses the issue of suicide, both the possibility of the suicide of a protagonist and historical suicide by one or more characters who were major players in the lives of those protagonists. It is generally conceded that when Hemingway discusses suicide in his novels he is reflecting both on his father's suicide and his own ever present consideration of the act to end his own life.  I must admit that I have never read a scholarly article about the issue of suicide in the writing of Ernest Hemingway but many professional and scholarly writers have attempted to analyze his literary ruminations on the issue as well as suicide as a familial issue in the Hemingway clan.  You can rest assured that enough has been written about Ernest Hemingway and suicide to fill more than a few books.  You can also rest assured that any book which begins with the quotation from John Donne: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." will also discuss death.  This is a novel about war and nearly all war novels are replete with death.  But this novel is about much more than death despite the fact that most of the members of the guerilla band of Robert Jordan are dead before the novel ends.

I would argue that this novel is a love story, perhaps two love stories, or even three.  There is the primary love story between Robert Jordan and Maria, who was a victim of war before the two even met.  There is also the love story between the other couple in the novel, the alcoholic guerrilla leader Pablo and his wife and co-leader, the loud, brash, dangerous, and somewhat masculine Pilar.  There is also the love story between all these Spanish partisans in Jordans guerrilla group and their homeland for which they have literally bet their lives.  This is a novel which no serious student of literature should ever neglect to read.  It is a masterpiece. 

"The Nick Adams Stories" by Ernest Hemingway--Book Review

Hemingway, Ernest. The Nick Adams Stories. (New York, NY, Bantam Books, 1972)

This has always been one of my favorite books and this is the second or third time I have read it from cover to cover.  I have probably read a few of the individual short stories in this collection such as "Indian Camp", "Big Two-Hearted River", and "The Last Good Country" a dozen times or more.  This book shows a side of Hemingway that is not the commonly understood man and writer in many ways.  The 24  stories are divided into five sections and arranged in something close to the chronological order in which they were written.  The sections, in order, are called "The Northern Woods", "On His Own", "War", "A Soldier Home", and "Company Of Two".  These sections are intended to present the stories as they fit into the key segments of Hemingway's life and also correspond fairly closely to the order in which they were written.  

The stories in "The Northern Woods" are all set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the character Nick Adams after whom they are entitled is generally conceded to be primarily an autobiographical presentation of a youthful Hemingway in the home of his father.  "Indian Camp" has always been one of my favorite stories by any writer.  It is direct, brutal but realistic, and shows Hemingway approaching the issue of suicide which was a major family issue with his father, brother, and several other family members either attempting suicide or succeeding in ending their own lives.  The short story tells the story of the doctor, his son, and an uncle attending the birth of a child in the home of a Native American couple in the Upper Peninsula.  The woman's husband is bound to his bed by a recent injury and they  are actually in a set of bunk beds during the childbirth.  At the end of the procedure, the doctor discovers that the father has quietly committed suicide in the upper bunk as his child is being born immediately below him.  The dialogue at the end of the story is some of the most linguistically simple and yet brutally powerful you will ever find by an writer anywhere.  The boy asks, 

"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?"  

"Not very many, Nick."

"Do many women?"

"Hardly ever."

"Don't they ever?"

"Oh yes. They do sometimes."

"Daddy?"

"Yes."

"Where did Uncle George go?"

"He'll turn up alright."

"Is dying hard, Daddy?"

"No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick.  It all depends." 

When we consider the fact that both Ernest and Clarence Hemingway died by suicide by gunshot, we can almost visualize Ernest Hemingway, in Ketchum, Idaho, in the early morning hours of July 2, 1961, replaying that very dialogue in his mind as he loaded his shotgun to end his life.  I have always suspected that this section of dialogue from "Indian Camp" may well be the most purely autobiographical words Hemingway ever wrote.  But the stories are not all that dark and Nick Adams and his fictional father are not overly dark characters.  Nick Adams love to fish, hunt, drink, and have sex and those are three of the areas of life in which Ernest Hemingway wrote at a level which few writers ever achieve.  Some of the hunting and fishing language in these stories is pure poetry.  the sexual language is totally devoid of all those socially unacceptable locker room words so often found in the work of lesser writers.  But when Hemingway wrote about sex, he did not leave  his readers to wonder what he was talking about.  His meanings are crystal clear.  His language is admirable and accurate.  When he writes about any of these three topics, you know you are reading the work of an individual who has done sufficient homework on his topics to be considered an expert and a connoisseur.

"The Last Good Country" is a fascinating story about Nick Adams on the run from two local game wardens as a teenager in the company of his younger sister who is going with him to protect him from himself and his dangerous tendencies.  They are hiding in the "...last good country..." in the Upper Peninsula with streams full of hungry trout, berries to pick, warm beds of vegetation in which to sleep safely, and far too much country for two fat, liquor loving game wardens to ever find them.  The relationship between the siblings borders on things which most readers would not appreciate and Hemingway never crosses any of the lines which would make the difference for reader.  But he walks directly up to those lines, stares across at his doubting readers, and leaves answers hanging in the air to be considered, doubted, appreciated, and never found in the open.  It is also a wonderful story.  

 "Big Two-Hearted River" is, perhaps, the best known story in this collection but I would not go so far as to declare it flatly the best.  It is a wonderful story and is also one of my favorite stories both from Hemingway and from the greater body of American literature.  It is, on the surface, a fishing story about an isolated section of river which Nick Adams loves to fish in the Upper Peninsula but it also about a soldier returning home from war and remembering his friends in the war.  The fishing sections of the story are some of the best written descriptions of fishing from any writer, anytime, anywhere.  Isaak Walton would have been proud to know this version of Hemingway.  It is also a great story about a solitary person in a very solitary situation in a wilderness.  This story is one of those which no person should ever say they are a well read aficionado of either Ernest Hemingway or American Literature without having read. 

While the Nick Adams stories are not always the first of Hemingway's writing we hear mentioned, they are well crafted, introspective, autobiographical stories by and, at least in part, about a very complicated man.  They are well worth reading and rereading.