Hemingway, Ecology and Culture

The ecological dimensions of Ernest Hemingway''s work are often overlooked in much of the criticism on him. This book contributes to a growing body of work on this aspect of Hemingway''s oeuvre, focusing on his unique perspective on nature and providing fresh insights into the author and his nonhuman characters. Through close readings of Hemingway''s long-length fiction ( The Sun Also Rises , A Farewell to Arms , For Whom the Bell Tolls , The Old Man and the Sea , The Garden of Eden , Islands in the Stream ), his short stories ( The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Big Two-Hearted River , A Natural History of the Dead ), and his nonfiction ( Death in the Afternoon and Green Hills of Africa ), this book challenges preconceptions of Hemingway as a hyper-masculine "papa". Ng provides new insights into Hemmingway''s humanity, and shows how he foregrounds the voices and narratives of nonhuman entities using the lenses of disability studies, light/color ecology, soil ethics, environmental history, the eco-gothic, olfactory discourse, posthumanism, and cultural ecology.>

Auteur
Ng Lay Sion is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tsukuba, Japan.

Résumé
The Anthropocene has ushered in remarkable progress and unprecedented challenges, with ecological crises threatening all lifeespecially the most vulnerable. In search of new solutions, Lay Sion Ng turns to an unexpected source: Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's ecological perspective is often overlooked in his work. This book expands on emerging scholarship, exploring Hemingway's non-anthropocentric view of non-human entities to offer fresh insights into the author and his nonhuman characters in his long-length fiction such as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea and The Garden of Eden, as well as short stories like The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Big Two-Hearted River and A Natural History of the Dead. Through a multidisciplinary lensincluding material ecocriticism, eco-gothic, posthumanism, light/colour ecology, olfactory discourse, environmental history, and cultural ecologyNg challenges the notion of Hemingway as merely a hyper-masculine figure. Instead, she reveals his texts as "ecological forces" that can heighten our awareness of nonhuman agency, leading us to understand our own place in this interconnected world.