What was Hemingway thinking?

[dreamage]

I saw somebody reading The Sun Also Rises on the subway today, and here's what occurred to me: given that Hemingway once said that happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing he knows, don't you think it's ironic that most of his book are so damn depressing

Comments

[lambda_calculus]

I think you have confused intelligence and wisdom...

[dreamage]

Dude, I confused nothing and nothing: I'm just quoting Hemingway.

[lambda_calculus]

As far as I can tell from this post, Hemingway pointed out how rare happiness is in intelligent people.

I don't think it's ironic that his books are unhappy; given what he tends to write about and how he tends to flesh out his characters in their unhappy staates, he knows this about himself and is stating the fact as if he fell under it as well.

It is also not intelligence that determines whether one comprehends and follows that claim of "this is rare, therefore I should strive for it." In general that his chalked up to the kind of capability that comes through wisdom.

[theenforcer]

If you are of the opinion that intelligent people are rarely happy then you can make your readers feel really smart by depressing the hell out of them.

Or maybe he was trying to reinforce how smart he was by showing how depressing he could be.

[dreamage]

Haha, I like that explanation.

[anonymous]

STUPID