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Saturday, May 19, 2012

HERO IS NOT A NOUN. IT'S A VERB.

HERO IS NOT A NOUN. IT’S A VERB.

Robert Downey Jr. said that in an interview that

I was reading with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway looking over my shoulder.

He growled, “The man’s right.” 

Then, he read the next sentence and snapped,

“How can a man get it right one breath and go tragically wrong the next?”

“Isn’t that the human condition?” I asked.

“Ha!” snorted Hemingway and stormed off into the shadows of my apartment. 

(He gets that way sometimes.)

What was the next sentence?

“Heroism’s one aspect of an entire spectrum of things –

an act of courage is no more important than an act of cowardice.”

Hemingway called out from the darkness,

“Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy. 

But by God, it will be one worth reading.  If Lord Jim had stayed a coward, Conrad’s book would have been shit!”

What do you think of Downey’s remarks, of Hemingway’s?

I just found out that Ann Best has said good-bye to blogging to concentrate on Jen, recently admitted to the Behavioral Ward in their hospital and to get better from her terrible cold. 

It made me sad. I am happy that she was able to be published, find success in sales, and friends in the blogverse.
{Image courtesy of Esquire Magazine.}

3 comments:

  1. I like this impression of Hemingway. Love Midnight in Paris.

    Now, I say Robt Downey Jr is right, but so is Hemingway. They're looking at the problem from different paradigms.

    I like your posts when Hem looks over the shoulder. . . Have you been to his house in Key West? I wrote about it (Hemingways's Key West Hideaway) on the Rainforest Writing blog a while back.

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  2. D.G.
    Yes, I read that post. I really enjoyed it. I would love to go one day, too!

    LOL. I taught Hemingway in my creative writing classes for so long, I can hear him over my shoulder as it were! Thanks for visiting and staying to talk. Sigh. Work is calling!! Roland

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  3. By important he may mean in that both will affect an individual just as strongly. However, heroism is the greater positive force of the two.
    Love is also a verb.

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