Title
The Ma of Hemingway: Interval, Absence, and Japanese Esthetics in In Our Time
Document Type
Article
Annotation
Applies the Japanese esthetic of ma to Hemingway’s prose style, specifically analyzing “Indian Camp” and “Big Two-Hearted River.” Contrary to Western scholarship, Loots argues that Hemingway’s theory of omission should be approached not as a puzzle to be filled in but as “gesturing toward the meaningful yet unnamable nothingness of the interval.” Loots interprets the woods in In Our Time as a “representation of the text’s sublime nothingness” and urges scholars to address the silences and absences in Hemingway’s text as meaningful in themselves.
Published in
Hemingway Review
Volume
29
Issue
2
Date
Spring 2010
Pages
74-88
COinS
Citation
Loots, Christopher. “The Ma of Hemingway: Interval, Absence, and Japanese Esthetics in In Our Time.” Hemingway Review 29, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 74-88.