One True Podcast
One True Podcast explores all things related to Hemingway, his work, and his world. The show is hosted by Mark Cirino and produced by Michael Von Cannon. Join us in conversation with scholars, artists, political leaders, and other luminaries. For more, follow us on Twitter @1truepod. You can also email us at 1truepod@gmail.com.
One True Podcast
Ryan Hediger on "A Natural History of the Dead"
We are joined by Ryan Hediger to get to the bottom of Hemingway's genre-bending and gruesomely descriptive "A Natural History of the Dead."
First published in Hemingway's bullfighting treatise Death in the Afternoon in 1932 and then reprinted a year later in Winner Take Nothing, this work gives us a chance to consider Hemingway's treatment of death in his work, as well as the artist's obligation to depict violence with a scientific objectivity.
Hediger discusses the way "A Natural History of the Dead" simultaneously satirizes the nature writers that preceded Hemingway, while also providing a window into Hemingway's own complex engagement with the natural world.