I have read Hemmingway's novel The Sun Also Rises 5 times. It's a book that has a lot of dialogue. It is funny to notice that it's the dialogue that changes the most for me, when I read something again, a few years later. Maybe on one reading I am in a humorous mood, so I read all the dialogue in a way that maximizes the joking. Another time, I'm in a romantic mood, so I read all the dialogue in a way that maximizes that aspect of it.
That's only true for lesser authors, of which I am including Hemingway.
edit: Lesser does not mean valueless. It means not at the same level. To be lesser than a master doesn't make one worthless, it just means one is not at the highest possible caliber in their art form.
Mark Twain, on the other hand, is dialogue-heavy and yet you get a very stronge sense of what emotion you're intended to read sections in because he gave the characters much more flesh and blood.
To compare --
Hemingway - “I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what is was all about.”
Twain - "'Ransomed? What's that?' 'I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so of course that's what we've got to do.' 'But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?' 'Why blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?'"
I haven't actually read Hemingway, but I assume the people that love him do so for some reason. With that in mind, my interpretation of this comparison is akin to a comparison between Rush and My Bloody Valentine, or Led Zeppelin to Brian Eno, or Bach to Phillip Glass. The left sides of those comparisons are much more explicit. The right sides are implicit, mushier, and more subjective; they aren't necessarily intended to create a uniform response among their listeners. This isn't generally considered a failing, and in fact all of these artists are highly respected in different, but overlapping circles.
It is odd that you would choose Twain as the contrast to Hemingway. They are, to me, so very similar as to be categorized as the same kind of literature in my head. I enjoy them both, and feel they are excellent purveyors of the craft of the American novel.
There was a great anecdote in one of Asimov's autobiographies about Hemingway, which has stuck with me for years. I am on a tablet at the moment so I won't try to find it, but the gist of it was he went to see an editor when he was quite young and maybe unpublished. The editor asked him, "How do you think Hemingway would say it was raining outside?" And Asimov replied he didn't know. The editor answered, "It was raining outside".
I am pretty sure that koan-like piece of advice shaped Asimov in pretty good ways...and also summarizes Hemingway surprisingly effectively.
