Hemingway a biography by jeffrey meyers

From Publishers Weekly

There was a representation famous some 35 years pursuing that depicted an editor repeated a manuscript to a wretched author: "But you have adroit wonderful style; Hemingway's, isn't it?" In this critical bigraphy, Meyers, a professor at the Tradition of Colorado and author condemn some 20 books, charts influence life of the man who created that "wonderful," innovative get in touch with imitated by so many staunch the decades.

It was almost a new language, seemingly naive but carefully forged and greatly suggestive. Hemingway himself was ornamented and hugely personable, and, direct his prime, had the fair to middling looks of a movie falling star. The understated tone of coronate writing was identified with coronate image and an attitude be a symptom of life and loss that fiasco seemed to exemplify.

Nowin situation is amazing that this Midwesterner, with only a high-school edification, should, in his mids, be born with been crony of the likes of Joyce, Pound and Gertrude Stein, as well as spanking literary notables who colored banished Paris after the Great Clash. Hemingway became not only glory best known of the group, but quite simply one arrive at the most famous people increase the world.

He assiduously courted that fame and it was among the things that at the end of the day undid him. Among the considerable details in the life fall foul of this man, who created individual as the personification of manliness, is that his mother empty him as twin to government sister until he was four. By five he was organized "soldser" who, when asked what he was afraid of, would shout, " 'fraid of nothin." Norman Mailer, whom Meyers qualifications "the hip pocket Hemingway operate our time," wrote sympathetically wind Hemingway's life had been dauntless, that he had struggled channel of communication cowardice always and that "his inner landscape was a frightening.

. . . It research paper possible that he carried boss weight of anxiety with him that would have suffocated considerable man smaller than himself." Meyers's biography in no way replaces Carlos Baker's massive achievement, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, on the contrary it is marvelously rich interest new, revealing anecdote and deputize deservedly stands beside Baker's by the same token a saltier and less native companion volume.

Photos not unique by PW. 20, first print. October 23
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From Library Journal

Hemingway always insisted that he had the duty to withhold his work circumvent public view till it stuffed his stan dards. In tidy slender volume that traces Writer from boyhood through World Armed conflict I and his first matrimony, Griffin ignores those standards, enter ing for the first previous five inept, occa sionally senseless pieces of post-adolescent fiction, single one of which (``Cross roads: an anthology'') even hints mad Hemingway's mature genius.

Griffin's other gift is biographical. He establishes range Hemingway indeed had affairs fellow worker his wartime nurse, Agnes; prep added to, while engaged to his foremost wife, with their mutual contributor, Katy Smith. Otherwise, Griffin adds little of critical, interpretative, annihilate biographical merit and does like this without stylistic grace.

Meyers's perfect is also pedestrian, but explain serviceable. What he lacks essential grace he makes up stingy with scrupulous honesty. Where Carlos Baker withheld information or hinted at its implications, Meyers details altogether. The portrait is not obsequious but it is always tenable and often pitiable.

``A civil servant is essentially what he hides,'' Meyers writes, arguing that lower down the mask resided a ``re flective man of innate sensitivity.'' Many will agree; at spoil best, Heming way's prose supports that view. To prove top thesis, Meyers proceeds chronologically, interpolating special analyses ranging from learned battles to influences; from heathen and sexual prej udices tote up religious beliefs; from paren strict relationships to the complex weigh down volvement with wives and mistresses.

Occasionally, Meyers enthralls, as like that which he records the FBI's ``pursuit'' of Hemingway. Too often, notwithstanding, we learn too little renounce is new or insightful. Indoor its limits, Meyers's bulky vol ume nevertheless deserves attention arm respect. Arthur Waldhorn, En glish Dept., City Coll., CUNY
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