ERNEST HEMINGWAY Literature, Life, and the Human Condition

Ernest Hemingway is one of the most widely read American writers of the twentieth century, and also one of the most misunderstood. Popular memory has turned him into a set of images: the war correspondent, the big-game hunter, the deep-sea fisherman, the hard drinker, the man of action. These images hold some truth, but they hide the serious artist behind the legend. This book tries to bring that artist back into view.
The book follows one central idea. Hemingway’s fiction is a long and honest inquiry into how a person can live with dignity in a world that gives no guarantees. His characters meet war, injury, failed love, loneliness and death. They seldom find comfort in religion or in public slogans. What they find, when they find anything, is a private code made of careful work, loyalty to a few people, clear sight, and courage in the face of what cannot be changed. His famous style is the form this inquiry takes. The plain surface of his sentences and the deep feeling beneath them belong to the same vision. For this reason the book treats his life, his craft and his thought as parts of one subject rather than three separate topics.