Customer Reviews

Ernest Hemingway; a life story,

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Carlos Baker's biography of Hemingway reveals the life of Hemingway to be far more interesting and compelling than anything Hemingway wrote.

Baker shows himself to have literary talent equal to that of his subject, and has written a thorough and thoroughly readable biography of Hemingway.

Anyone who has enjoyed William Manchester's biography of Winston Churchill will be equally entertained and informed

I have read most of the major biographies concerning Hemingway..(I am more fastinated with Hemingway the man than his actual work, I have to admit). This is by far the best. Well written, well researched. I must admit to be a Baker fan, so perhaps my view my be slanted here. I do recommend the books reading, and do recommend you add this one to your collection.

Thoroughly traces Hemingway's whole life from birth to shotgun finale. Splendidly done by Baker. I am in agreement with the previous reviewer; this bio is up there with Manchester's bio of Winston Churchill.

Having read most of Hemingway's fiction, and certain of his books several times, I plowed through Carlos Baker's biography with interest. However, I was disappointed at several junctures. There is no way that this prettied up hatchet-job is "even better than Hemingway's writing," as the first reviewer absurdly contends, perhaps hoping you won't pick up one of Hemingway's classics and find out otherwise. And as for biography, it continues in the footsteps of other biographies penned in recent decades, wherein the author doesn't feel he's done his job unless he thoroughly "unmasks" the subject and makes you completely despise him. I knew Heminway was big on hunting and fishing, but I never suspected he shot coyotes from helicopters or prairie dogs from a passing car, let alone hunted out whole regions of every land animal he could kill or every fish that could be caught. If this is true, Hemingway and his sporting friends ought to have been ashamed, because they come off like the buffalo hunters from the mid-1800s, who slaughtered herds just for their tongues and left them rotting on the plains by the tens of thousands. But if you are an afficionado of Hemingway's writing at its best, something about this pretentious farce comes off as decidedly false. I simply cannot believe the most proficient American writer of the Twentieth Century was such a completely callous and egotistical jerk. As an animal lover, I'd wince at some of the passages in his books regarding animals, but I had no idea he took it this far and frankly don't believe it. It's all too convenient to the author's intent of painting "Papa" in such dark, thoroughly repellent colors. And he dismisses To Have and Have Not as an inconsequential effort, which simply isn't so. In fact, I think it was one of his best and certainly most entertaining books, regardless of what the know-it-all critics in New York City contended. Sure, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Farewell to Arms are excellent books, but I've read them only once apiece, whereas I've read To Have and Have Not three or four times, almost as often as I've read A Moveable Feast, which may be the author's most interesting book outside of his collection of The First Forty-Nine (Short) Stories.
In any case, I often got the impression that Baker either didn't know what he was talking about or was emphasizing certain aspects of the subject's life over others strictly for sensationalistic purposes. I noted at least one glaring error -- he stated that Hemingway's final home in Ketchum, Idaho was surrounded by the Sawtooth Mountains. Aah-aah WRONG! Haven't you ever been to Idaho, Mr. Baker, or do you simply not know your rear end from a hole in the ground about its geography? All in all, I'd call this pretentious tome an unfortunately tactless smear of a great artist.