Hemingway [Paperback]

Carlos Baker (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 460 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; 4 edition (November 1, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691013055
• ISBN-13: 978-0691013053
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #666,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Hemingway (Paperback)

Insightful analysis of Hemingway's work for anyone who wants to get past the literal meanings to reach the symbolic. Reading Baker's book makes reading Hemingway an even more rewarding experience.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authorized Biography, September 9, 2010

By 

John Guzlowski (Danville, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hemingway (Paperback)

This is one of the earliest biographies of Hemingway, and it's among the best. Carlos Baker was a scholar and researcher who was chosen by the Hemingway family to write this biography. He knew Hemingway as well if not better than any of the recent biographers, and it shows. You'll find out everything you've wanted to know and more.

But that's not what makes this biography great. Baker has a clean style and descriptive eye that makes reading this book a pleasure.

I've taught American lit for 35 years, and this is the Hemingway biography I always recommend to my students.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty much established the Hemingway as a whiny jerk image, October 18, 2011

By 

Timothy W. Lieder "racapowski is rapacowski" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hemingway (Paperback)

One of the most common beliefs about Hemingway is that he was one of those fragile he-men who was all bluster and talk, yet liable to crack like an egg at a moment's notice. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Happy Birthday, Wanda June as a two act attack on the Hemingway version of masculinity. Truman Capote claimed that he was the man that Hemingway pretended to be. Several pop psychologists claim that Hemingway was a closeted homosexual who hunted and fought in wars as a way of hiding his true nature from the world.

The fascinating thing about this book is the fact that it puts forth almost all of these images of Hemingway and more. Since this is considered the quintessential Hemingway biography, one almost has to conclude that we get most of our ideas about Hemingway from this book's depiction. And the Hemingway that comes through these pages is partially the Hemingway of the mythology but for the most part, it's a whiny and put-upon Hemingway that emerges. When he's not bullying a long time friend, he's complaining about someone's negative review or criticism. It seems as if Hemingway spent his entire life complaining about people or writing them scathing letters because they hurt his feelings.

Carlos Baker is good at giving the details of his life; however, the way Baker arranges these details is a problem. The amount of attention that Baker lavishes on Hemingway's hurt feelings and attacks borders on the obsessive. By the end of the book, there isn't a page without some form of personal attack or wounded recrimination. This is doubly a shame because Baker stops talking about Hemingway's work entirely by this point and choooes to imply that Hemingway didn't write anything for the last 10 years of his life - unless you count hate mail to ex-wives and former friends.