Customer Reviews

Hemingway

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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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.

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.

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.

well done. i don't usually care to read books by academics, but this is the exception to the rule. you get the full picture here about ernie, warts and all. you may not like some of the things you'll find out about the great novelist...but then, that's life. i say you'll still want to read ernie's books--because he was that good. ernie lives on!

good general overview of hemingway's mindset, but no as detailedas a college lecture. more discussion of the h
hero and how they measure up to the code plus a more stringent analysis of symbolism and motifs and broder def of his weltshaung would be more enriching.

This is literary criticism and analysis, not biography - though there is some good biography in the first two chapters. For me, I was mistaken in thinking it was Baker's biography of H.