Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Read on Hemingway & Gellhorn, Great Color, Some Problems, August 28, 2008
This review is from: Hemingway on the China Front: His WWII Spy Mission With Martha Gellhorn (Paperback)
This is an interesting study of two unbalanced personalities, Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, before and during their trip to the Far East from January to May of 1941. Hemingway was a very heavy drinker, at times abusive but capable of great charm, and Gellhorn, a true limousine liberal stamping out injustice and helping the poor, but totally unable to allow herself to come into contact with them.
But do not be deceived. Hemingway did not "spy" on anyone, there was no "mission", and the US was not yet in World War II. The basis for the sub-title was that Hemingway reported separately (from his published reports) to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthal and Harry Dexter White. They recognized that Hemingway and Gellhorn might write pap and propaganda for the public (sounds like contemporary media reporters) but wanted to obtain a balanced assessment of the readiness of the Far East in case of a Japanese attack, and most particularly China which was gobbling up vast sums of US aid.
The stories of Hemingway's drinking bouts and Gellhorn's obsession with cleanliness became wearisome. However, the depiction of China as a poor, filth-ridden country with a fascist government was nonpareil. The corrupt Chiang was more interested in fighting the communists than the Japanese, and the vast majority of US aid was not going into fighting Japanese aggression. The author makes this very clear, but there is little followup explaining why FDR continued his ruinous policies with respect to China until Japan was defeated literally without or in spite of Chinese help.
Some of the author's errors will be jarring to an historian. For whatever reason, he seems to only very reluctantly concede that Harry Dexter White was a spy, and he leaves the case against the Canadian born Laughlin Currie (like the author) somewhat in doubt. This is incomprehensible for a writer in 2004. The publication of the Venona material in 1995 established for all time that White was a high-level Soviet agent who did almost irreparable harm to the US while leading the American delegation in setting up the IMF (one of the KGB's finest hours), and Currie was part of the Silvermaster ring under the code name "Page." One of his major coups was reporting to Stalin that FDR was willing to let the Soviet Union keep the half of Poland they conquered in 1939, and that he would pressure the London Polish exile government to make further concessions. (See Haynes & Klehr, "Venona" for details.) Following that, the betrayal of the Polish exiles and their army was a foregone conclusion. At any rate, these were the birds with whom Hemingway was flying.
A small point is the editing. For example, author Moreira states that Hemingway committed suicide in 1961 and Gellhorn followed 27 years later with her own suicide in 1998. The author and his editors need a lesson in math.
All in all this book is an interesting read concerning life in China and the British colonies in the Far East in early 1941. Hemingway and Gellhorn are flawed and complex characters worth in-depth studies, but one needs a strong stomach and substantial personal interest to deal with their idiosyncrasies. They fit the CBI (China-Burma-India) theater well, particularly the other name used for the CBI theater, "Constant Bickering Inside."
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent in Every Respect, August 20, 2006
This is a surprisingly good book. Peter Moriera apparently has no other books to his credit, nor is a literary scholar, yet nevertheless delivers a smooth brisk text that is fact-filled. It is carefully documented with honest, substantive footnotes that demonstrate original research. It is also just a good straight piece of storytelling about a fascinating adventure at an important juncture of modern history: while Hitler was attacking Britain, Japan was conquering the East, but before America was involved in either front.
This would be a great reading experience whoever was at the center of it, but the writing team of Hemingway and Gellhorn offers the opportunity for drama and shrewd but carefully fair character study. Indeed all the principals including their Chinese interpreters, state department figures, Hemingway's drinking pals, Generalissimo and Mrs. Chiang Kai-Shek, Chou En-lai, are presented in fair, balanced, and fully rounded portaiture. The depiction of Hemingway and Gellhorn is a miracle of balance and fairness. The book does not take sides or have any agenda. It presents the strengths of each from an informed and sympathetic perspective, their respective flaws with realism and wry detatchment. Truth be told, by focusing on a fixed episode of Hemingway's life late 1940 through 41, Moreira is able to deliver one of the best portraits in life of Hemingway to date, superior indeed to many first person accounts. To those who may not have known Gellhorn's work as well, a reading of this book will only leave you wanting to see more.
Finally, the subject matter is not just a lark like an Indiana Jones adventure. Moreira illustrates how the two writers were subtly enlisted on behalf of the Roosevelt administration both to get over and "spy" undercover as reporters, but also to deliver something of its message afterwards. How both Hemingway and Gellhorn managed to do that as each, in their own way, preserved a degree of integrity and truth-telling is the real underside of the iceberg here awainting discovery.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ernest and Martha's Excellent Adventure, July 28, 2007
This review is from: Hemingway on the China Front: His WWII Spy Mission With Martha Gellhorn (Paperback)
In a short book about a few months in the lives of Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, Canadian journalist Peter Moreira has managed to give us a portrait of the two writers as they really were. Hemingway on the China Front shows us the pair at their journalistic peaks and valleys, their relationship at its most romantic and as it starts to disintegrate, and two individuals coping gracefully and not so gracefully under trying circumstances.
Let's get this "spy" business out of the way. It's a good title and it may capture a few readers who'll think "I didn't know Hemingway was a spy!" Hemingway and Gellhorn were going to Asia (China, Burma, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies) as journalists. It was no secret that they would be digging for information. They were both well-known war reporters, and would therefore be looking for war-related intelligence. Even if they hadn't already been famous, they would have stuck out in Asia like sore thumbs, Hemingway for his height and Gellhorn for being blond. Any undercover work was out of the question. Hemingway was asked by the U.S. Treasury Department to check of the transportation situation in China, to gauge how the money the U.S. was sending China was being spent. Gellhorn was a friend of the Roosevelts and was a regular White House visitor. While there's no evidence that she too was asked to check up on the Chinese, she could be expected to be debriefed when she returned to the States.
Moreira tells a quick-paced story of two young and glamorous war reporters on a trip to exotic lands while the war is getting underway. They were newlyweds as well, although they'd been together for several years. While they jokingly referred to the trip as their honeymoon, the only parts of the trip that might have qualifed were the initial stop in Hawaii and their stay in Hong Kong. The rest of the trip reads like an endurance test. The conditions in China were filthy and crowded. It was a huge dose of culture shock for the pair, and they handled it in different ways. Hemingway stayed drunk as much as possible. Gellhorn was learning that living with an alcoholic could be exhilarating at its best and unbearable at its worst. Even after they broke up and she refused for the most part to talk or write of him, she admitted that the best times of her life were with Hemingway. And the worst.
Moreira explains clearly the political situation in China and we're able to appreciate the dilemma that the writers faced in trying to support the U.S. allies represented by Chiang Kai-Shek and Chou En-Lai, while not ignoring the repressive regimes they controlled. They weren't entirely successful.
Hemingway on the China Front, for all its attention to journalistic detail and scholarship, also has a large helping of entertaining stories. The two met some fascinating characters in Asia including Emily Hahn, several dashing American pilots, Chou En-Lai and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. And Moreira re-tells some of the best stories from Gellhorn's Travels With Myself and Another. It's great to find a new take on the lives of two people who've been written about so thoroughly.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
