Customer Reviews

Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences

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

 

 

James Mellow should be applauded for the way he harmonizes Hemingway's stories and Hemingway's life. After all, Hemingway did write with a highly autobiographical slant, and by reading his fiction, one is able to travel alongside the famous writer as, for example, he travels with his father to the Indian Camp, as he lies wounded in an Italian hospital, as he leans on the rail of the bullfight arena and watches horses get gored by bulls, etc, etc. I took my time reading this massive biography, and, simultaneously, I read each of Hemingway's stories (in the First Forty-nine) as I encountered them in the bio. This dual-reading allowed greater understanding of Hemingway the man and greater appreciation for Hemingway the writer. Compared to Kenneth Lynn's biography, Mellow's objective treatment is rather dull, but memorable overall. Read the last paragraph and enjoy the beauty of the language.

I enjoyed this work. The author did give a different slant to Hemingway the man, and indeed, the works of Hemingway. I cannot say for a second that I agreed with the author much over 25 percent of the time, but hey, Mellow has his opinion, I have mine. I did feel that Mellow beat the "gay" thing into the ground (as like in "Who Cares?") and did feel that the author did not have a good grasp of the works of his subject, i.e. Hemingway and his writing. Again though, it was nice getting another opinion and did leave me with some food for thought. This in no way compares with the work of Carlos Baker and his ilk, but, again, gives us just another view...always a nice thing. I do hope though, that the reader of this work reads some other biographies on Hemingway and do hope they actually read some of Hemingways work. On the other hand, I am a big Hemingway fan and my view, I am sure, is a bit slanted.

I was quite disappointed with this book. The author divides his time between 1) relating events of Hem's life (ok), 2) attacking Hem's character and endlessly trying to prove he was gay (?), and 3) attempts at 'literary criticism' of Hem's work (bad).

Almost from the outset, I got the feeling James Mellow didn't understand much about Hemingway's stories. His criticisms seemed trite or misguided. But when I got to page 521 I was quite sure he understood very little indeed. Summarizing For Whom The Bell Tolls, he writes, "Robert Jordan, on the last night before the dynamiting of the bridge, is forced to write his letter to General Golz suggesting that the attack be called off because of Pablo's treachery and the destruction of El Sordo's guerrilla band." Evidently Mr. Mellow didn't read the part where Jordan observes the enemy's massive defensive buildup just prior to the 'surprise offensive', which would render the offensive useless and costly. We're talking about a major troop movement with thousands of pieces of equipment, where El Sordo's band figures little, and it is beyond me to understand how this understanding of the situation could be lost on the critic / biographer.

I was glad to read the basic outline of Hemingway's life story, but didn't care for the sermonizing judgements of Hem's lifestyle and weak criticisms of his work.

I had a great interest in learning more about Hemingway. The home in Key West, the love of fishing, the adventures -- someone so notable must surely have stories to captivate a willing reader.

This book was an effort to get through the first 200 pages, and when I slowed down to a painful page a day, I had to call it quits.

The author attempts to take people and events from Hemingway's life and piece together who they ended up as in Hemingway's writings. And......well, that's pretty much it. I felt compelled to write a review to warn others -- it's just that bad.

I closed the book well before the last page bored and unmoved.

Anyone who has read Hemingway extensively has a general idea of his life, as he wrote in a very autobiographical (albeit slanted) stlye. However, for anyone wanting a fair, unflinching review of the author's life, including his loves, his clashes with friends and reviewers, and his frustrating decline as a writer, I encourage them to read Mellow's excellent biography.

Mellow is clearly a fan of Hemingway's, but at the same time he provides a very even-handed and thorough account of the author's many personal vendettas, his sometimes boorish and insensitive behavior, and his failed relationships with his wives while at the same time providing glimpses into the autobiographical aspects of many of Hem's works. I became much more interested in Hemingway's excellent short stories after reading Mellow's book, which refers to them extensively.

We meet Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gerald Murphy, and other Hemingway friends and aquiantances in vivid detail. I also was particularly impressed with the biography's epiphanous ending, as Hemingway took his life in Ketchum Idaho in 1961 with a self-inflicted shotgun blast. All in all, this is an excellent, concise, very readable biography which should be must reading for all fans of Hemingway's writing.

Another book about Hemingway? Amazingly, perhaps, this is the best one yet. Papa with all his flaws and all his gifts, X-rayed, dissected, analyzed, and left with his compromised humanity intact as an awesome, if not a sympathetic, character. What I came away with from this rivetting biography is an appreciation of Hemingway the Artist. We already knew that he was a great writer, and a mythic figure, created at least halfway by himself. Mr. Mellows shows that typewriters and words were only the most obvious media that Hemingway used, and that from the time he left home, and probably before, he was using the people who showed up in his life as ruthlessly as he used language. Hemingway's greatest contribution to writing may be the savage way he trimmed style and excess from sentences until they were as spare as could be, leaving the pure idea without any affected embellishment whatever. He did the same thing with the people in his life, wives included, reworking them to fit his narratives, and discarding them when they either failed to conform, or worse, did something by word or deed that bruised his insanely touchy feelings. Sexual ambiguity is everywhere in Hemingway's life, and he himself put it there by embracing a macho pole of identity while containing all the while certain feminine charcteristics such as extreme sensitivity and receptivity. He needed these qualities to be the artist he was, but he eschewed them in his active daily life. No wonder he shot himself. Read this book.

Mellow is a fan of Hemingway and perseverant, hard working, and knowledgeable about even the minutia of his subject matter. For the whole of a very readable biography, he is in constant dialogue with different texts: Hemingway's, family memoirs, diaries of his lovers, family photo albums. And in doing all of this, he disentangles a lot of cleverly woven strands woven together in the quest of one man toward greatness....

I can remember first reading Hemingway like six or so years ago when I was in high school and I hated him... could not understand why he did not understand why... the pointlessness of it all... Once, being forced to read 'A Room of One's Own' all of my disappointment in the man turned toward adulation; I still count Hemingway among my favorite authors.... and this book strengthens it.....

Even if Hemingway were some no one whose books had never been things of legend, whose life had not been held in esteem even while he lived-- this would still be a remarkable book. I highly recommend it to anyone-- it is definately worth all the money you'll spend....

Anyone who has read Hemingway extensively has a general idea of his life, as he wrote in a very autobiographical (albeit slanted) stlye. However, for anyone wanting a fair, unflinching review of the author's life, including his loves, his clashes with friends and reviewers, and his frustrating decline as a writer, I encourage them to read Mellow's excellent biography.

Mellow is clearly a fan of Hemingway's, but at the same time he provides a very even-handed and thorough account of the author's many personal vendettas, his sometimes boorish and insensitive behavior, and his failed relationships with his wives while at the same time providing glimpses into the autobiographical aspects of many of Hem's works. I became much more interested in Hemingway's excellent short stories after reading Mellow's book, which refers to them extensively.

We meet Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gerald Murphy, and other Hemingway friends and aquiantances in vivid detail. I also was particularly impressed with the biography's epiphanous ending, as Hemingway took his life in Ketchum Idaho in 1961 with a self-inflicted shotgun blast. All in all, this is an excellent, concise, very readable biography which should be must reading for all fans of Hemingway's writing.

It is always difficult to know exactly how to grade a book when it falls anywhere between "fantastic" (five stars) and "awful" (one or no stars). This book falls somewhere in between; I
would like to give it three-a-half stars, but that's not one of the choices, so I'll go with four stars.

This book was my introduction to Hemingway several years ago. I had never read any of his works, and while on vacation I ate at the Hemingway's Restaurant in Sarasota, Florida. The food
was pretty mediocre, but the Hemingway memorabilia and a conversation with our waitress made me curious, so I picked up a copy of this book.

As biographies go, it is very well researched and for the most part, fairly detailed. However, I found the latter part of it almost rushed and rather sketchy on details of Hemingway's last few
years. That was an initial criticism I had of the book, but as I later found in reading other biographies, that seems to be a problem with many of Hemingway's biographies. I've come to the conclusion that there just really is not a lot of information about him during his last few years.

So, I have dropped an early criticism I had of the book, however, it does suffer from some tediously boring passages that almost make you want to skip ahead. I do not know if we can
actually blame the author for that or if its just a fact that in relating Hemingway's life history not everything was necessarily interesting or exciting.

I also would like more details on his divorces. Hemingway was married four times, divorced three times, and I am curious as to what effect this had on his family, particularly on his children
who came from two of the marriages. Had did the breakup of his first marriage affect the relationship of Hadley (his first wife) and Pauline (his second wife), who were friends? There
also is little discussion of Hemingway's involvement with rasing his children. Sure he hunted and fished with them, but what other roles did he fulfill with his children? Was he essentially an absentee father? I guess there will always be some unanswered questions in an examination of anyone's life.

Still, compared to two other biographies I have read, this is the best and most complete so I do recommend it. If you want the "true gen" on Hemingway, this is the most complete source I am aware of.

Mellow's account of the Hemingway myth is painstakingly thorough, sometimes to a fault. It seems of little real consequence (and a bit oddly intrusive) that we're asked to wonder whether Agnes von Kurowsky performed oral sex on the writer in an Italian hospital. I'm sure Mellow knows that every young writer must fall in love in Europe and that the THING itself will find its way into the fiction in any form that seems suitable or usable. To dissect such events this way goes a bit over the edge. But, if anything, it shows a viciously dogged effort on Mellow's part to cover all the bases on such questions of psychological development of the artist. And it's less important to haggle over the question of homosexuality than it is to understand what Salinger meant when he said those things about an artist needing to find beauty in another man without such petty fears. But his dissection of this angle does add to an understanding of Hemingway's created self. In a nut, Mellow has done a damn fine job and shows just enough critical cynicism toward plenty of accepted notions to show himself trustworthy. He's done his homework, to say the least. And the criticisms of this book claiming it to unjustly or unfairly smash the illusions one may have of E.H. are for *&^% (as are such illusions). It's a good read.