Literary Masters: Ernest Hemingway.
Sinclair, Gail D.
By Michael Reynolds. Gale Study Guides to Great Literature. Volume
Two. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. 161 pp. Cloth $72.75.
The last book of the late Michael Reynolds is part of the Gale
Group's resource series dedicated to great literary authors and
their works. His noteworthy accomplishments as a Hemingway scholar and
biographer no doubt made editorial choices difficult when Condensing information from his definitive five-volume work to the slightly more
than 150 pages in this text. Reynolds handles the chore with panache,
skillfully adapting his style to the needs of the Gale series'
format and its intended high school, undergraduate, and general
audience. This volume is not simply a mini-version of Reynolds's
biography, but instead provides a solid though quickly digestible background to the life, times, and literary climate of Ernest Hemingway.
Reynolds manages to do this while also offering graduate students and
scholars easy access to useful, concisely provided information.
Alvin Kernan's introductory "A Note to the Reader"
lashes out at what he label's postmodernists' efforts to
discount "the individuality of the writer in favor of a world of
impersonal texts and systems" (vii). This volume's purpose, as
he describes it, counteracts that intent by including "the tellers
with their tales ... to see the heroic scene of literature itself,
throughout the world, where men and women writers make and have made the
most skillful use of the word-hoard of language and the freedom of
fiction to preserve our collective past and to make sense out of things
that in their multitude are always threatening to fly apart into
chaos" (ix). Hemingway certainly catapulted himself and the
literature he created to those heroic proportions, and Kernan could
hardly have better stated the crux of what writers in general, and
certainly Hemingway in particular, mean for their art to accomplish.
Reynolds devoted much of his life's work and creative output
to writing about Hemingway, and he skillfully brings together in this
volume all the interrelated components involved in studying this
20th-century icon. Even Hemingway scholars, for whom the information is
certainly familiar, will find Reynolds's smooth prose a pleasant
read, his insights representative, and the encapsulated information
accessible. The book's sections, generally ranging from ten to
twenty pages, neatly divide the information chronologically, personally,
historically, and critically, though one small complaint I might raise
is the occasional repetition of information both within and between
sections. This is probably an intentional device, given the text's
generalized target audience.
The first chapter is a "Chronology of Events," and
Reynolds offers a succinct overview of important occurrences beginning
with Hemingway's 1899 birth in Oak Park, Illinois; moving on to his
various marriages, publications, and participation in world events; and
ending with his unfortunate suicide on 2 July 1961. Each year's
summary is paragraph-length and offers informative highlights. Reynolds
follows this opening section with a short narrative biography (thirteen
pages), of Hemingway's family background, early influences and
interests, development and repetition of common literary themes, ending
with a list of the writer's awards and recognition.
The heart of the volume concentrates on Hemingway's growth as
a writer ("Hemingway at Work"); the cultural and historical
climate in which he lived and created ("Hemingway's
Eras"); a brief discussion of the works, together with their
critical reception and impact, and a list of various media adaptations
("Hemingway's Works"). Hemingway's consciousness of
his art and its contribution to 20th-century literature ("Hemingway
on Hemingway") are also discussed, and an eclectic collection of
information is provided: Hemingway's informal but extensive
educational background; his reading lists; his fictional interests
categorized thematically as the "War Novel" the "American
in Europe," and the "Coming of Age" story; and finally, a
brief discussion of his literary mentors, ("Hemingway as
Studied").
The final section of this text offers the no-doubt compulsory study
questions targeted for a high school audience, although more likely used
by instructors of these students. A second component of this chapter is
a helpful glossary of terms adapted from Kirk Curnutt's earlier
Gale Study Guide, Ernest Hemingway and the Expatriate Modernist
Movement. The last element is a nicely categorized bibliography listing
nearly one hundred sources divided by type: Basic Reference Works,
Library Collections, Family Memoirs, Memoirs of Others Who Knew
Hemingway, Collections of Interviews, Hemingway Biographies, Other
Biographies and Histories, Pictorial Biographies, and Internet
Resources.
In keeping with the Gale Series format, Reynolds makes this
Hemingway volume palatable for a generalized audience by constantly
interspersing text, photos, and thumbnail quotations from a wide variety
of sources. Particularly useful for students new to Hemingway are
Reynolds's definitions of such key concepts as the iceberg theory,
the code hero (tutor/tyro) paradigm, and "grace under
pressure." The volume is also useful for the more seasoned
Hemingway aficionado with its compilation of the most significant and
oft-quoted passages.
Reynolds also debunks what has been a popular practice of
simplifying the highly complex man and his work. Rather than focus on
the competitive battler, the "winner take all" figure that
Hemingway embellishes as his public persona, Reynolds points to the
author's fictional centering of characters who display dignity in
the face of failure. Further, Reynolds emphasizes the more contemporary
critical view that Hemingway's female characters are not the good
woman/bad woman figures identified by many past critics. Instead, he
points to their display of strength, courage, and stoic
endurance-qualities his code heroes also offer.
Reynolds is most eloquent when discussing the dichotomy embedded in
Hemingway's more powerful works. In these novels and short stories
his characters truly live stoically when, as Reynolds remarks,
"Immobilized in pain and dread, they must respond to the screams
that life forces upon (or from) them by killing themselves; or they must
find a way of diminishing the impact of the screams while still
performing in their threatened lives with generosity, courage, and
skill" (123). More simply stated, Reynolds believes that Hemingway
and "his characters are alive to pathos but labor to resist its
attractions" (124). This grace under pressure represents the true
heart and strength of Hemingway's artistic philosophy and may hint
at the nature of his wide appeal.
What Reynolds offers in Literary Masters: Ernest Hemingway is a
highly readable, extremely useful text for beginning Hemingway students.
Teachers and mentors can point students toward this source or use it
themselves as quick reference and refresher. Reynolds has chosen well in
his compression of information and his efforts to make clear "the
obvious trail [Hemingway] left in his art of his lifelong movement
between the most terrible sounds of life and the final silence with
which serious writers seem somehow to be familiar" (127). I highly
recommend this resource and forecast that it will quickly show the signs
of an oft-used text.
--Gail D. Sinclair, Rollins College
