then how to go forward from such a level of seriousness and intensity. His various solutions— big-game hunting, deep-sea fishing and, later, rushing off to Spain as soon as the civil war broke out—betray his failure to get at the roots of the problem. His formulae for the later books would seem to have been arrived at by considering the elements that he supposed made the early books an artistic success— realism, violence, sex, war—and repeating them with variations. The elements that give the early books their unique atmosphere, the blending of a sort of religious despair with a rudimentary nature mysticism, have disappeared, and have been replaced by elements that could be found in half a dozen other American writers or, indeed, Soviet Russian ‘ historical realists ’ .
In spite of this, some of the later work succeeds in taking the Outsider problems a stage beyond Meursault and Corporal Krebs. For Frederick Henry, the sense of unreality is dispersed by the physical hardships of the war, and then by his falling in love with Catherine Barkely. (It is to be noted that Catherine Barkely was in love with Henry long before he realized he was in love with her; the woman is always more instinctively well-adjusted, less susceptible to the abstract, than the man.) The feeling that the final Negative gets the last word, Catherine ’ s death, is a maturer realization than the feeling that nothing matters.
The short stories after 1930 often contain sentences that can be taken as fragments of the Hemingway Credo; there is, to begin with, Frederick Henry when Catherine is dying:
Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was all about. You never had time to learn ... they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you. 13
Or the Major of ‘ In Another Country ’ , whose wife has died:
A man must not marry.... If he is to lose everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. ... He should find things he cannot lose. 1 4
Or the reflections of the heartless cripple in ‘ The Gambler, the Nun and the Radio 5 :
Religion is the opium of the people... and now economics is the opium of the people, along with patriotism... . What about sexual intercourse, was that an opium of the people? But drink was a sovereign opium, oh, an excellent opium.... Although some people prefer the radio, another opium of the people. 16
There is the old waiter of ‘ A Clean, Well-lighted Place ’ , who prays: ‘ Hail nothing, full of nothing, nothing is with thee. ’
Here the encounter with death has become an encounter with the meaninglessness of life, an encounter with nothingness. The only value that remains is courage; Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea with his ‘ A man can be destroyed but not defeated 5 . And the value of courage is doubtful. Death negates it, and the causes that inspire it are usually ‘ opium of the people ’ .
There is a short story written before 1933 that expresses Hemingway 5 s Weltanschauung briefly. This is the unsuccessful experiment in style called ‘ The Natural History of the Dead ’ . He opens by quoting Mungo Park ’ s argument for ‘ a divinity that shapes our ends ’ : how, when fainting from thirst in the desert, he noticed a small moss flower and reflected: ‘ Can that Being who made, watered and brought to perfection ... a thing that appears so unimportant, look with unconcern upon the suffering of creatures made in his own image ? ’ Encouraged by this thought, he travelled on, and soon found water. Hemingway asks: ‘ Can any branch of Natural History be studied without increasing that faith, love and hope which we also, every one of us, need in our journey through the wilderness of life? Let us see therefore what inspiration we may derive from the dead. ’ 18
The story then becomes a ponderously ironic account of war experiences. He recalls the mules at Smyrna, their legs broken, pushed
In spite of this, some of the later work succeeds in taking the Outsider problems a stage beyond Meursault and Corporal Krebs. For Frederick Henry, the sense of unreality is dispersed by the physical hardships of the war, and then by his falling in love with Catherine Barkely. (It is to be noted that Catherine Barkely was in love with Henry long before he realized he was in love with her; the woman is always more instinctively well-adjusted, less susceptible to the abstract, than the man.) The feeling that the final Negative gets the last word, Catherine ’ s death, is a maturer realization than the feeling that nothing matters.
The short stories after 1930 often contain sentences that can be taken as fragments of the Hemingway Credo; there is, to begin with, Frederick Henry when Catherine is dying:
Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was all about. You never had time to learn ... they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you. 13
Or the Major of ‘ In Another Country ’ , whose wife has died:
A man must not marry.... If he is to lose everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. ... He should find things he cannot lose. 1 4
Or the reflections of the heartless cripple in ‘ The Gambler, the Nun and the Radio 5 :
Religion is the opium of the people... and now economics is the opium of the people, along with patriotism... . What about sexual intercourse, was that an opium of the people? But drink was a sovereign opium, oh, an excellent opium.... Although some people prefer the radio, another opium of the people. 16
There is the old waiter of ‘ A Clean, Well-lighted Place ’ , who prays: ‘ Hail nothing, full of nothing, nothing is with thee. ’
Here the encounter with death has become an encounter with the meaninglessness of life, an encounter with nothingness. The only value that remains is courage; Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea with his ‘ A man can be destroyed but not defeated 5 . And the value of courage is doubtful. Death negates it, and the causes that inspire it are usually ‘ opium of the people ’ .
There is a short story written before 1933 that expresses Hemingway 5 s Weltanschauung briefly. This is the unsuccessful experiment in style called ‘ The Natural History of the Dead ’ . He opens by quoting Mungo Park ’ s argument for ‘ a divinity that shapes our ends ’ : how, when fainting from thirst in the desert, he noticed a small moss flower and reflected: ‘ Can that Being who made, watered and brought to perfection ... a thing that appears so unimportant, look with unconcern upon the suffering of creatures made in his own image ? ’ Encouraged by this thought, he travelled on, and soon found water. Hemingway asks: ‘ Can any branch of Natural History be studied without increasing that faith, love and hope which we also, every one of us, need in our journey through the wilderness of life? Let us see therefore what inspiration we may derive from the dead. ’ 18
The story then becomes a ponderously ironic account of war experiences. He recalls the mules at Smyrna, their legs broken, pushed
Similar Books
