Posted on 07/13/2009 8:37:50 AM PDT by FromLori
Up till now, this has been a notably cheerful year for admirers of Ernest Hemingway – a surprisingly diverse set of people who range from Michael Palin to Elmore Leonard. Almost every month has brought good news: a planned Hemingway biopic; a new, improved version of his memoir, A Moveable Feast; the opening of a digital archive of papers found in his Cuban home; progress on a movie of Islands in the Stream.
Last week, however, saw the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press), which reveals the Nobel prize-winning novelist was for a while on the KGB's list of its agents in America. Co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, the book is based on notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, made when he was given access in the 90s to Stalin-era intelligence archives in Moscow.
Its section on the author's secret life as a "dilettante spy" draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name "Argo", and "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us" when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to "give us any political information" and was never "verified in practical work", so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade. Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
How much was Papa drinking per day by the 40s?
He had tea with the Russians at his home here in Key West. That explains all the cats with six toes.
Now we know, from which came the phrase ‘’Argo f—k yerself’’.
I recall in a book about Zelda Fitzgerald, when she first met Hemingway, she told F. Scott that Hemingway was a phony.
Hemingway told his old friend, Fitzgerald that Zelda was insane.
Hemingway appears to have been spiritually bereft. An attraction to militant atheism combined with a suicide is usually a sign of inner emptiness.
He could have been a double agent too. My guess is he could barely stay somber to write his pulp novels.
I always thought he was a fraud.
I think they were BOTH right.
So, I guess his eating the shotgun was a good thing?
I always felt that he was a media creation by the left, his writing didn’t do anything for me.
Well to view this through a political prism, Hemingway, DH Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, were babies born out of the industrial revolution and the first generation of addled navel gazers starting with Wilson that gave us modern socialism. It’s been downhill since then. My 9th grade daughter’s history book still has the Rosenbergs a s innocent victims when we know now they were communists and Soviet spies, so hero worship of Heminway is in their playbook. I personally liked Hemingway as an author, but as a human being he was a horrid Father, serial fornicator and a bad drunk. So being a non principled traitor is not too far a stretch.
The author, John Dugdale, seems to be trying out for Master of the Non-Sequetor status. His end line is both a pander to Islam and a denial of the entire history of Islam.
“The virulent hatred of Arabs of Martha Gellhorn - Hemingway’s third wife, who covered the civil war with him - has been exposed.”
DUH ! ! !
Silly presstitute - To know Islam is to loath Islam.
“Got Rope”
Perhaps eating his 12 ga. was prompted by his fear/knowledge that he was going to be outed.
I KNEW you were a spy! :p
I liked Old Man and The Sea. Beyond that, he was great at imagery.
The rest, incoherent.
This makes sense, however, him being a spy. He basically hated himself, and was a miserable human being. That he’d hate his country? One follows the other.
“I recall in a book about Zelda Fitzgerald, when she first met Hemingway, she told F. Scott that Hemingway was a phony.
Hemingway told his old friend, Fitzgerald that Zelda was insane.”
It seems they were both right!
Hemmingway was a principled traitor; and the principle was international communism.
People usually turn spy for one of a few reasons...
Ideology.
Money.
Sex.
Ego.
Me either and I agree. My husband did a paper on this and his liberal professor surprisenly agreed.
Didn’t he fight for the communists in Spain?
“The rest, incoherent.”
Aint that the truth - he was another darling of the left with little talent.
Old Man and the Sea was his best, but nothing that offers anything after the first reading.
Hemingway suffered from depression all his life, so that depression played a major role in his suicide. The heavy drinking probably didn’t help his mental state, either.
Well, that’s your opinion but dare I say there are millions that have an opposite view. I believe more than one or two of his books were on the best seller list.
The heavy drinking was probably self-medication, common with depressed and bi-polar people.
I agree, I think it was a scorching case of the emperor’s new clothes.
Freegards
I’m not entirely surprised. Hemingway’s novels got worse and worse, and I never liked his style. “Across the River and Into the Trees” has to be high in the competition for Worst Novel Ever Written.
A good friend of mine wrote well-respected books on Hemingway and Faulkner and taught them both in college.
I once asked her how she could stand teaching Hemingway, year after year, and she privately admittted to me that it was pretty painful.
What a jerk he was. No real surprise that he wanted to be a KGB spy. And no real surprise that he failed even at that.
The media can do that, whether authors, poets, actors, directors, or politicians, the media and academia can elevate mediocrity into enduring fame and success, even keeping it alive for generations.
But then, you judge his works on your own personal view, but the millions that love his works are just a media blitz? When I got through reading “The Old Man and the Sea” I really enjoyed it and didn’t really give a damn what the critics or media said about it one way or the other. I’m sure the other millions that read it felt the same way.
Not to mention he'd gotten pretty physically banged up over the years. That takes a toll.
I never saw what was so great about his writing either.
MICE.
Money
Ideology
Conscience
Ego
I think “sex” would be in the Ego category.
That is just wonderful, I am thrilled that you discovered and read an old 1952 novel without the media or academia playing a part in your discovering the book and choosing it over millions of others.
The Old Man and the C-I-A.
One of the most successful spy operations was when the East Germans sent over a bunch of suave good looking men to seduce the secretaries of Gov officials in West Germany.
Those women did it for love, not ego. If they were egotistical they would think “Heck, I can get a different guy just as tall dark and handsome”. ;)
I would lump “Conscience” into “ideology” myself.
“Now we know, from which came the phrase ‘’Argo f—k yerself’’”
Very, very funny!
When I was in Havana, I visited La Floridita bar, one of Hemmingway’s favorite watering holes. It was most interesting. It was very enjoyable.
I expected Hemmingway to come through the door any minute.
The drinks were excellent.
Also, Hemmingway didn’t win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for crapy writing.
I think Hemmingway’s earliest writing, especially some of his short stories are absolutely his best.
It seems to me that as time passed he became obsessed with over-perfecting his austere style, and by the time he came to “Old Man And The Sea” he was barely readable.
Try reading “A Clean, Well Lighted Place.”
P.S.
And yes, he did have awful mental issues.
Poor man.
Yes, I loved his short stories.
(I have read everything he wrote.)
P.S. again…
I forgot. He also received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for “The Old Man and the Sea.”
You’re probably right - I don’t even know where I picked it up. I’ve been in DC a LOOONNNG time. I think it’s just one of the things you pick up if you live here, like the military alphabet which I know even though I didn’t serve, the No Such Agency, Child Improvement Agency...and the way we know not to ask again what someone does after they’ve deflected the question once.
“Compromised” does make more sense than “conscience”.
Good to see the literary aesthetes out today. Ah yes, Hemingway overrated. Granted, he’s no Jerry Jenkins, but...
I find it interesting how many CIA people AND communists wrote American novels...each trying to influence the masses ideologically through fiction. Still going on today.
So it goes.
Zelda was a very interesting person. I think she always had mental problems which got worse the older she got. F. Scott must have really loved her as he put up with a lot from her. I am pretty sure she was the basis for “The Great Gatsby” love, and that Fitzgerald was Gatsby.
Her Father was the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. I used to drive by their house often in Montgomery, on Sayre street naturally.
Fist of all, I must apologize for writing Hemingway with 2 “Ms.” I must be having a brain fart because I know better than that.
In 1936, it was hard to choose between the fascist Nationalists or the radicalized left Republicans whom Hemingway favored.
Today it would be like choosing between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. They are both dangerous.
He should have just kept out of it; but then, he was a writer.
Yeah, a writer who wanted to be a KGB agent.
Not all writers go as far as that.
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