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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.