The Cult of Hemingway

Now's here's a great review of the first volume of Hemingway letters. 

Andrew O'Hagan spares no expense: he's funny, insightful, and vicious. If Hemingway loved nouns, it was because they allowed him to show off his knowledge, his ability to be specific. But this was desperate, he writes. It was all about ego, and the effect was like taking a drug in a cheap arcade: the lighting eventually reveals your standing as an impostor. 

On the myth of Hemingway and his relations with, among others, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, O'Hagan maintains his scorched earth approach: Papa "may have prided himself on never being dazzled by diamonds as big as the Ritz," he argues, "but in the dark he knew he was maimed by his own need to shine." 

This is a fantastic, readable essay, one that blasts away the edifice (largely self-constructed, of course) surrounding the man himself. You can be an admirer of Hemingway and his novels (and I certainly am), while still enjoying this piece. It's popular criticism at its finest.