THE APPRENTICESHIP OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY

by Charles A. Fenton ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 17, 1954

A special study puts a magnifying glass over Hemingway's years as a journalist and enlarges his experiences from his Oak Park boyhood through his return to Toronto in 1923 and the final rejection of the newspaper world for that of creative writing. Throughout, the main thing Mr. Fenton (of Yale) keeps before us is the external stream of events as they affected Hemingway's writing and decisions, rather than the inner makeup of the man himself. Easily, the book divides itself geographically into the places Hemingway lived and worked. There is Oak Park, Kansas City, ambulance duty in Italy, the Toronto Star- and back to Europe for a long haul of intensive reporting and feature writing- and meeting with his mentors, Gertrude Stein, Pound and Joyce. Toronto again saw the ultimate mishandling by his boss- the straw that broke the camel's back. Fenton's critical analysis is excellent in illustrating the growth and change of Hemingway's writing as it was governed by journalism's requirements, what he lived through and those with whom he talked. But it is unmatched with a direct personal insight and the life remains in clearer outline than the shadowy form of the man who lived it. For special interests, notably.

Pub Date: May 17, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Young

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION