Hemingway in Russia

Abstract

problems than with those of immediate social, political, or economic interest. Ultimately to like Hemingway, one must sympathize with his approach to the large personal issues which trouble and will continue to trouble everyone, everywhere. This would suggest that in insisting that he cease exploring the problem of death and deemphasize the element of love, the critics were subscribing more to official doctrine than to their own feelings. For Russians are still awed by death, and Russians still fall in love. Other aspects of Soviet criticism probably indicate the reader's response more accurately. For one thing, readers must admire Hemingway's narrative gifts. If his style conceals, as Kashkin suggested, a desperate complication, it is nevertheless simple and intelligible. It moves swiftly, and it is exciting. In this respect, the Soviet reader probably appreciates him for the same qualities that have made him a best seller in America. Likewise, his vigorous love of nature, sports, combat, and adventure must appeal to the Russians. This clean, rugged outlook on life (despite its elements of bravado, of which the critics took due note) strikes the same chord in the Russian heart as do the stories of their favorite American, Jack London. In the Russians there is a strong love of the primitive, and a comparable distaste for the sophisticated, which amounts at times to a puritanical attitude toward the decadent trappings of civilization. The unmistakable longing for a simpler, more pure and elemental life which rings in Hemingway's stories must find response in this part of the Soviet reader's nature. Ultimately it is Hemingway's profound understanding of the natural aspirations of men which appeals to the Russian public.