The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, V: 1932–1934 ed. by Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, V: 1932–1934ed. by Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel William Blazek The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, V: 1932–1934. Ed. by S andraSP anierand M iriamB. M andelin association with K ristaQ uesenberry, V ernaK ale, and A lbertJ. D efazio III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2020. lxxxviii+699 pp. £22.99. ISBN 978–0–521–89737–2. Patrick Hemingway comments about his father in this book's Introduction: 'I think that his letters are one of the great records of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century' (p. xxviii). The fifth volume of the Ernest Hemingway's Letters Project, spanning the period from January 1932 to mid-1934, provides firm support for that assertion, building a vibrant picture of the author in his prime. During these two and a half years, Hemingway completed his bullfighting-cum-writing manual Death in the Afternoon(November 1932) and published his third collection of short stories, Winner Take Nothing(October 1933), along with other stories for popular [End Page 494]literary magazines and non-fiction articles for the newly established Esquiremen's magazine. Behind the public products of his craft and the growing celebrity of the man, his letters reveal the compulsive drive and sheer hard labour that went into his writing, 'my life work' (p. 369), always honed to his own exacting standards. Confidently telling his editor at Scribners, Max Perkins, that ' all the timeI can write better stories than anybody else writing' (p. 542), he explains: 'I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the whole world—or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out thin' (p. 508). He was a tough but fair negotiator with his publishers during these early years of the Great Depression, insistent on the quantity of photographs to be included in Death in the Afternoon, berating them for not advertising Winner Take Nothingstrongly enough, admonishing them for delays in providing proofs or timidity in censoring words, while always determined in his aim to write 'truly'. The sources for most of his writing were activities that thrilled and tested him. The previous volume of letters chronicled his introduction to big-game rifle hunting in Montana and Wyoming, and this collection sees him developing that avocation as well as immersing himself in deep-sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico between Key West and Havana. The final portion of these letters finds him on his first African hunting safari, travelling with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, on an expensive trip funded by her generous uncle Gus (a reliable benefactor during the marriage). 'I like to shoot a rifle and I like to kill,' Hemingway reported to a journalist friend, 'and Africa is where you do that' (p. 374). The carnage was severe. Between the Montana mountains, Caribbean waters, and African plains his contribution to the Anthropocene included the killing of grizzly bears, elk, eagles, grouse, jackrabbits, some unfortunate magpies and doves, fifty-four swordfish in one season—among them a record-breaking 12 foot 8 inch long, 468-pound black marlin and a 119.5-pound sailfish—and lions, rhinos, buffaloes, kudus, impalas, elands, gazelles, other antelopes, a leopard, cheetahs, zebras, warthogs, several hyenas, and various native birds. The excitement and challenge of marlin fishing was his chief passion during these years, engaged through intense research and experience in the same way in which he became an expert analyst of bullfighting. In time, when knowledge settled into reflection, he would write books about the Caribbean and Africa; but in what would prove this mid-life period, he wrote short stories in the morning, from 5 a.m. or earlier, leaving all afternoon for fishing—by the end of this volume in his new 38-foot cabin cruiser, the Pilar. Battling with giant bears and powerful fish proved easier on his ego than the increasingly antagonistic relationship Hemingway developed with critics, magazine editors, and fellow writers. The origins of his fight with Max Eastman over a critical review of Death in the Afternoonare presented...