Ernest Hemingway. Der Mensch. Der Schriftsteller (review)

BOOK REVIEWS · 131 Ernest Hemingway. DerMensch. Der Schriftsteller. By Kurt Müller. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1999. 193 PP + index. Paper. 24 euros. This German monograph, a kind of "biography of works" ("werkbiographie "), is aimed at both scholars and thegeneral reader. Its focus is on the literary developmentofErnest Hemingway. Incorporatingsomeofhisearlierstudiesand relyingon recent biographies (e.g. Kenneth S. Lynn's) the author, aware ofHemingway 's obsessions and traumata, tries to link his life to his works in a meaningful waywithout,however, falling into thetrap ofthebiographical fallacy. Müller opens his book with the lament that in recent years there has been a predominant critical concern with Hemingway's fascinating private and public persona. Müller equally regrets "politically correct" accusations by feminist and ethnic critics that have tended to push Hemingway's aesthetically complex works to the background. The book is divided into four parts-whose sequence traces what the author considers to be a decline in Hemingway's corpus ofwriting. In the first part the author offers a subtle psycho-sociological interpretation of Hemingway 's youth by perceptively analyzing the primary contexts of socialization within his family. Müller is especially persuasive in his shrewd examination of the conflict between the feminine "indoor values" of Hemingway 's mother, which he associated with falseness and artificiality, and the masculine "outdoor values'Ofhis father, which to him represented originality , naturalness and authenticity. According to Müller, Hemingway identified himself with the latter, seeing them as a counterbalance to what he considered to be a hypocritical and repressive feminine culture. The author points to the conflict between his mother's "British," status-conscious, more modern, more hedonistic tradition ofconsumerism and self-realization and his father's prototypical American profile ofrugged individualism. Contrary to the traditional American pattern, it was not, in Hemingway's case, the mother but the father who stood for the true ethical standards. In Müller's view, Hemingway's sexual identity was therefore threatened by the dominance of his mother, which led to his almost obsessive adoption ofan aggressive masculinity (also towards women). On one hand, Müller interprets Hemingway's over-identification with his father and his excessive ehi H[NiINIiWA1T RiVIiW. vol. 22. no. i. i.Mi 2002. Copyright (O 2002 Carol Hemingway. All Rights Reserved. Published by the University of Idaho Press, Moscow, Idaho. 132 ¦ THE HEMINGWAY RFVIEW aggressiveness towards his mother as signs of a psychological ambivalence which was to affect both his later life as well as his fictional works. According to Müller, the heritage ofhis father's puritanism with its ideals ofhard-work, selfcontrol , self-denial, and merciless honesty determined the character profile of many ofhis heroes whose"code"assumed almost religious dimensions. On the other hand, Müller emphasizes that Hemingway's mother, despite his violent refusal ofher, had a stronger influence on him than he realized. Although she who was responsible for what the author calls Hemingway's "castration complex ," for his permanent need to prove himself a "real man," it was also his motherwho encouraged her son's literary interests. Her theatrical talent inculcated in him a strong desire for fame and success and, in consequence, a compulsive ,"schizoid"tendencytowards heroic self-dramatization. Turning to what Müller calls "secondary conditions of socialization," he looks at Hemingway's early biography in its wider sociocultural and ideological context. Placing his works between Victorian and Modernist modes of writing, Müller considers the literary influences on Hemingway and describes the literary situation he found himself in. In addition, the author briefly expounds Hemingway's literary program, his"iceberg principle" and its implications for the reader, illustratinghis general comments bymeans of an acute interpretation of the vignette "Chapter v." The second part ofMiiller's book is devoted to Hemingway's"modernist departure "in the 1920s,especiallyto his artoftheshort story. In his prefacetheauthor regretsthat dueto the fact that hisbookoffersa surveyofHemingway's life and work he could not devote more space to the short stories, which to him would have been justified bytheirhigh literaryquality and importance for20th century literature. After some remarks on the writing, publication, and reception ofthe short fiction, he offers ingenious and convincing interpretations of "Indian Camp" and "Soldier's Home." Thus...