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116Reviews find him arranging and conducting a number of trysts while squeezing in several stints at writing and revision. That this was Dreiser's style of life for many years diere can be no doubt. But that the purposes of literary biography require the confirmation of this truth in the overwhelming detail of almost 500 pages of diary is somewhat more doubtful. Nevertheless, the volume is among us. And if Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy could survive W. A. Swanberg's revelation (in his Dreiser) of Dreiser pinching girls in elevators in his early seventies, they can survive the American Diaries as well. Tulane UniversityDonald Pizer Williams, Wirt. The Tragic Art of Ernest Hemingway. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1981. 240 pp. Cloth: $17.95. Wirt Williams begins with a working definition of tragedy. First, die tragic protagonist must "sustain a massive defeat, either through the nature of the universe, or his own actions, or botil." Second, there must be a "catastrophe that is irreversible on its own terms, whether or not it is transcended in another dimension." Finally, a tragedy must effect "a profound emotional impact on its beholder, though . . . this impact will be different for each beholder" (p. 9). The Tragic Art of Ernest Hemingway is a serious and helpful study with much to recommend it, but we are off to an unfortunate beginning. There is a misplaced generosity in saying that tragic protagonists may or may not contribute to their own downfall, that tragedies may build to a recognition scene or skip it, and that, in any case, definitions are relative. The issues are difficult: certainly, people disagree; but if tragedy does not distinguish between affirmation and determinism, if subjectivity invalidates all critical distinctions, then a book that intends to discriminate is in trouble. The need for a definition of tragedy in die twentieth century—which Williams handles in three reluctant paragraphs on existentialism—must be faced. The CohnRomero fistfight in The Sun Abo Rises is said to be a "catastrophe" (p. 48), but what dien is the death by cholera of seven thousand soldiers? Brett's decision not to seduce Romero is a "tragedy fulfilling act" (p. 52), but what then are we to call the sacrifice of Robert Jordan , tile courage of Santiago? There are otiier problems. Needing some relief from a confessed subjectivity, Williams makes ghost references to "most readers" (pp. 11, 129). He repeats long-since corrected errors in reading "The Doctor and tile Doctor's Wife," saying, for example, tiiat Nick has seen his "idol exposed" (p. 32). Williams should have cited Earl Rovit on die stuffed-dog routine in The Sun Ako Rises, Robert W. Lewis on the varieties of love (p. 44), and Delbert Wylder on die relation between money and ethics (p. 45). And critical terminology , at times, lacks content, as in this sentence on Across the River and Into the Trees: "The novel's horizontal development through opposing thematic keys is, conventionally , given body by a vertical development of harmony" (p. 160). Nonetheless, I recommend The Tragic Art of Ernest Hemingway. It is a thorough, industrious, and often enlightening reading of Hemingway's fiction. The chapter on To Have and Have Not, in my judgment, is superb. Williams argues specifically and convincingly that Harry Morgan is a victim of circumstances who contributes to his own downfall through hubris. Agreeing with Carlos Baker's interpretation of Across the River as fable, Studies in American Fiction117 Williams makes important and helpful additions of his own. Numerous details and asides are shown to be integral parts of Cantwell's preparation for death. The "two ill-mannered youths who menace" Cantwell, for example, are "scavengers of death come too early" (p. 166). Cantwell refuses to invite Renata on his hunting trip because it is not time for her to die, and she "must not make it so" (p. 168). Ironically, Williams seems at his best with Hemingway's less successful fiction. The chapters on To Have and Have Not and Across the River, at least, strike me as better than the chapters on For Whom the BeU ToUs and The Old Man and the Sea. A seven-page analysis of...

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