ONE LAW
FOR
THE
LION
5043
As
the writing fell off, the man and the legend became the
major work of fiction. The style that shaped so many others also
shaped Ernest Hemingway. His art can be measured in the faces
we still see around us, but the fullest measure was visible in his
own. We learned from his life, from his art, and since it cannot
be helped we now learn from his death-but there is no profit in
it. We merely learn how little we can be taught. We cannot be
taught courage, how to avoid self-destruction, how to preserve
or salvage our talents, but we did possibly learn that a man
can die without merely having passed away.
In an interview in 1954 Hemingway talked about his good
times with James Joyce: "We would go out to drink and Joyce
would fall into a fight. He couldn't even see the man so he'd say:
'Deal with him, Hemingway! Deal with him!' "
We share, with Joyce, the confidence that Hemingway
would. It is out of this
feeling
that the man, and the facts,
emerge into the legend to which we all contribute. To the
Danish journalist Vinding, Joyce had this to say of Hemingway:
*
"He's a good writer, Hemingway. He writes as he is. We like him.
He's a big powerful peasant, as strong as a buffalo. A sportsman.
And ready to live the life he writes about. He would never have
written it if his body had not allowed him to live it."
A peasant? The description must have pleased him, and
what pleases a man is what shapes him: big, powerful, strong
as a buffalo. Is it the man who shapes the legend, or the legend
that shapes the man?
At what point did the image of the man take precedence
over the books, and the legend precedence over the man? On
July 2nd, which image came first to mind? The brooding Viking
in the Karsh portrait, the man's man on the safari, the author
• Richard EHmann:
James Joyce.
