632
mentary, boastful self-exposure. He
meets instead a man who
is
old, blasted,
suddenly mortal, whose powers and
occupation are gone, his discipline de–
moralized by the stratagems of an
enemy that, from whatever cause, he
is now helpless to oppose, who is
unable to form his thoughts, to express
himself in anything but stammering
banalities, is limited to a few extra–
vagant references to old rivals and
new pretenders-and this Ernest Hem–
ingway, now only earthly, thwarts Mr.
Fiedler's expectations, disillusions his
years-long faith in his-Hemingway's
-eternal physical gloriousness. Even
his hand is intact after clasping Hem–
ingway's, the toughness of his grip still
untried. But perhaps Hemingway didn't
regard Mr. Fiedler-a literary man–
as sufficiently gladiatorial (he no doubt
lived by his fictions, too), respecting
him for his weakness without ceasing
to despise him for his lack; or perhaps
CORRESPONDENCE
Hemingway divined that his reputation
and survival d epended on his visitor's
future good will and, desperate, wished
to do nothing to forfeit
it;
or perhaps,
again, he felt that hand-wrestling did
little to ennoble the male relation; or
it may just be that Hemingway wasn't
the exhibitionist and boor Mr. Fiedler
had tensed himself to meet. Does his
discovery come down to no more than
this last? At any rate, instead of as–
suming that what he sees is neither
more nor less than what it painfully,
primitively shows itself to be, he con–
cludes not that the "legend," if it
ever existed-and it seems something
of a legend itself-is for obvious rea–
sons now defunct, but that it was a
fiction to begin with, a fraud from
the start, an imposture of Hemingway's
and his public's own making, and a
tyranny from which his reader, for his
own intellectual health, must be de–
livered. And composed,
tough~nerved,
Why
Americans
Still Fight
The
Spanish Civil War
THE WOUND IN THE HEART
By
Allen Guttmann
In this provocative ·book, Allen Guttmann probes the extraordinary
impact of the Spanish Civil War on the American conscience - shows
why even today our political alignments reHect divisions first crystallized
by this remote struggle.
He has combed every available source from the period - novels, films,
periodicals, cartoons - to explain the intensity of American responses.
The ·controversial role of American Catholic clergy and laymen ... the
shocking paradox of the Roosevelt administration's failure to support
the beleaguered republic ... personal reactions among minority groups
- no facet of the American political spectrum is left unexamined.
For those who remember the Spanish Civil War, its tragedy rises afresh
in this memorable work. And for a younger generation, here are the
reasons why "the last great cause" has never really died. Illus., $5.95
0il
THE FREE PRESS OF GLENCOE
A Division of The Macmillan Company
