Ernest Hemingway; Hem; Papa; Ernie; dear boy (courtesy
of Agnes von Kurowsky) -- call him whatever you like, he still didn't write
it. He wrote the words, but he never
constructed A Moveable Feast -- and, after all, isn't that the only thing a
novel really is, word construction?
And yet, somehow, a "celebratory" 50 years later,
we see his name and likeness ablaze on yet another version of a book that never
was, opprobriously daring to call itself "the
restored edition."
I adamantly disagree with posthumous publishing, and
altering an author's work before doing so is just sacrilege. The ultimate
ignominy, however, is playing unsolicited emendator to any Hemingway work,
especially a memoir -- and committing the most egregious unforgivable literary
sin: ending it.
“it is not to be published the way it is and it has no end.”
- what Hem wrote to his publisher in a letter received by Scribner just days after
his favorite shotgun saw him off, sparing him from the publication of his
letters (against his wishes) and his final works, including the memoir with
"no end," which now has two ends.
As Ann Douglas said, "“there can be no final text
because there is not one.” Being "a" Hemingway does not make you
"the" Hemingway, and so it is this woman's opinion that we strip both
Mary and Sean of the name.
A few more perspectives:
Some insight into this post's title
One of my particular favorites: Ernest Hemingway's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1954
And, of course, Mr. Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast
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