Hemingway's First War and the Art of Not Being There

[eHemingway.com]

I started re-reading Michael Reynold's Hemingway's First War, an account of the writing process behind Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. In the introduction Reynold's really captures Hemingway's genius when he discusses how so many experts on the war in Italy and the retreat from Caporetto in particular, adamantly believed Hemingway must have been an eyewitness to have written about it in such vivid detail. In reality, Hemingway hadn't been there during the time in which the novel takes place and Reynold's book is an examination of how Hemingway got everything so right and how he confirms his statement from Big Two-Hearted River that the only writing that was any good was what you made up or imagined.

More to come...

[Peter Krynicki]

When I first read this I thought it was volume one of his biography. It's a good read for people who think Hemingway was writing basically autobiography. It used to be very hard to find and very expensive if you did find it.

Pjk