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Critical Companion to Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference

to His Life and Work (review)

Verna Kale

The Hemingway Review, Volume 28, Number 1, Fall 2008, pp. 149-152

(Article)

Published by University of Idaho Department of English

DOI: 10.1353/hem.0.0024

For additional information about this article

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b o o k r e v i e w s 1 4 9

Critical Companion to Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference to His Life

and Work. By Charles M. Oliver. New York: Facts On File, 2007. 630 pp.

Cloth $75

.00

.

Scholars who have depended upon the handyErnest Hemingway A to Zby

Charles M. Oliver (1999) as a desk reference will find that the Critical

Companionlooks very familiar. As part of the Library of American Litera-

ture Critical Companion series, the revised, expanded, and reorganized

volume replaces A to Z while retaining many of its best features. Even

those who already own A to Z might consider upgrading for the better

organization, expanded entries, and the sturdier hardcover construction ofthe new edition. Like its precursor, the Critical Companion is a valuable

tool for quickly verifying dates, people, places, and bibliographic informa-

tion.

Although most of the basic entries from A to Zare retained wholesale,

the Critical Companion features several significant improvements. Most

noticeably, the organizational structure of the book has been divided into

four distinct sections: Biography, Works A-Z, Related People, Places,

and Topics, and Appendices. The volume also includes more than fifty

new Critical Commentary sub-entries, which go beyond plot summary

and publication information of major works to offer interpretation and,

for some works, an introduction to the main critical approaches that have

shaped the resulting scholarly conversations.

In addition to hitting the requisite high points of Hemingways cosmo-

politan life, the brief biography contains a discussion of Hemingways

Writing Style and Truth, in which Oliver acknowledges the sometimes

too-thin line between fiction and non-fiction in Hemingways oeuvre

(22). Hemingway drew from his own experiences, Oliver suggests, in an

attempt to examine life more closely so that he could write better about

it (23). In the resulting fiction, the Hemingway protagonist seeks a sem-

blance of understanding of himself and of his place in the larger scheme

of things (23).

Hemingways own place in the larger scheme of things was not only

as a modernist innovator and, later, a bestselling and Nobel-Prize-winningauthor. He is also, inescapably, one of the most recognizable American

THE H EM INGWAY R EV IEW , VOL . 28, NO . 1, FALL 2008. Copyright 2008

The Ernest Hemingway Foundation. Published by the University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.

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1 5 2 T H E H E M I N G W A Y r E V I E W

mentaries, encouraging readers to form their own opinions. Hemingway

scholars will find these commentaries to be rather general, but the blurbs

may nevertheless help instructors modulate their focus as they introduceHemingway in the undergraduate classroom. Comprehensive and yet easy

to use, the Critical Companion is a book that Hemingway scholars will

want to keep on their reference shelf alongside Baker, Reynolds, Hanne-

man, et. al.

Verna Kale, The Pennsylvania State University

A Sea of Change: Ernest Hemingway and the Gulf Stream, A ContextualBiography. By Mark P. Ott. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2008. 151

pp. Hardcover $29.00.

In Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway asserts that the Gulf Stream

contains a flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light

globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset

(149). Hemingways observations about the Gulf Stream are that this flow-

ing current of water contains representations of the worlds past in the

form of floating cultural artifacts. Likewise, Mark P. Otts A Sea of Change:

Ernest Hemingway and the Gulf Stream, A Contextual Biographyamasses

the various artifacts floating in Hemingways biography, fiction, and criti-

cism to create a contextual biography. Ott explores Ernest Hemingways

relationship with the waters of the Florida Straits and focuses on connec-

tions between Hemingways interactions with the Gulf Steam and his fic-

tion. A Sea of Changeoperates like Hemingways description of the Gulf

Stream, as a collection of ideas which flow and ebb without a cohesive

thread to link the observations. Ott works to connect the disparate ele-

ments into a coalesced exploration. The connective element drawing the

disparate collection into a whole is Otts argument that Hemingways

involvement with the Gulf Stream provided not only material for Hem-

ingways fiction and non-fiction, but that his experiences created the

opportunity for an evolution in his writing style.

Book-length biographical studies of Hemingway begin with CarlosBakers 1968 Ernest Hemingway, A Life Story. Ultimately, these studies

THE H EM INGWAY R EV IEW , VOL . 28, NO . 1, FALL 2008. Copyright 2008

The Ernest Hemingway Foundation. Published by the University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.