BOOK REVIEW: HEMINGWAY - Eight Decades of Criticism

most recent literary criticism on Hemingway

HEMINGWAY - Eight Decades of Criticism edited by Linda Wagner-Martin. Michigan State U. Press, East Lansing, MI; www.msupress.msu.edu; reaumej@msu.edu. 2009. 581+xviii pages. $34.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-87013-839-3. chapter notes, chapter bibliographies, index.

The 26 collected critiques extend to five the series started in 1974 with the title Five Decades of Hemingway criticism. The most recent one before this Eight Decades was the Seven Decades published in 1998. Like the previous collections, the essays in this volume are within the broad, seeming inexhaustible stream of Hemingway criticism in academia.

As with the previous volumes, this one includes research since the previous volume. Most of essays reflect particular interests of their time concerning Hemingway's writings and aspects of his life or contemporary movements in literary criticism. Hence in this volume, one finds critiques on the relationship between Hemingway's physical injuries as a reporter covering the Spanish Civil War and his themes of mourning and loss and studies women characters reflecting the field of gender studies. There are also essays taking a look at The Old Man and the Sea, a Hemingway work which has been drawing more interest in recent years. And this collection, like the earlier ones, gives attention to new scholars entering the field of Hemingway studies.

All the five volumes have been published by Michigan State University Press. With the diversity of the critiques ranging from highly-focused scholarship to topics involving popular culture, the volume holds something for anyone with an interest in Hemingway or American literature.