Conclusion: The Enduring Master

Summary

IN CONCLUDING THIS STUDY, I wish to pose and answer briefly two questions important for the future of Hemingway studies. First, can more be said about Hemingway and his fiction? Second, has nearly a century of critical commentary justified the exalted place claimed for him by his devoted admirers? While there is no way to be definitive in responding to either of these queries, recent scholarship and commentary suggest that, at this time at least, the answer to both questions is “yes.”

Given the exhaustive exploration of Hemingway's work over nearly a century, it may be hard to imagine entirely new readings or avenues of inquiry into his fiction opening up. Nevertheless, the possibility exists that more sophisticated examination of well-worn stereotypes may yield surprising results. Certainly such is the case with Mark Cirino's (2012) Ernest Hemingway: Thought in Action, a slim but provocative examination of Hemingway's fiction written from the premise that “Hemingway's work constitutes a revolution in the fictional investigation of modern consciousness, not an avoidance of it” (80). Hemingway's characters often find themselves in situations where action is called for and time to think a luxury. Instead, “this apparent conflict—between the man of action and the man of thought—not only defines Hemingway's public persona but also represents the essential tension in his work” (79). His “focus on action incorporates consciousness into an urgent external situation and does not ignore it or fail to understand the functioning of the mind” (80).

Perhaps the most daring claim Cirino makes in his book is that Hemingway has a right to be considered a psychological novelist, interested in exploring the life of the mind as much as his more celebrated contemporary psychological novelists Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and William Faulkner. Using Michael Reynolds's Hemingway's Reading (1981) as his guide, Cirino scrutinizes the catalog of books Hemingway owned or borrowed over three decades to demonstrate that he had a continuing interest in the topic. Coupling this information with comments Hemingway made in letters to family and friends about the aims of his fiction, Cirino lays out a powerful case for readings that offer new ways of understanding some of Hemingway's most celebrated works and appreciating some that have not fared so well with critics.