3 - The Critics’ Darling (1952–1961)

Summary

NINETEEN FIFTY-TWO proved to be an important year for Hemingway and his critics. Recovering from the debacle of Across the River and Into the Trees, Hemingway published a novella that would become his best seller yet and propel him to honors hitherto denied him. His popularity among the general public, hurt somewhat by Across the River and Into the Trees, rebounded quickly. Questions by academics about his morality or his limited vision did not seem to bother the thousands who continued to buy his books. The level of his international renown may be measured in some ways by a 1952 poll taken at Oxford University, where Hemingway was the only American among the top ten most-read authors by undergraduates. The year also saw the publication of two books that set the agenda for Hemingway studies for decades—an occurrence that Mark Schorer (1953) described as “remarkable,” because, though “written concurrently” by college English teachers, these studies are “so widely different” (514).

The Old Man and the Sea

Unquestionably, 1952 was the Year of the Comeback for Hemingway, at least with the general reading public and reviewers for newspapers and popular periodicals. The Old Man and the Sea appeared in the September 1 issue of Life magazine and then in book form from Scribner. A number of reviewers saw the work as Hemingway's answer to those who had written him off as finished. The novella was called “an epic” that reminds readers the world is capable of creating heroes (Valentine 1952, 6), a “story of the preservation of human dignity in the face of misfortune” (“Old Values” 1952, 4A). Few seemed more delighted than Ellen Kaupke (1952), who proclaimed that while “many writers outlive themselves,” Hemingway “is not one of this breed” (6); when the public derided him after the publication of Across the River and Into the Trees, he responded by publishing this wonderful new work. William McDermott (1952) called Old Man “a book of power and beauty,” and predicted that “this long short story will become a classroom classic” (17). Robert Ruark (1952) said that, having read the book, he was “proud of Papa” for writing this “epic struggle” that ends in disaster but reveals spiritual triumph (4A).