Reflecting on Ernest Hemingway’s “fierce and foul-mouthed tirade” against his literary
rivals in a 1925 letter going on the auction block, a reader who calls himself Clark Kent
writes:
Hemingway’s letters — 900 pages or so, and a hell of
a lot left out — are great fun. He’s relaxed, funny, mean-spirited, paranoid, vicious when crossed,
loaded with insight — on Nelson Algren: “…he has everything but magic” —
and very vulnerable. Some of the the letters are great — his note to the Gerald Murphys on the
death of their son — but basically they’re wonderful half-drunk ramblings from an extremely lonely
man, the kind of stuff wemight write given an extra 20 IQ points and an audience of grateful
toadies.
OK, Clark. I’ve got no argument with that. Except the part about Algren.
