Hemingway and French writers / Ben Stoltzfus.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A collection of essays tracing seven decades of literary interaction between Hemingway and notable French authors

In a 1946 Atlantic Monthly essay, Jean-Paul Sartre writes: "The greatest literary development in France between 1929 and 1939 was the discovery of Faulkner, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Caldwell, and Steinbeck."

When Ernest Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1922, he was an unknown writer from America. The City of Light was where he learned his craft and gained legitimacy. Although much has been written about Hemingway's apprentice years in Paris, little has been published about his literary convergences with French writers. In Hemingway and French Writers, Ben Stoltzfus illuminates the connections between Hemingway and the most important French intellectuals, such as Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Andr#65533; Gide, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henry de Montherlant, Andr#65533; Malraux, and Albert Camus. A distinguished scholar of both French literature and Hemingway studies, Stoltzfus compares Hemingway's major works in chronological order, from The Sun Also Rises to The Old Man and the Sea, with novels by French writers.

While it is widely known that France influenced Hemingway's writing, Hemingway also had an immense impact on French writers. Over the years, American and French novelists enriched each other's works with new styles and untried techniques. In this comparative analysis, Stoltzfus discusses the complexities of Hemingway's craft, the controlled skill, narrative economy, and stylistic clarity that the French, drawn to his emphasis on action, labeled "le style am#65533;ricain."

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Gertrude Stein alleged that Hemingway "smelled of museums." So, in the best sense, does the wide-ranging, well-read Stoltzfus (emer., Univ. of California, Riverside) in this collection of mostly previously published essays. Unlike the many myopic Hemingway specialists, Stoltzfus moves easily among disciplines and cultures. His introduction, which offers a sense of the cultural setting in the effervescent Paris of the post-WW I decade, is worth the price of admission. The success of Stoltzfus's specific linkages varies, but his perceptive transatlantic refractions to Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Andre Malraux (justified by philosophical, even politically diachronic, fraternization) constitute a superlative contribution. The Gustav Flaubert-Hemingway nexus, its insightful remarks on Madame Bovary notwithstanding, is less persuasive. Even less the Lacanian game--though the reader can be reassured by the jargon-free, readable style of Stoltzfus's discourse that the Lacan chapter was written with a sly wink at the apostle of the 15-20 minute psychoanalytic session and his impenetrable verbiage. All in all, Stoltzfus has made a valuable cultural foray that will be indispensable to Hemingwayfarers, one with the bonus of a fabulous bibliography. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. N. R. Fitch University of Southern California