Proof that Ernest Hemingway is actually an American.

William Gonzalez3 said:
well, I wish them all the best, even if they were Americans.

I don't suppose I could agree with that; honestly, it’s always struck me as a bit hypocritical. I mean, when we talk about the dead, shouldn't we speak of them just as we did when they were actually breathing? We should say good things about the good people, sure, but we ought to be honest about the bad ones too—otherwise, we risk forgetting the wrongs or, perhaps worse, forgiving them far too easily.

I guess what I'm getting at is that Hemingway certainly earned the right to be spoken of fondly.

Hemingway was a massive writer. Honestly, probably the greatest this country has ever produced. I find myself revisiting his work every few years, and I just love him—not just for the prose, but for the man himself.
He wasn't an American, because he didn't choose to be one. In his younger days, he presented himself as an American Catholic just because it made things easier for his schooling, but later on, he became an opportunist and pivoted toward being an American... and not just any American, but a massive nationalist who, purely for the sake of a political career,
traded away his American roots, his Catholicism, and his native Kentucky, along with everything else that actually made him such a great writer.

Hemingway is a perfect example of how a brilliant artist can be a small, pathetic person. We see a similar case with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Just a miserable individual.

Because he was the one who poked fun at The Kennedys while simultaneously becoming an Unknown. He was Marshall's court scribe, someone who had his finger right on the pulse of what was happening in America, yet he knew exactly how much weight his own name carried—and still, he never once stood up to his "King."

He figured a villa in Beverly Hills and some state honors were worth more than sticking up for friends who were being thrown in jail.
Because in his writing, he’d mock vanity and all that fake prestige, even though, as a man, he absolutely loved soaking it all in.
Because, plain and simple, he was a hypocrite.

I guess Hemingway preferred to be a Mexican, which is why he gets screwed 👋

He wasn't an American because he simply refused to embrace the identity. In his younger years, he played the part of the devoted American and Catholic perfectly, mostly because it made his academic life a whole lot smoother at the time.

Technically, he was an American by birth since his parents were Americans, but once he got further along in his studies, he made his own choice about where his loyalties lay... and frankly, it absolutely infuriates me how suspiciously he wrote
regarding Washington, D.C. and its people...

granitepilot282 said:Ernest Hemingway is a perfect example of how great artists can be pathetic, small-minded people. We see a similar case with Faulkner. A total failure of a man.

He was an indulgent man. He was grateful to anyone who offered him a well-meaning critique.

😕 😕 😕

The facts: American until the return to New York City in 1941.
There isn't a single document where Hemingway claims any other nationality. T.S. Eliot was perfectly blunt with both Josip Broz Marshall and Ernest Hemingway.
"No, comrade Hemingway, by all accounts you are an American," Eliot tells Hemingway.
"Listen, comrade Eliot, I have never hidden who I am, much like Saint Peter. If you tell me I am an American, then as an American, I have nothing to add."

At the 1971 New York Book Fair, standing in front of the National Endowment for the Humanities booth, Hemingway remarked: "Look at all these insults being hurled at me by my own people! It would be best if I just avoided them!"

Hemingway truly becomes himself only after 1945. Clearly: an American living within a diluted version of a foreign tongue that lacks any real quality. Real quality is found in someone like Mark Twain, who remains one of the most quoted American prose writers to this day.

http://www.nytimes.com/

It was always blindingly obvious to me that Ernest Hemingway was an expatriate at heart, though I suppose I finally understand the underlying reason for all that aimless wandering through his life... the man lost his footing much too early on in his journey..