https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/bears-discover-fire-by-terry-bisson-the-hemingwa...

It’s complex, but not overly so; an English literature professor and Vietnam veteran, in a marriage that is less happy than he realises, gets inveigled by his wife and a conman into forging the papers lost by Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, on a train leaving Paris in 1922. (The Hemingways were members of the same library as my grandmother.) This scheme attracts the attention of time-travelling entities, one of whome keeps reappearing in the form of Hemingway, for whom it is crucially important that Hemingway’s early writing history remains unchanged and unchallenged, because of his importance to the development of civilisation. Sex, violence and time paradoxes ensue, as the Hemingway entity kills the protagonist only to find him resurrected in a slightly different universe. I enjoyed it without being entirely clear what had happened at the end.

The one element that really has dated is the notion of Hemingway’s exceptionalism.

“the accelerating revival of interest in Hemingway from the seventies through the nineties is vitally important. In the Soviet Union as well as the United States. For some reason, I can feel your pastiche interfering with it.”

When I first read The Hemingway Hoax I had not read any of Hemingway’s books; in the interim, I have in fact read several, and I’ll agree that they are great literature, but really not as earth-shattering as all that. I think we’re meant to take seriously the notion that Hemingway’s writing is central to the present and future of Western civilisation; and I can’t.

On the plus side, the story is clearly also Haldeman working out his own feelings about Vietnam and literature, and both of those are deep wells to draw from. The women characters (wife and lover) wobble on the edge of stereotype but don’t quite fall over. I felt that while it has dated, it’s still very good. ( )

I did not like this book. Maybe it was me and I did not get it. Not the best from Haldeman. ( )

I’ve been engaged on a project for the past three years, the theme of which can be gauged from its title: “The Hemingway Hoax” — How did a middling writer achieve such global fame? (It takes the line of considering as much various peripheral factors which enabled him to create his legend and, to be blunt, convince the world he was ‘one of its greatest writers’. Many still think he was a ‘great’ writer or even just quite good, but I think he was neither, though one of the main points I make is that literary evaluation is not, and cannot be, a science but is wholly subjective, a point too often forgotten, especially by those who feel cowed by the ‘experts’ - academics, scholars and critics - and are inclined to bow before what they feel is ‘better judgment’.

I happen to belong to that school of thought that believes a poem, short story, novel and play stands and falls on its own and in itself: whatever it is ‘trying to say’, ‘tell us’ etc should be within its own bounds. External hints and facts, etc can be and usually are interesting, but must be post-hoc. Apply that to Hemingway’s work/hoax, even the early stuff, and a lot of it loses on points.

One final thing: Hemingway - I describe him as a middling writer - did have his moments. There are lyrical passages which are delightful and he did have a good turn of phrase. Sadly, this did and does not - in my view - mount up to justifying his status. He was a one-trick pony and even that trick wasn't very impressive. Remember his reputation was made over just three/four years at the end of the 1920s with stories which were then regarded as truly shocking. To paraphrase Wilde on the death of Little Nell, anyone who can read the 'love' story in A Farewell To Arms without bursting out laughing has a heart of stone. As for the rest of the book, it's pretty much schlock boys' adventure stuff. Profound? Up to a point, Lord Copper. I think there's something in his work that appeals to young men (not to me though). Although the descriptions of food in “A Moveable Feast” often make me wonder if he shouldn't have been a food writer.

If you want to know what it means to explore the "archetypes" of behaviour and personality based on different degrees of TALK-DO-THINK-BE that are critical to satisfactory relatioships, workplaces, families, friendships, etc., you can’t go any wrong reading Haldeman’s take on Hemingway. It is more concrete and precise than reading on Jung crap. Who would have thought had it in him to go all meta-narrative on us…? Kudos to Haldeman to have been able to produced his best work based on such a minor writer. Still a solid 4 star re-read after all these years. ( )

"... there are bundles of parallel universes prevailed over by a Hemingway lookalike with a magic cane..." (pg. 73)

The above line sounds completely preposterous when cited out of context, but even in the context of the story it is rather ridiculous. Joe Haldeman's The Hemingway Hoax is a strange story; there are some great opportunities (that are not fully exploited), some good ideas (which ensures the book remains a good read throughout) and some really dumb peculiarities (see above quote).

The premise is that a professor of literature enters into a scheme with a con man to fabricate some of Ernest Hemingway's early manuscripts (which, as any aficionado can tell you, were lost by his first wife Hadley on a train to Paris in 1922). This part of The Hemingway Hoax is compelling, as characters are set up on the board, plotlines are tantalisingly raised and Hemingway lore is delved into. The book never loses the charm that is first seeded in this part of the story, but it does start to fumble.

The story develops a time-travel theme too convoluted to explain here (though the preposterous quote with which I started this review is as good a summary as any), and this pulls the story away from its crime thriller-like hoax into something much nuttier. It could work, in theory (though time-travel and Hemingway are extremely odd bedfellows), but the problem is that when pulling away, parts of the story come unstuck. Characterisation is abandoned, with none of the characters behaving consistently (even accounting for the multiple timelines), and there are some indulgent "fuck and suck" sex scenes (pg. 98) that make the book needlessly crude. Outlandish ideas and hasty explanations are thrown into the story with abandon, and the reader becomes increasingly bewildered.

By the time we reach the end (which sees a sharp 90-degree turn in Haldeman's prose style, providing further confusion), we still don't know why the protagonist is special, why his Hemingway hoax manuscript is so important, or why it is all about Ernest Hemingway in the first place. It is, ultimately, an amusing parlour game for Hemingway aficionados, but it's increasingly obvious that this is what it is to Haldeman too (even before he explicitly states this in his Note at the end). Like those lost manuscripts, it wouldn't break your heart to leave it on a train, as there probably wouldn't be much of real value lost, but at the same time there's still enough curiosity to make you want to read and see what it's about. ( )

I read A Farewell to Arms in high school, and quite hated it. Hemmingway's style never engaged my teenager's eye. But it's impossible to escape Papa's influence.

John Baird, a professor specializing in Hemmingway, in a conversation with shifty man named Castle, speculates that the "lost" Hemmingway writings could bring in a fortune if forged. Castle senses money, and the two of them hash out a way to legally forge a "found" Hemmingway novel. Never mind that some academics' reputations could be ruined.

The story takes a left turn with a shadowy figure who might or might not be the ghost of Ernest Hemmingway (never mind which one the author has said). John's world is rewritten over and over, in an attempt to stop the "Hemmingway pastiche", for no good reason I can find.

Hemmingway's spectre seems to have no good reason for interfering, despite doubletalk about how the novel could "profoundly affect the future". Possibly I'm missing something by not having worshiped the master.

Nevertheless, Joe Haldeman manages to pull this off. With a style not unlike a magician sawing a lady in half, then in half again, and so on into infinity -- for some reason I cared about the idiot professor, his nasty, self-centered lover, and the alternately pathetic, scary, then just plain dangerous Castle.

An excellent short novel, The Hemmingway Hoax is different from anything Mr. Haldeman has written, since or to date. ( )