“The most important author living today, the outstanding author since the death of Shakespeare, has brought out a new novel. The title of the novel is "Across the River and Into the Trees." The author, of course, is Ernest Hemingway, the most important, the outstanding author out of the millions of writers who have lived since 1616.”—John O’Hara, “The Author’s Name Is Hemingway,” The New York Times Book Review, September 10, 1950
I recall reading some years ago that Clark Gable made a biopic about Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell that was not only universally panned, but might have been the worst flop of his career. Virtually the only place on earth where it did succeed was China—leading the love of his life, Carole Lombard, to have an airplane fly overhead with a message to cheer him up: “Millions of Chinamen can’t all be wrong.”
Everybody needs someone like Ms. Lombard in their corner if they’re not going to go insane, someone who’ll support them no matter what. John O'Hara (in the image accompanying this post) have had a well-deserved reputation for being cantankerous, but in his secretly sentimental way, he could also be as fiercely loyal as they come to friends like Philip Barry, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
The latter two in particular could test his tolerance. A drunken Fitzgerald fondled O’Hara’s ex-wife in full sight of him one night. And Hemingway got off one of the nastiest and most recited one-liners about O’Hara’s wish for greater society credentials: “Someone should take up a collection to send John O'Hara to Yale.” Yet O’Hara stood by them, whether because of his admiration for their work, understanding of their alcoholism, gratitude toward their praise for his work when he was starting out, or some combination of these.
In any case, you have to ask: What were the editors of The New York Times Book Review thinking when they assigned O’Hara to review Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees? Their friendship had to have been well-known to the editors, so in advance it was doubtful the review could be written objectively.
The review, appearing only two days after the publication of Hemingway’s first novel since For Whom the Bell Tolls a decade before, may have given him false confidence in the overall reception of the book. Before long, other reviews would take it to task unmercifully, and it would even inspire a wicked New Yorker parody by E.B. White: “Across the Street and Into the Grille.”
Nobody sensed it at the time of O’Hara’s review, but the most influential writer of the first half of the 20th century was entering a decade of creative decline, hastened by physical and mental ills only beginning to surface. Hemingway would rally his energies once more to produce The Old Man and the Sea, but its Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding, few people would put it in the same league as his best from the 1920s: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, a dozen short stories.
In his review, O’Hara took note of the “self-pitying” tone of Hemingway’s protagonist, Col. Richard Cantwell, but immediately dismissed the idea that it reflected Hemingway’s own attitude. O’Hara’s delicate handing of the mater was thoughtful, generous—and, in retrospect, wrongheaded.
Before this, and for only once afterward, in The Old Man and the Sea, the Hemingway protagonist had redefined the nature of heroism. He never triumphed—indeed, he’d lost everything—but salvaged something from the wreckage through flinty stoicism.
Now, in Cantwell, Hemingway had written a character more than a little in love with easeful death. And the prose, once sinewy, had likewise grown softer.
I recall reading some years ago that Clark Gable made a biopic about Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell that was not only universally panned, but might have been the worst flop of his career. Virtually the only place on earth where it did succeed was China—leading the love of his life, Carole Lombard, to have an airplane fly overhead with a message to cheer him up: “Millions of Chinamen can’t all be wrong.”
Everybody needs someone like Ms. Lombard in their corner if they’re not going to go insane, someone who’ll support them no matter what. John O'Hara (in the image accompanying this post) have had a well-deserved reputation for being cantankerous, but in his secretly sentimental way, he could also be as fiercely loyal as they come to friends like Philip Barry, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
The latter two in particular could test his tolerance. A drunken Fitzgerald fondled O’Hara’s ex-wife in full sight of him one night. And Hemingway got off one of the nastiest and most recited one-liners about O’Hara’s wish for greater society credentials: “Someone should take up a collection to send John O'Hara to Yale.” Yet O’Hara stood by them, whether because of his admiration for their work, understanding of their alcoholism, gratitude toward their praise for his work when he was starting out, or some combination of these.
In any case, you have to ask: What were the editors of The New York Times Book Review thinking when they assigned O’Hara to review Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees? Their friendship had to have been well-known to the editors, so in advance it was doubtful the review could be written objectively.
The review, appearing only two days after the publication of Hemingway’s first novel since For Whom the Bell Tolls a decade before, may have given him false confidence in the overall reception of the book. Before long, other reviews would take it to task unmercifully, and it would even inspire a wicked New Yorker parody by E.B. White: “Across the Street and Into the Grille.”
Nobody sensed it at the time of O’Hara’s review, but the most influential writer of the first half of the 20th century was entering a decade of creative decline, hastened by physical and mental ills only beginning to surface. Hemingway would rally his energies once more to produce The Old Man and the Sea, but its Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding, few people would put it in the same league as his best from the 1920s: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, a dozen short stories.
In his review, O’Hara took note of the “self-pitying” tone of Hemingway’s protagonist, Col. Richard Cantwell, but immediately dismissed the idea that it reflected Hemingway’s own attitude. O’Hara’s delicate handing of the mater was thoughtful, generous—and, in retrospect, wrongheaded.
Before this, and for only once afterward, in The Old Man and the Sea, the Hemingway protagonist had redefined the nature of heroism. He never triumphed—indeed, he’d lost everything—but salvaged something from the wreckage through flinty stoicism.
Now, in Cantwell, Hemingway had written a character more than a little in love with easeful death. And the prose, once sinewy, had likewise grown softer.
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