The Fall 2015 issue begins with a remarkable front cover, which features an untitled watercolor by Hemingway’s friend, the writer and painter John Dos Passos. As the note in the issue by Donald Pizer argues, the painting presents a macho Hemingway rushing to aid an injured Donald Ogden Stewart at an amateur bullfight-related spectacle during the 1924 Pamplona fiesta. I am very pleased that Don, a scholar renowned for his work on Dos Passos and Hemingway, chose the Review to showcase this incredible find! A larger color version of this painting will be posted on this blog.
The lead essay in this issue, "The Rites of War and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises" by Alex Vernon, demonstrates how Hemingway scholars continue to offer fresh and innovative readings of even the author's most-discussed works. In the essay, Alex offers an alternative to readings of SAR as a novel about post-World War I, lost generation malaise, a reading that consigns the war to the background. Rather, he argues SAR can be read as a war novel with a narrative structure that replicates Jake's wartime trauma. And, in one of our first blog supplements, Alex has written an "Afterthought" to the article, which will appear on the blog only, that extends this argument into a reading of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
This Fall’s issue also strikes me as a testament to the passion for detail and precise scholarship in Hemingway studies. Russ Pottle, in his fascinating essay, “Hemingway and The Journal of the American Medical Association: Gangrene, Shock, and Suicide in ‘Indian Camp,’” demonstrates how Hemingway’s reading in JAMA during his 1919 Oak Park convalescence likely influenced his portrayal not only of the mother’s Caesarean section but also of the father’s foot injury and suicide in “Indian Camp.” In “Dating the Narration of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms: San Siro,” Miriam Mandel uses descriptions of the San Siro hippodrome in Milan and of particular race horses to date Frederic Henry’s narration in A Farewell to Arms more precisely than has previously been attempted. “Hemingway’s Formation of In Our Time” is the result of painstaking work by John Beall, who combed through Folders 96 and 97A in the Hemingway Collection at the J.F.K. Library to understand Hemingway’s process as he deliberately and thoughtfully organized the stories and chapters of In Our Time.
Hemingway’s softer and more vulnerable side is the subject of two pieces in the issue: Joel Armstrong’s “‘A Powerful Beacon’: Love Illuminating Human Attachment in A Farewell to Arms,” which tackles the formidable topic of love in Hemingway’s work, and James Tackach’s note on Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing programs for veterans, which explores the legacy of Hemingway’s use of fly fishing to recover from the trauma of war.
I am also extremely pleased that the wonderful Ann Patchett agreed to let the Review publish her keynote address from the 2015 PEN Hemingway Award ceremony. Her inspiring words will be of great interest to us all, especially those of us who write fiction.
The Review is in the mail. Check your mailboxes. I hope you enjoy it.