Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway by Jeffrey Meyers

The multifaceted, cubist, and comprehensive perspective of Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway appears on the fortieth anniversary of Meyers’s magisterial biography of Hemingway. This approach has never before been used to illustrate the complexity of his character, the range of his interests, and the brilliance of his work. This authoritative book uses sources in Italian, Spanish, French, and German. It reveals his reading of literature and history, his transformation of friends into fiction, his personal battles and mythic stature, his persona and ever-growing legend. This work analyzes his name and background, early work, friendships, relations with artists, connections to contemporary writers, description of historical figures and events, war reporting, military experience, life in Cuba, links with Hollywood, wives and lovers as well as the novels that influenced The Sun Also Rises and the background of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” It also considers Hemingway’s feasts, humor, quarrels, self-condemnation, Nobel Prize, unwritten works, suicide, and lasting achievements.