PULEEEZE. . .

"Earnest Hemingway: An American Byron"--thus does Clifton Fadiman title his latest article for the Nation. As he proceeds to support, the thesis implied in the title, his readers are introduced to a fairly new, and very interesting estimate of themselves. Due to the peculiar way in which he symbolizes the present generation, states Mr. Fadiman, there has sprung up about Homingway "a real contemporary here myth." The similarity between Byron and Hemingway, says the author, lies in the fact that they were both post-war men, and that "in the heart of both lies a tragic sense of defeat, vitalized by a burning rebellion," Hemingway has shown his contemporaries the mirror of themselves a man too cynical for sophistication, returning to the elemental things, where all else has played him false.

On reading this estimate of Hemingway's personal import, there arise the old questions as to just how multi importance is to be attached a literary work as indication of the mental processes of a class. But even admitting the significance of the author of "A Farewell to Arms" in this respect, there is a further doubt. If the members of the present college generation confess themselves truly pictured by Hemingway, and, as Fadiman says, "as vitally maimed as the hero of The Sun Also Rise," they confess themselves beaten, not by the war, with which they had no direct contact, but by the depression. A great many dire things indeed may be predicted from such a standpoint.

In reading Hemingway, however, or, in reading any work of friction, it is possible to read oneself into the character of the leading personage. This apparently is what Mr. Fadiman has done, Where others become an imaginary individual for an hour, dropping the false robes with the book, he has so wound and entwined himself in the Hemingway toils that he is unable to escape. Further, he assumes that all the young readers of Mr. Hemingway have done the same, an idea, fortunately, somewhat fallacious. Many may regard the author of "Death in the Afternoon", as a fit subject for Thurber's wit; few conceive of him as worthy the emulation due the object of a popular "hero-myth."