The reader may feel a bit incredulous at suggesting an early 20th century writer be memorialized by a term which only came into common usage a number of years after his death. However, I hope to demonstrate that Hemingway was indeed the template replicated by such a large number of the rock stars who crashed and burned after meteoric ascents, in the decades just subsequent to Hemingway's death in 1961.
Hemingway well earned his prominent place on our list of top 20 most famous American authors . His literary achievements alone would earn him his ranking. Yet, there is no disputing that Hemingway as icon far transcended his literary legacy in casting the mold of 20st century artistic celebrity.
He was only yet in his 20s when Hemingway received expansive critical accolades following the publication of his anguished and restless novella The Sun Also Rises. This was already pretty heady stuff for such a young man. Yet, only a few years after that he became a bestselling author, on the strength of his novel, A Farewell to Arms. Furthermore, he had yet further cemented his critical acclaim with two short story collections in the years just before and following Farewell. He was widely acknowledged as having reinvented the short story, with his moving, epiphany-inspired tales, that captured the tiny tragedies and lingering scars of life in tales such as A Day's Wait, A Clean and Well-Lighted Place and Hills Like White Elephants.
It is hard to think of any other artist, in any medium, who managed to combine both critical and commercial acclaim at such a young age. There were a number of factors coming together to make this remarkable success possible for the young Hemingway.
To begin with, reminiscent of many of the most successful rock artists who followed him in the later decades of the century - think of David Bowie, David Byrne and Madonna - Hemingway exhibited a remarkable capacity to draw valuable lessons from avant garde and experimental artists, while having a deep intuition about how to apply these lessons in ways that remained accessible to mainstream literary society. For Hemingway the important influences included Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. He knew how to capture a lesson in narrative or language from the avant garde in a way that domesticated it for the mainstream.
And capture it, he did. Indeed, it is not too much of an exaggeration to compare the way that rock and roll tapped into the rebellious idealism of the highly educated and materially privileged 1960s baby boom generation, with the way that Hemingway's stories touched a chord in the sullen ennui and restlessness of the post-WWI zeitgeist. Those who came to be called the lost generation found in Hemingway someone who sang their song.
Like, though, any artist who has such early meteoric success, replicating it can be a difficult thing to do. Though he had some modest "hits" along the way, it is not unfair to say he never quite reached the same heights literarily again after the early 30s. Probably only For Whom the Bell Tolls approached his early breakthrough works.
For all that, though, Hemingway never ceased to be a household name and a source of constant popular fascination. Further, not only was he aware of this aspect of his fame, but he seems to have taken no small effort in cultivating it. He nurtured relationships with influential gossip columnists and photographs of him hunting or fishing big game always had a way of finding their way into the glossy magazines of the period.
It might come as a surprise for many people today to know this, but Hemingway was endorsing commercial products, such as pens, airlines and beer, long before the actors and athlete's with whom we associate such activity today. Additionally, Hemingway was a frequent source of letters to both literary and other publications, providing him the occasion to refine his well honed image as the proverbial man's man and the anti-intellectual's intellectual.
Many accused Hemingway by the middle of the century of having become a kind of parody of himself. Indeed, one can't help thinking of all the 60s and 70s rock and pop bands, grey and flabby, who continue to rake in the dough on the nostalgia circuit of casinos and community halls.
For Hemingway, though, at least artistically, the end wasn't quite that tragic. Almost like one of those hanging-on senior citizen rock bands, with the audacity to actually try out a new song, rather than pandering endlessly to the clamoring for greatest hits, who suddenly found themselves with a new platinum record.
When it appeared to all-the-world that Hemingway had nothing original or important left to say, the literary world was swept away with the 1952 publication of his heartbreaking novella, The Old Man and the Sea. Amazingly, he had done it again; once more Hemingway had become artistically relevant. No doubt largely a function of this last great hurrah, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, perhaps adding the final piece to the Hemingway legend.
That it was a story of an elderly man, with one last chance at greatness, who sees it slip away between his fingers, never quite really within his grasp, may remind us that his most successful works were those with a vaguely autobiographical flavor - and a sense of inexorable tragedy.
And of course he molded that template for 20th century artistic celebrity right to the end. Anticipating all the tragic rock star youths which would follow the path he'd beaten, in 1961, in an isolated home, Hemingway succumbed to his own misdoing, in a suicidal fog of depression and substance abuse. The world lost one of the most important artists of the 20th century. In the process, the template of artistic celebrity which Hemingway made, received its finishing touch. And it would be a mold, simultaneously triumphant and tragic that informed the aspirations of dreamy youth throughout the rest of the century.
And indeed still does.
Hemingway well earned his prominent place on our list of top 20 most famous American authors . His literary achievements alone would earn him his ranking. Yet, there is no disputing that Hemingway as icon far transcended his literary legacy in casting the mold of 20st century artistic celebrity.
He was only yet in his 20s when Hemingway received expansive critical accolades following the publication of his anguished and restless novella The Sun Also Rises. This was already pretty heady stuff for such a young man. Yet, only a few years after that he became a bestselling author, on the strength of his novel, A Farewell to Arms. Furthermore, he had yet further cemented his critical acclaim with two short story collections in the years just before and following Farewell. He was widely acknowledged as having reinvented the short story, with his moving, epiphany-inspired tales, that captured the tiny tragedies and lingering scars of life in tales such as A Day's Wait, A Clean and Well-Lighted Place and Hills Like White Elephants.
It is hard to think of any other artist, in any medium, who managed to combine both critical and commercial acclaim at such a young age. There were a number of factors coming together to make this remarkable success possible for the young Hemingway.
To begin with, reminiscent of many of the most successful rock artists who followed him in the later decades of the century - think of David Bowie, David Byrne and Madonna - Hemingway exhibited a remarkable capacity to draw valuable lessons from avant garde and experimental artists, while having a deep intuition about how to apply these lessons in ways that remained accessible to mainstream literary society. For Hemingway the important influences included Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. He knew how to capture a lesson in narrative or language from the avant garde in a way that domesticated it for the mainstream.
And capture it, he did. Indeed, it is not too much of an exaggeration to compare the way that rock and roll tapped into the rebellious idealism of the highly educated and materially privileged 1960s baby boom generation, with the way that Hemingway's stories touched a chord in the sullen ennui and restlessness of the post-WWI zeitgeist. Those who came to be called the lost generation found in Hemingway someone who sang their song.
Like, though, any artist who has such early meteoric success, replicating it can be a difficult thing to do. Though he had some modest "hits" along the way, it is not unfair to say he never quite reached the same heights literarily again after the early 30s. Probably only For Whom the Bell Tolls approached his early breakthrough works.
For all that, though, Hemingway never ceased to be a household name and a source of constant popular fascination. Further, not only was he aware of this aspect of his fame, but he seems to have taken no small effort in cultivating it. He nurtured relationships with influential gossip columnists and photographs of him hunting or fishing big game always had a way of finding their way into the glossy magazines of the period.
It might come as a surprise for many people today to know this, but Hemingway was endorsing commercial products, such as pens, airlines and beer, long before the actors and athlete's with whom we associate such activity today. Additionally, Hemingway was a frequent source of letters to both literary and other publications, providing him the occasion to refine his well honed image as the proverbial man's man and the anti-intellectual's intellectual.
Many accused Hemingway by the middle of the century of having become a kind of parody of himself. Indeed, one can't help thinking of all the 60s and 70s rock and pop bands, grey and flabby, who continue to rake in the dough on the nostalgia circuit of casinos and community halls.
For Hemingway, though, at least artistically, the end wasn't quite that tragic. Almost like one of those hanging-on senior citizen rock bands, with the audacity to actually try out a new song, rather than pandering endlessly to the clamoring for greatest hits, who suddenly found themselves with a new platinum record.
When it appeared to all-the-world that Hemingway had nothing original or important left to say, the literary world was swept away with the 1952 publication of his heartbreaking novella, The Old Man and the Sea. Amazingly, he had done it again; once more Hemingway had become artistically relevant. No doubt largely a function of this last great hurrah, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, perhaps adding the final piece to the Hemingway legend.
That it was a story of an elderly man, with one last chance at greatness, who sees it slip away between his fingers, never quite really within his grasp, may remind us that his most successful works were those with a vaguely autobiographical flavor - and a sense of inexorable tragedy.
And of course he molded that template for 20th century artistic celebrity right to the end. Anticipating all the tragic rock star youths which would follow the path he'd beaten, in 1961, in an isolated home, Hemingway succumbed to his own misdoing, in a suicidal fog of depression and substance abuse. The world lost one of the most important artists of the 20th century. In the process, the template of artistic celebrity which Hemingway made, received its finishing touch. And it would be a mold, simultaneously triumphant and tragic that informed the aspirations of dreamy youth throughout the rest of the century.
And indeed still does.
About the Author:
To stay in the know on all the news about U.S. writers, living and breathing or not, you need to follow Mickey Jhonny's work at the site Famous American Authors . He also keeps tabs on the trends in sophisticated television: catch his great work at the Don Draper Haircut site.
