Hemingway first reached me in high school, although I don't think I appreciated his writing properly until I was older, and really got past the larger-than-life image he presented to the world. While his style has been aped, parodied, and avoided over the years, he was, for all of the cult of machismo that arose around him both in his life and after his death, a writer of amazing sensitivity. So much so that I often wonder if the whole Papa mythos, his alcoholism, and his big-game hunting and fishing was a reaction to that same writerly sensitivity all writers of merit must possess to get at the heart of their craft. I always felt that, interpersonally, Hemingway was a bit of a charlatan -- like insecurity drove him to act like he was the biggest badass in the room, almost as if he had to apologize for being a writer of such great talent and artistic sensitivity. The persona he cultivated was, in my opinion, camouflage for the artist that he was -- his veneration of, say, bullfighters, was really him projecting on the self he wanted to be, but never could be -- he wanted to be the participant, but, as a writer, could only truly be the spectator. I think people who aren't writers see that persona as the man, whereas reading his work, his amazing writing, I came to the conclusion above. It's a good thing he did get as much written as he did, as it left a huge imprint on the last century, and certainly influenced me as a writer. His quote when he won the Nobel Prize is illustrative...
"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."
