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Thursday, November 2, 2006
Authentic
I read A Farewell to Arms in high school, and quite hated it. Hemmingway's style never engaged my teenager's eye. But it's impossible to escape Papa's influence.
John Baird, a professor specializing in Hemmingway, in a conversation with shifty man named Castle, speculates that the "lost" Hemmingway writings could bring in a fortune if forged. Castle senses money, and the two of them hash out a way to legally forge a "found" Hemmingway novel. Never mind that some academics' reputations could be ruined.
The story takes a left turn with a shadowy figure who might or might not be the ghost of Ernest Hemmingway (never mind which one the author has said). John's world is rewritten over and over, in an attempt to stop the "Hemmingway pastiche", for no good reason I can find.
Hemmingway's spectre seems to have no good reason for interfering, despite doubletalk about how the novel could "profoundly affect the future". Possibly I'm missing something by not having worshipped the master.
Nevertheless, Joe Haldeman manages to pull this off. With a style not unlike a magician sawing a lady in half, then in half again, and so on into infinity -- for some reason I cared about the idiot professor, his nasty, self-centered lover, and the alternately pathetic, scary, then just plain dangerous Castle.
An excellent short novel, The Hemmingway Hoax is different from anything Mr. Haldeman has written, since or to date.
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