Books: Clean & Straight

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The Old Man and the Sea has almost none of the old Hemingway truculence, the hard-guy sentimentality that sometimes gives even his most devoted admirers twinges of discomfort. As a story, it is clean and straight. Those who admire craftsmanship will be right in calling it a masterpiece. Its meaning? Critics will find as many as there are critical cults. But The Old Man is only better Hemingway, not fundamentally different. It is a poem of action, praising a brave man, a magnificent fish and the sea, with perhaps a new underlying reverence for the Creator of such wonders.

Was The Old Man meant to stand alone or is it part of some grander scheme? For many years the U.S. publishing world has buzzed with rumors of a "big" Hemingway novel which would dwarf anything he had previously written. Across the River and into the Trees (TIME, Sept. 11, 1950) was said to be an interim job. With publication last week in LIFE of The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway was ready to throw some light on his work and hopes. Said he, in reply to a cable from TIME :

"I have written and re-written some 200,000 words of what eventually will be a long book about the sea. It is divided into four separate books any one of which may be published separately. When writing, I dislike talking about my work or my plans. This is not from boorishness but because I have found that it is bad for a writer to talk about what he is doing. But I can tell you that I hope to write novels and short stories as long as I live, and I would like to live for a long time."