Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

contemporaries of Twain, one must realize that all who wrote after him, did so while being compared to
him in some way. Whether it be James, William Dean Howells, or any of the other in the long line of
writers before Hemingway came along, they have all been measured against Twain, and if nothing else, that
might be enough to cement him as the one writer, rising amongst the rest.
So, has their really “been nothing as good since” Huckleberry Finn? Well, most would cite, along
with Twain, Ernest Hemingway as perhaps the most important and most recognizable American writer that
ever lived. With a long line of extremely popular and a whole host of awards, prizes, and honorary degrees
of his own, Hemingway, some might say may have surpassed Twain in his importance. But, don’t forget
how we got here. It is Hemingway that this essay has been quoting all the while and however we decide to
aggrandize him; we must first admit that he himself would probably reject it.
So what is it, that which separates these writers from the rest of the pack? What allows them to gain
in popularity and esteem? Hemingway might suggest that it is those writers who avoid the pitfalls of being a
success, which comes in the form of more responsibilities, like a family and a lifestyle, or as Hemingway
himself put it in The Green Hills of Africa, “We destroy them in many ways. They make money…writers
when they have made some money increase their standard of living and they are caught. They have to write
to keep up their establishment, their wives, and so on.” He goes on to suggest that this is in many ways
something that gets everyone and the only thing that saved Stephen Crane from being a poor writer is that
“he died.” It is in this same book that Hemingway suggests that there may only be a few good writers, based
on his earlier statements about Twain. He cited Henry James, Stephen Crane and Mark Twain, but refuses
to classify them in any order, which suggests that, according to Hemingway, they are all equally important
in terms of literary worth. But since? Perhaps the only conclusion that can be made of that statement by
Hemingway is that his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn’t any good, since The Great Gatsby was published in
1925 and The Green Hills of Africa was published in 1935 and written about a trip he took in 1933 with his
wife at the time. Ultimately, there may be little hope for a concise definition of worth in the literary world.
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