MR HEMINGWAY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27273, 13 February 1954, Page 3

MR HEMINGWAY

[From the "Manchester Guardian"!

Mr Ernest Hemingway should be a happy man. He is assured of many hours of the most delightful form of reading that exists—to study nice things said about oneself. A large slice of the world's press seems to have jumped overhastily to the conclusion that a plane crash in Central Africa must be fatal. It did not even give a tough person like Hemingway the benefit of the doubt for an hour oi two more. It is true, of course, mat the news broke awkwardly for some countries, and there is a widespread feeling inside newspaper offices that it is paradise to be ahead of the news, hell to be behind it; while waiting is purgatory. Hemingway comes ou t ha PPy distinctions—he and his wife have had a remarkable escape and he has the pleasure ol hearing what many of his contemporaries think about him. He knows, it he did not know it before, that he is ranked as one of the greatest 01 American writers, and he has an appallingly high standard to live up to Here he is not, perhaps, to be envied: He will have Hhadamanthus always at his side. Still, that is his trouble. For the rest of us we are all glad that Mr Hemingway has been spared and that there is more—much more, we may hope—of his vital writing to come His death would have been a sad loss to letters. (