User:KWatson/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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back and say, as I believe Mailer shows us, that all of the hugger-mugger, derring-do, tunnel digging, and various forms of cat and mouse the CIA and KGB engaged in were just so much silliness. We do so of course in the full recognition that much of this nonsense still goes on in the post-Soviet present.

At the end of ''Harlot’s Ghost'', Hubbard, using a fake passport, makes a second visit to Moscow to see whether Harlot has defected from the CIA to the KGB and there by become an American version of the British spy Kim Philby. If this were found to be the case, it would of course be an enormous defeat and embarrassment for the CIA and a personal trauma for Hubbard as well, since Harlot was variously his surrogate father, mentor, and rival in romance. Here Hubbard’s rage at the Soviet Union is in full cry when in contemplation of the bad coffee he will drink in the Metropol, he exclaims that it is an “[a]ccursed country of whole incapacities!” What I take from ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is that on one hand the US-USSR rivalry is still a good platform for the sort of mystery Mailer is creating in the novel, especially with regard to the fate of Harlot himself that is left unresolved. On the other hand, the middle-aged, middle-class Soviets are no longer really Red anymore, and the system they have created, however formidable militarily, is rent with glaring faults and failures, many of which are in plain sight for all to see.

At the end of ''Harlot’s Ghost'', Hubbard, using a fake passport, makes a second visit to Moscow to see whether Harlot has defected from the CIA to the KGB and there by become an American version of the British spy Kim Philby. If this were found to be the case, it would of course be an enormous defeat and embarrassment for the CIA and a personal trauma for Hubbard as well, since Harlot was variously his surrogate father, mentor, and rival in romance. Here Hubbard’s rage at the Soviet Union is in full cry when in contemplation of the bad coffee he will drink in the Metropol, he exclaims that it is an “[a]ccursed country of whole incapacities!”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=982}} What I take from ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is that on one hand the US-USSR rivalry is still a good platform for the sort of mystery Mailer is creating in the novel, especially with regard to the fate of Harlot himself that is left unresolved. On the other hand, the middle-aged, middle-class Soviets are no longer really Red anymore, and the system they have created, however formidable militarily, is rent with glaring faults and failures, many of which are in plain sight for all to see.

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commissars. I am not claiming that his Soviet sources revealed to Hemingway everything they knew about the darker sides of Soviet life, particularly Stalin’s terror, for they would have been unlikely to risk being found out as Hemingway’s source of such information since he was known to them as a famous writer and journalist. However, Hemingway, one way or another did crack some of the Soviets’ seamier secrets, as we see in Robert Jordan’s ruminations on the fate of the Russian poet Mayakovsky who, according to Jordan, was guilty of the sin of Bohemianism, but now that he is dead, he is a “saint” ~~(Hemingway)~~. I understand this to mean that Hemingway was concerned about the fates of Soviet Russian writers and that Jordan’s irony shows that he understood they were subject to the vagaries of the state’s ever shifting attitudes toward them. I have to say here parenthetically that among the writers of his time Mayakovsky was certainly the reddest of them all, and his leftist proclivities outlasted even those of the regime itself. For all of Robert Jordan’s political awareness and involvement, he is no party’s man, and ultimately, we judge him not on his politics but on his character. Likewise, I believe that we should judge Hemingway by the character of his prose and not his politics.

commissars. I am not claiming that his Soviet sources revealed to Hemingway everything they knew about the darker sides of Soviet life, particularly Stalin’s terror, for they would have been unlikely to risk being found out as Hemingway’s source of such information since he was known to them as a famous writer and journalist. However, Hemingway, one way or another did crack some of the Soviets’ seamier secrets, as we see in Robert Jordan’s ruminations on the fate of the Russian poet Mayakovsky who, according to Jordan, was guilty of the sin of Bohemianism, but now that he is dead, he is a “saint” {{sfn|Hemigway|1940|p=164}}. I understand this to mean that Hemingway was concerned about the fates of Soviet Russian writers and that Jordan’s irony shows that he understood they were subject to the vagaries of the state’s ever shifting attitudes toward them. I have to say here parenthetically that among the writers of his time Mayakovsky was certainly the reddest of them all, and his leftist proclivities outlasted even those of the regime itself. For all of Robert Jordan’s political awareness and involvement, he is no party’s man, and ultimately, we judge him not on his politics but on his character. Likewise, I believe that we should judge Hemingway by the character of his prose and not his politics.

It seems clear that the red connections of Hemingway and Mailer are sometimes linked with their interest in things Russian and sometimes not.

Moreover, both writers are bound up with Russian literature in a number of substantial, one might even say formative ways. To put it briefly, Hemingway

was clearly well read in Chekhov and he also read authors of the Soviet period. As Clarence Brown points out, Hemingway’s praise of Andrei Platonov to Soviet journalists helped spur the Soviets to resume publication of this writer of exceptional and original talent. It was during the 1960s that Hemingway experienced a surge of popularity among Russian readers. Indeed, I remember vividly a young man I met in Kiev in 1969 who had literally read all of Hemingway that was available in Russian translation at that time and who knew by heart the plots of many of his stories and novels. There is not space here adequately to describe what voracious readers of fiction Russians are except to say that they—from professional intellectuals to professional bus drivers—often know well not just the “classics” of their own literature but those of world literature, including of course Hemingway. Furthermore, some of the Russian writers who are often associated with a loose grouping from the 1960s called “Young Prose,” for example Yury Kazakov, show the unmistakable hand of Hemingway in their manner of writing. So

was clearly well read in Chekhov and he also read authors of the Soviet period. As Clarence Brown points out, Hemingway’s praise of Andrei Platonov to Soviet journalists helped spur the Soviets to resume publication of this writer of exceptional and original talent{{sfn|Brown|1993|p=116}}. It was during the 1960s that Hemingway experienced a surge of popularity among Russian readers. Indeed, I remember vividly a young man I met in Kiev in 1969 who had literally read all of Hemingway that was available in Russian translation at that time and who knew by heart the plots of many of his stories and novels. There is not space here adequately to describe what voracious readers of fiction Russians are except to say that they—from professional intellectuals to professional bus drivers—often know well not just the “classics” of their own literature but those of world literature, including of course Hemingway. Furthermore, some of the Russian writers who are often associated with a loose grouping from the 1960s called “Young Prose,” for example Yury Kazakov, show the unmistakable hand of Hemingway in their manner of writing. So

@@ Line 119: / Line 119: @@
 back and say, as I believe Mailer shows us, that all of the hugger-mugger, derring-do, tunnel digging, and various forms of cat and mouse the CIA and KGB engaged in were just so much silliness. We do so of course in the full recognition that much of this nonsense still goes on in the post-Soviet present.
-At the end of ''Harlot’s Ghost'', Hubbard, using a fake passport, makes a second visit to Moscow to see whether Harlot has defected from the CIA to the KGB and there by become an American version of the British spy Kim Philby. If this were found to be the case, it would of course be an enormous defeat and embarrassment for the CIA and a personal trauma for Hubbard as well, since Harlot was variously his surrogate father, mentor, and rival in romance. Here Hubbard’s rage at the Soviet Union is in full cry when in contemplation of the bad coffee he will drink in the Metropol, he exclaims that it is an “[a]ccursed country of whole incapacities!” What I take from ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is that on one hand the US-USSR rivalry is still a good platform for the sort of mystery Mailer is creating in the novel, especially with regard to the fate of Harlot himself that is left unresolved. On the other hand, the middle-aged, middle-class Soviets are no longer really Red anymore, and the system they have created, however formidable militarily, is rent with glaring faults and failures, many of which are in plain sight for all to see.
+At the end of ''Harlot’s Ghost'', Hubbard, using a fake passport, makes a second visit to Moscow to see whether Harlot has defected from the CIA to the KGB and there by become an American version of the British spy Kim Philby. If this were found to be the case, it would of course be an enormous defeat and embarrassment for the CIA and a personal trauma for Hubbard as well, since Harlot was variously his surrogate father, mentor, and rival in romance. Here Hubbard’s rage at the Soviet Union is in full cry when in contemplation of the bad coffee he will drink in the Metropol, he exclaims that it is an “[a]ccursed country of whole incapacities!”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=982}} What I take from ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is that on one hand the US-USSR rivalry is still a good platform for the sort of mystery Mailer is creating in the novel, especially with regard to the fate of Harlot himself that is left unresolved. On the other hand, the middle-aged, middle-class Soviets are no longer really Red anymore, and the system they have created, however formidable militarily, is rent with glaring faults and failures, many of which are in plain sight for all to see.
@@ Line 131: / Line 131: @@
-commissars. I am not claiming that his Soviet sources revealed to Hemingway everything they knew about the darker sides of Soviet life, particularly Stalin’s terror, for they would have been unlikely to risk being found out as Hemingway’s source of such information since he was known to them as a famous writer and journalist. However, Hemingway, one way or another did crack some of the Soviets’ seamier secrets, as we see in Robert Jordan’s ruminations on the fate of the Russian poet Mayakovsky who, according to Jordan, was guilty of the sin of Bohemianism, but now that he is dead, he is a “saint” (Hemingway). I understand this to mean that Hemingway was concerned about the fates of Soviet Russian writers and that Jordan’s irony shows that he understood they were subject to the vagaries of the state’s ever shifting attitudes toward them. I have to say here parenthetically that among the writers of his time Mayakovsky was certainly the reddest of them all, and his leftist proclivities outlasted even those of the regime itself. For all of Robert Jordan’s political awareness and involvement, he is no party’s man, and ultimately, we judge him not on his politics but on his character. Likewise, I believe that we should judge Hemingway by the character of his prose and not his politics.
+commissars. I am not claiming that his Soviet sources revealed to Hemingway everything they knew about the darker sides of Soviet life, particularly Stalin’s terror, for they would have been unlikely to risk being found out as Hemingway’s source of such information since he was known to them as a famous writer and journalist. However, Hemingway, one way or another did crack some of the Soviets’ seamier secrets, as we see in Robert Jordan’s ruminations on the fate of the Russian poet Mayakovsky who, according to Jordan, was guilty of the sin of Bohemianism, but now that he is dead, he is a “saint” {{sfn|Hemigway|1940|p=164}}. I understand this to mean that Hemingway was concerned about the fates of Soviet Russian writers and that Jordan’s irony shows that he understood they were subject to the vagaries of the state’s ever shifting attitudes toward them. I have to say here parenthetically that among the writers of his time Mayakovsky was certainly the reddest of them all, and his leftist proclivities outlasted even those of the regime itself. For all of Robert Jordan’s political awareness and involvement, he is no party’s man, and ultimately, we judge him not on his politics but on his character. Likewise, I believe that we should judge Hemingway by the character of his prose and not his politics.
 It seems clear that the red connections of Hemingway and Mailer are sometimes linked with their interest in things Russian and sometimes not.
 Moreover, both writers are bound up with Russian literature in a number of substantial, one might even say formative ways. To put it briefly, Hemingway
-was clearly well read in Chekhov and he also read authors of the Soviet period. As Clarence Brown points out, Hemingway’s praise of Andrei Platonov to Soviet journalists helped spur the Soviets to resume publication of this writer of exceptional and original talent. It was during the 1960s that Hemingway experienced a surge of popularity among Russian readers. Indeed, I remember vividly a young man I met in Kiev in 1969 who had literally read all of Hemingway that was available in Russian translation at that time and who knew by heart the plots of many of his stories and novels. There is not space here adequately to describe what voracious readers of fiction Russians are except to say that they—from professional intellectuals to professional bus drivers—often know well not just the “classics” of their own literature but those of world literature, including of course Hemingway. Furthermore, some of the Russian writers who are often associated with a loose grouping from the 1960s called “Young Prose,” for example Yury Kazakov, show the unmistakable hand of Hemingway in their manner of writing. So
+was clearly well read in Chekhov and he also read authors of the Soviet period. As Clarence Brown points out, Hemingway’s praise of Andrei Platonov to Soviet journalists helped spur the Soviets to resume publication of this writer of exceptional and original talent{{sfn|Brown|1993|p=116}}. It was during the 1960s that Hemingway experienced a surge of popularity among Russian readers. Indeed, I remember vividly a young man I met in Kiev in 1969 who had literally read all of Hemingway that was available in Russian translation at that time and who knew by heart the plots of many of his stories and novels. There is not space here adequately to describe what voracious readers of fiction Russians are except to say that they—from professional intellectuals to professional bus drivers—often know well not just the “classics” of their own literature but those of world literature, including of course Hemingway. Furthermore, some of the Russian writers who are often associated with a loose grouping from the 1960s called “Young Prose,” for example Yury Kazakov, show the unmistakable hand of Hemingway in their manner of writing. So
 {{pg|240|241}}