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In acknowledging Ernest Hemingway as one of the major talents of our time we need not go so far as John O'Hara who called him "the outstanding author since the death of Shakespeare"; nor need we belittle him with one of his own understatements: "He was pretty good in there." Hemingway was a death-bedevilled man. Violence fascinated him. His favored recreations were the refined slaughter of the bullring, the safari, and the trout stream. In his writing, the concern of a surprising number of his characters was with the problem not of living well but of dying well. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.