The Influence of the European Culture on Hemingway’s Fiction

Book excerpt: The Influence of the European Culture on Hemingway’s Fiction is an essential companion to all those who study Hemingway. The studydeals with how Hemingway depicts Europe in his fiction, not necessarily from a biographical point of view, as most critical books have dealt with, but how he assimilates to the culture of Europe, how he portrays the different aspects of that culture in food, music, customs, architecture, and literature. This study views Hemingway’s stories and novels through a new lens by applying new critical developments, emergent approaches, and transnational studies to aid in a fuller understanding of Hemingway. Europe for Hemingway was a land of discovery, and one cannot study his major novels without analyzing this passion for these lands. The Europe that Hemingway experienced and recorded in his writing serves as an important element in his fiction, becoming “the other,” an alien culture that was sufficiently different from his American roots. Yet this otherness serves first to fulfill his psychological needs to learn and become one of the initiated through suffering—whether it involves himself or the loss of other people around him.