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Hemingway's Fetishism: Psychoanalysis and the Mirror of Manhood
In Hemingway's Fetishism, Carl Eby demonstrates in painstaking detail and with stunning new archival evidence how fetishism was crucial to the construction and negotiation of identity and gender in both Hemingway's life and his fiction. Critics have long acknowledged Hemingway's lifelong erotic obsession with hair, but this book is the first to explain in a theoretically coherent manner why Hemingway was a fetishist and why we should care. Without reducing Hemingway's art to his psychosexuality, Eby demonstrates that when the fetish appears in Hemingway's fiction, it always does so with a retinue of attendant fantasies, themes, and symbols that are among the most prominent and important in Hemingway's work.
366 pages, Hardcover
First published November 24, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 6, 2012
“Hemingway’s Fetishism” is a thoughtful, detailed, thorough and fascinating exploration of Hemingway’s complex and often dark psyche. It is most interesting to read this book followed by several other books that expand and explore similar themes from other family member’s perspectives. Several that I would recommend include:
“Strange Tribe,” by John Hemingway. This book is by Hemingway’s grandson and explores the gender bending proclivities and transvestic behaviors of both his father and grandfather, and their struggles with bi-polarity, alcohol, and suicidal depressions.
“The Hemingway Women,” by Bernice Kent, which examines Hemingway’s troubled relationships with his four wives.
“Hemingway and Gelhorn,” by Jerome Lucille which chronicles their wartime relationship.
If you follow this up with a re-read of “Moveable Feast,” you will have some new and interesting insights into the psyche and writing of Ernest Hemingway.
All of these books tend to corroborate and expand upon the themes addressed in Elby’s book which explores the relationship between Hemingway’s hyper-masculine personality and his gender confusion, fetishism, transvestitism and depression. The book is not reductive. The author is not dogmatic. He constantly points out potential weaknesses in his analysis. His respect for Hemingway the author and person shines through, but he doesn’t, like so many others before him, shy away from addressing "the elephant on the dining room table," namely the artificial construct of Hemingway’s uber-masculine personae and the sexual conflicts this was attempting to conceal.
The book is comprehensive and fascinating beginning with Hemingway’s early childhood, exploring the roots of his difficulties with his dominant mother who dressed her son in dresses long past the age it was fashionable to do so. His distant relationship with a cold and disapproving father who committed suicide. His odd relationship with his first wife where his obsession with emulating her hair fully presents itself, to the deteriorating relationships with all his subsequent wives where his fetishism is played out in remarkably similar ways in each relationship. The narcissism of Hemingway’s chronic fetishism is fully evident in these and other family relationships.
For anyone interested in Hemingway, in better understanding the themes and imagery in his books, and the familial origins of paraphilias, this book is a fascinating read.
Highly recommend.
“Strange Tribe,” by John Hemingway. This book is by Hemingway’s grandson and explores the gender bending proclivities and transvestic behaviors of both his father and grandfather, and their struggles with bi-polarity, alcohol, and suicidal depressions.
“The Hemingway Women,” by Bernice Kent, which examines Hemingway’s troubled relationships with his four wives.
“Hemingway and Gelhorn,” by Jerome Lucille which chronicles their wartime relationship.
If you follow this up with a re-read of “Moveable Feast,” you will have some new and interesting insights into the psyche and writing of Ernest Hemingway.
All of these books tend to corroborate and expand upon the themes addressed in Elby’s book which explores the relationship between Hemingway’s hyper-masculine personality and his gender confusion, fetishism, transvestitism and depression. The book is not reductive. The author is not dogmatic. He constantly points out potential weaknesses in his analysis. His respect for Hemingway the author and person shines through, but he doesn’t, like so many others before him, shy away from addressing "the elephant on the dining room table," namely the artificial construct of Hemingway’s uber-masculine personae and the sexual conflicts this was attempting to conceal.
The book is comprehensive and fascinating beginning with Hemingway’s early childhood, exploring the roots of his difficulties with his dominant mother who dressed her son in dresses long past the age it was fashionable to do so. His distant relationship with a cold and disapproving father who committed suicide. His odd relationship with his first wife where his obsession with emulating her hair fully presents itself, to the deteriorating relationships with all his subsequent wives where his fetishism is played out in remarkably similar ways in each relationship. The narcissism of Hemingway’s chronic fetishism is fully evident in these and other family relationships.
For anyone interested in Hemingway, in better understanding the themes and imagery in his books, and the familial origins of paraphilias, this book is a fascinating read.
Highly recommend.
January 12, 2015
Interesting, but it wasn't incredibly useful for what I wanted to use it for.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews