Notes from a Sea Diary : Hemingway All the Way.
By Nelson Algren. (Deutsch, 30s.)
Paste Book
JUST as every non-writer may be said to have a book in him, so every writer may be said to have a non-book in him. Nelson Algren has now demonstrated that he has at least two. In 1963 he brought out a sporadically amusing, loosely pasted together collection of travel pieces and criticism, Who Lost an American?, in which he let us know how tee-shirt tough he was and how little he thought of Mailer, Podhoretz, Dwight McDonald, Leslie Fiedler, and just about every- body else.
Not having been banned from bookshops for short-changing readers so outrageously, Algren, encouraged, has now given us Notes from a Sea Diary : Hemingway All the Way, a sporadically amusing, loosely pasted together collection of travel pieces and criticism in which he reminds us how tough he is and how little he thinks of Fiedler, Podhoretz, McDonald, and education in general. This time Algren has travelled to the
South Seas and brought back a number of jokes that could not be sold to the Bob Hope show. For example, 'He said he was a second mate and I told him I'd been married once myself.' His dialogue with whores here, there, and every- where tends to the basic. 'Me Nepal gel. Nepal gel very strong, make good pong-pong.' Algren, I'm afraid, makes much bad pong-pong. He has travelled a very long way to bring back so little.
Finally, Algren has filled out his travel anec- dotes with a defence of Hemingway which, at first glance, seems touching. At second glance, it seems presumptuous (as well as boring), which is to say, we don't need Cassius Clay to tell us Joe Louis had a punch. At third glance, Algren's celebration of Hemingway struck me as dis- honest. In defending Hemingway against criticism and praising him for his interest in down-and-outers, Algren is very, very busy puffing himself. This is not just a bad book, it is also an embarrassing one.
MORDECAI RICHLER
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