Chapter 15 - Politics, Espionage, and Surveillance

Summary

In “Politics, Espionage, and Surveillance: Hemingway and the Rise of Paranoia Culture,” Kevin R. West explores how the rise of surveillance and paranoia after 9/11 has focused attention on Hemingway’s often tenuous affiliations with various governments and agencies of law, order, and social control (such as the FBI), resulting in sometimes exaggerated claims for his serving as an espionage agent. West notes how scholarship on this topic often blends in with fiction by thriller writers such as Dan Simmons and Leonardo Padura who have spun fables of mystery and intrigue out of specific biographical incidents (such as Hemingway’s attempts to locate U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico after the bombing of Pearl Harbor). Meticulously noting descrencies and strategies of presentation in various biographies – including, most notably, the work of Nicholas Reynolds, whose 2017 study Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy epitomizes this critical trend---this essay explores the cultural desires appeased by these fantasies of espionage. While Hemingway did have curious connections to shadowy forces, they were more often tangential and incidents of happenstance.