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Two Americans in Paris

CAROL Z. ROTHKOPF

'hen Joseph Conraii died in August 1924, Ford Madox
Ford, the editor of the Paris-based transatlantic review,
began at once to gather tributes for a special memorial
section to be added to the September issue. One of the contributors
Ford selected was Ernest Hemingway, already one of the leading
young Americans in Paris. Hemingway was undeniably qualified to
write about Conrad since he was known to admire his work deeply.
However, Hemingway might have been wiser to consider disquali¬
fying himself since he was not only nursing a grudge against Ford
but also because he regarded such memorial proclamations as
empty gestures.

As a result, Hemingway's so-called tribute to Conrad emerged
sounding very much more like a tirade against the literary "estab¬
lishment" in general and two of his fellow expatriates, T S. Eliot
and George Antheil, in particular. Hemingway made it quite clear
that he believed that the critics would quickly forget Conrad and
elevate someone—most likely Eliot—to fill his place as the most
noted writer of the day. The prospect so distressed Hemingway that
he wrote that if it were possible, he would grind Eliot "into fine dry
powder" to sprinkle over Conrad's grave to bring the greater writer
back to life. Eliot's discreet silence about this macabre suggestion
seems to have been total since his widow, Valerie Eliot, who is now
editing his letters, has been unable to locate so much as a sentence
on the topic.

The other chief object of Hemingway's hostility in the Conrad
memorial was less discreet, as befitted an American composer who
styled himself the "Bad Boy of Music." Antheil, then also a resident
of Paris, had succeeded by his charm, energy, and above all his
 

Opposite: Ernest Hemingway among the books in
Shakespeare and Company, Paris, 1922