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Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As a true Hemingway fan, I found this book to be neither entertaining nor insightful... However, the afterword that follows it is quite interesting and contains a few fascinating stories. I recommend Hemingway's own book "A Moveable Feast" for anyone who wants to truly understand America's greatest writer.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As a true Hemingway fan, I found this book to be neither entertaining nor insightful... However, the afterword that follows it is quite interesting and contains a few fascinating stories. I recommend Hemingway's own book "A Moveable Feast" for anyone who wants to truly understand America's greatest writer.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Over-rated Portrait
Review: I have not been able to decide whether I like Lillian Ross or not. There is a strangely ambiguous atomosphere in this Portrait. It is impossible for me to tell if Ross is making fun of a sad, senile old alcoholic or if she is seriously hero-worshipping. Hemingway comes off very badly in any case. He keeps repeating the phrase, "How do you like it now, gentlemen?" and seems generally pretty unaware of his surroundings. I cant get past the feeling that Ross is exploiting H. for her own personal gain, but I suppose H. was not above doing the same to others himself in his younger days, so perhaps these things all even out.
Rating: 
Summary: A remarkable combination of objectivity and love.
Review: It's a remarkable piece of work, both loving and accurate. If you don't like his kind of macho, I guess you could call the Portrait barbed; but she obviously loved it and him enough to win his trust. He opened up for her and, in the welcoming sense, took her in. I'm left full of wonder for the way she got his words, as well as his presence, down. You can see, too, how his early work, with its pared-down clarity, influenced her style. This is biography without conjecture -- biography at its best.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic Non-Fiction
Review: Lillian Ross has the eye and ear of a reporter and the writing ability of a distinguished novelist. This feature on Hemingway, originally a NEW YORKER piece, is a delight for fans of Ross and fans of Hemingway of which I can be counted as both. The story begins as Miss Ross meets Hemingway at Idlewood Airport (now JFK) in New York City in 1950. Ross spends the next two days going to museums, shopping, and meeting Hemingway's friend Marlene Dietrich and Editor Charles Scribner. She's so unobtrusive in the story, you forget that she was actually in the room. When Hemingway talks to her, it's like a character has stepped out of a novel to speak with the author. You get this feeling because "Papa" is so much himself that he doesn't seem to be hiding his true personality from a member of the press corps. I learned a good deal about Papa in this short book. You will too.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Non-Fiction
Review: Lillian Ross has the eye and ear of a reporter and the writing ability of a distinguished novelist. This feature on Hemingway, originally a NEW YORKER piece, is a delight for fans of Ross and fans of Hemingway of which I can be counted as both. The story begins as Miss Ross meets Hemingway at Idlewood Airport (now JFK) in New York City in 1950. Ross spends the next two days going to museums, shopping, and meeting Hemingway's friend Marlene Dietrich and Editor Charles Scribner. She's so unobtrusive in the story, you forget that she was actually in the room. When Hemingway talks to her, it's like a character has stepped out of a novel to speak with the author. You get this feeling because "Papa" is so much himself that he doesn't seem to be hiding his true personality from a member of the press corps. I learned a good deal about Papa in this short book. You will too.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for Hemingway fans and fascinating overall.
Review: Portrait is a glimpse into the life of Hemingway over a two-day period. For fans of Hemingway, this is a fascinating snapshot of the famous Hemingway bravado and an offering of the vulnerability and sensitivity flowing immediately under the gruff and overly-confident exterior. Hemingway's passion for art and alcohol is found here, and one can't help but be reminded of his earlier devotion to, and inspiration from, painting rendered in A Moveable Feast. Sadly, one also anticipates the later disability compounded by the excessive drinking that finally extinguished such a brilliant career. This book caused a commotion when it was first published because Hemingway came across as insensitive, but it is only the lazy reader not willing to dig a little deeper, and only the reader who allows the powerful prose of Ross to lull them into mere observation, who fails to recognize the whole of Hemingway's character. If you are a Hemingway fan, or you want to scratch the surface of the life of a great writer who showed no fear in displaying his faults as readily as his virtues, and you don't mind a few character quirks along the way, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: does what biographies of 'Papa' cannot
Review: This slim volume covering a mere two days with Hemingway will take about an hour or two to read. However, it's merit is that it is presents us with a 'bird's eye-view' of Hemingway's later years, the alcholism, his relationship with his wife Mary, his son, and some of his old friends. It also gives us a glimpse of his feelings about his writing in his own words. For those who have enjoyed Hemingway's fiction and read biographies of his life, this book is a must.
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