It's been years since I've read any Hemingway, but I think that passage about American literature was spoken by a pompous characater in the novel, and were not the words of the narrator or EH himself. You'd have to read the rest of the novel to get a sense of whether EH was speaking through that character. Some (incl. me) might argue that was the case. And some not. This is not unlike Twain's use of the word "nigger" --putting it in the speech of particular characters or situations to reveal their attitudes or reflect their social status -- not his own. Unlike with EH, I don't think anyone can reasonably construct a case that Twain was expressing his own racial views through his various characaters. But EH was not Mark Twain, and I don't see no p'ints about EH that make him better'n Mark Twain. Kevin Mac Donnell Austin TX