A scandalous week: Hemingway a KGB spy, Nabokov and Playboy, a darker Green Gables

Hemingway: hard at work or hardly working for the KGB?
Source: The Library of Congress

This week, the U.K.'s Guardian published three stories that shook the reputations of some of the Western world's most beloved authors.

Perhaps the most damaging of these comes from the report on the recently published Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, in which Ernest Hemingway is revealed to have been an agent of the KGB during the 1940s (and a rather unsuccessful one at that). John Dugdale writes:

[The book's] section on the author's secret life as a "dilettante spy" draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name "Argo", and "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us" when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to "give us any political information" and was never "verified in practical work", so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade.

Though Hemingway's reputation has come under fire more than a few times in the past, this most recent development could significantly change the way this Homer of American letters is viewed by his countrymen.  

Only the day before news of Hemingway's extracurricular activities broke, The Guardian wrote that an excerpt of Vladimir Nabokov's unpublished novella, The Original of Laura, was to appear in Playboy (Examiner covered that story here and here). Hugh Hefner is a public fan of Lolita author Nabokov, and the deceased novelist had a long relationship with the magazine during his career.

Most surprising about this story, though, is that The New Yorker reportedly showed no interest in publishing the 5,000 word excerpt (according to The New York Observer article). Given that Playboy literary editor Amy Grace Loyd was not allowed to read the manuscript before making an offer and Nabokov himself wanted it to be destroyed, The Original of Laura may not be worthy of all the hoopla. We won't know until November 10, the day the December issue of Playboy comes out. Assuming the worst, at least Nabokov fans who pick up the magazine will have some other quality um, articles to look at.

Lastly, it was revealed just today that Penguin Canada is set to publish an unabridged version of the final book of Lucy Maud Montgomery's classic Anne of Green Gables series. Entitled The Blythes Are Quoted, the novel is said to include "adultery, illegitimacy, misogyny, revenge, murder, despair, bitterness, hatred, and death," as well as an experimentation with storytelling not seen in the other volumes.

This development adds to the growing pall around Montgomery's public perception; her granddaughter admitted last year that the children's author had died of a drug overdose.

However, most shocking here is Penguin's plan to market The Blythes Are Quoted in all of its murder and misogyny to kids. Alison Flood writes: "Penguin is hoping to reach children as well as adults, aiming for the readers who bought Budge Wilson's prequel to Anne's story, Before Green Gables, last spring."