Gil, I share your sentiments. I have Karsh's turtleneck print No. 2 of Hemingway looking over my left shoulder as I write, and admire him solely for his great contribution to literature.

For all the rest, I hoist it aboard with reservations of his character, leavened only by the scene of our Morley Callaghan beating the piss out of him in Paris with Fitzgerald holding the watch.

I knew Callaghan, a skinny little guy who must have spotted Hemingway by 30 pounds, and worked with his two sons Barry and Mike in Toronto. My favourite also: For Whom the Bells.