Tim Pingleton
AMERICAN@
Vol. I. Issue 2
Hemingway’s War Fiction
ISSN:1695-7814
Hemingway’s War Fiction and
“The Best God-Damned God You Ever Knew”
Tim Pingleton
Columbia Independent School
Abstract
The centennial of Ernest Hemingway’s death has produced little fresh insight into the
religiosity of Hemingway’s characters.
By and large, they continue to be classified as
freethinkers one step away from atheism.
Expressing his feelings about God, Ernest
Hemingway wrote, “He is the best god-damned God you ever knew.”
This seemingly
blasphemous expression encapsulates the “religion” of Hemingway’s war fiction protagonists.
Sacrament may be touching a tree, “la Gloria” may be found in sexual climax, Truth is in the
numbers of regiments, congregation negates to religious feeling. Contrary to much criticism
in Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, these characters are not nihilistic pagans;
they merely eschew conspicuous religiosity of the past and carry one created heuristically by
occasion and experience.