One of T.J. Clark’s objectives in The Painting of Modern Life is to make us ‘unlearn our present ease with Impressionism’, and in this he succeeds magnificently.footnote ＊ By raising the issue of the ...

Hermeneutics first. Nick Adams, the protagonist of Hemingway’s short story ‘Big Two-Hearted River’ (1925), is about to go fishing: Nick took it from his hook book, sitting with the rod across his lap.