An Irish writer follows Hem/Fitzgerald Trail

Ciara O’Callaghan, who is a travel writer for the Irish Times, just wrote an article on trailing F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and following their European, American, and Caribbean travels. Noting that they were the Jekyll and Hyde equivalent in the literary world with Hemingway being the ultimate man’s man, bullfighter, and womanizer and Fitzgerald being the eternal outsider and hopeless romantic, Ms. O’Callaghan notes that they nevertheless shared in common a fondness for hard and heavy drinking and quality writing.

They first met in Paris in 1925 when Fitzgerald was close to the top of the literary world and Hemingway was a mere newly-arrived hopeful. Ms. O’Callaghan traipsed from the Dingo Bar in Paris where the two writers first met, to Harry’s New York, and The Ritz, all in Paris and then traveled to the Finca Vigia outside Havana. While in the vicinity, she visited the El Floridita to sample some Papa Dobles plus a few daiquiris and sit next to the bronze statue of Papa at the bar.

She then moved on to Montgomery, Alabama to soak up some F. Scott ambiance. It was in Alabama that Fitzgerald made a home with his wife Zelda and ultimately their daughter Scotty.

Zelda came from a wealthy established Alabama family and her father–a Judge–was quite sure that this “writer” could not meet his daughter’s needs. Zelda, however, was in love and Fitzgerald was crazy over-the-moon in love with Zelda and off they went to Europe as a young married couple.

As Fitzgerald’s star began to fade, primarily due to drink and lack of focus which probably was due to drink, Hemingway’s star began to rise. Ms. O’Callaghan notes that Hemingway is often cast in the role of Hyde, i.e. more fiend than friend, known for criticizing Fitzgerald behind his back. Less known are his kind words to Fitzgerald and his constant reassurance that “you can write twice as well now as you ever could.”

My reading suggests that they both were always seeking reassurance from each other and even when they had a falling out, they would communicate indirectly through Max Perkins wondering what the other was doing. Perkins would accommodate and let each know something about the other. Fitzgerald always referred to Hemingway as “the greatest living writer of this century.” The were the original frenemies, before there was a word for it.

In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway does backhandedly put Fitzgerald down, but please let’s recall that it was published posthumously in 1964 without editing by Hemingway. For all we know, he would have changed that significantly. He could be cruel but he also could be extremely generous and loyal to his friends.

Ms. O’Callaghan ends her article by quoting Hemingway who once said that, “You should never go on trips with anyone you do not love,” and she notes that luckily for herself she loves both writers and enjoyed her travels with “them.”. Ditto here, although Hemingway is always first in my heart.

New Hemingway Bio: What made him what he was? “Hemingway: A New Life”

The most famous writer of the 20^th century, Ernest Hemingway, had such an eventful life that he created enough myths to keep his story alive well into this century. There are whole industries based on the Hemingway image: look alike contests held in Key West; bad Hemingway writing contests; drinks popularized by him; Harry’s Bar and Grill in Venice; the running of the bulls in Pamplona; and that’s just to name a few. All of the foregoing are efforts to have a connection with what he did and what he was.

He had many unattractive traits along with his more positive ones. His excesses are well-known and his granddaughter, Mariel Hemingway, who was born after his death, has made it her vocation to educate the public about mental illness and the need to avoid the destructive patterns that depression and alcoholism create for everyone around them. In her book “When Out Came the Sun” was published, she said she considered it a corrective “to the romanticizing of hard drinking and writing and living this macho existence, which I’m sure, if my grandfather could do it again, he would choose a different way.”

I just read an article which delineates some of the above and which reviews a new book on Hemingway by James M. Hutchisson, called Hemingway: A New Life. He quotes Hemingway’s brother Leicester as saying “he loved everything up to a certain point, and then nothing was good anymore.” Hutchisson’s searches for the roots of Hemingway’s discontent. He believes casual drinking that evolved into lifetime alcoholism and too much success at too young an age contributed. Hemingway developed a very competitive streak and his high standards created an almost suffocating anxiety in him, says Hutchisson. When critics savaged “Across the River and Into the Woods”, published in 1950, Hemingway felt it was unjust and it really bothered him deeply, tapping into his insecurities and anxieties. He particularly hated that James Jones’ “From Here To Eternity” was getting raves.

brother Leicester's book — brother Leicester’s book

Toward the end of the 1950’s, Hemingway’s health and mental health truly began to fail. Two plane crashes in 1954 hadn’t helped his health. Years of drinking and failing to take care of his weight, blood pressure and exercise didn’t help either. After shock treatments at the Mayo Clinic, his short term memory was shot and writing even a thank you note was impossible.

For those interested in a fresh look, check it out. It’s published by Pennsylvania State University Press.

My New Novel: The Rage of Plum Blossoms

Dear Friends: My new novel–The Rage of Plum Blossoms–was just published by Kindle’s own private press. It is available in ebook and paperback on Amazon. There are a few Hemingway references and if you like a mystery with some humor, please check it out. My previous novel, Tell Me When It Hurts, had more Hemingway references as the heroine is a big fan of his. The reviews so far have been good so please see if it might appeal to you.

The book trailer will be out soon. I’ll post it when it is. It came out really well in terms of capturing the mood and it’s short–always a good thing. Thank you so much for reading. Best, Christine

BOOK DESCRIPTION BELOW:

Attorney Quinn Jones is in over her head. Her husband, Jordan Chang, Annapolis grad and superstar businessman, has been found dead outside their Greenwich Village brownstone. He’s wearing clothes that aren’t his, and was last seen at a place he never went while consorting with people he shouldn’t. Since NYPD has labeled Jordan’s death a suicide, Quinn is on her own to uncover the truth. Courtrooms, Quinn knows. Chanel No. 5, horses, frizzy hair, and martial arts, she knows. Murder, she doesn’t know but she’s learning fast in order to stay alive. With a few clues to work with, including a photo of Jordan with a stunning unknown woman and a copy of a 1986 check payable to Jordan for twelve million dollars, Quinn stalks the back streets of Chinatown, haunted by the need to know what happened that day and why.

bouvier-for-books — My Bouvier is being used as a branding symbol.

Thank you again. Love, Christine

Visit to Hemingway Collection Part 2

Continuation of post regarding my visit to the Kennedy Library, Hemingway Exhibit on Between the Wars

There was an anecdote displayed of an interview that Hemingway had with George Plimpton. Plimpton knew that Hemingway had written the end of A Farewell to Arms something like 39 times. Plimpton, a writer himself, asked if there was a technical problem that stumped him and why he kept re-writing the end. What was the problem? What was the hold-up???

Hemingway, in typical succinct style, replied “getting the words right.”

Old joke but still makes me smile: A farewell to arms

Finally, a famous quote from A Farewell to Arms (1929) was posted. Most people know the first sentence, but not the next one. It reads, “The world breaks everyone and after many are strong in the broken places.” Most people stop there.

Hemingway and Martha: between their personal wars

It goes on, however, “But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these, you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”

Thus we go from something that sounds somewhat upbeat and promising to a rather grim conclusion. Still, above all Hemingway believed that men can’t be defeated even in death.

full quote of "the world breaks everyone" — full quote of “the world breaks everyone”

Finally, his mantra for writing was the following:

Use short sentences.
Use short first paragraphs.
Use vigorous English.
Avoid the use of adjectives.
Eliminate every superfluous word.

And there you have it.

Love,

Christine

Visit To the Hemingway Collection in Boston Part 1

Kennedy Library, home of the Hemingway Collection, Boston

I was in Boston for a few days and took the opportunity to visit the Hemingway collection at the JFK Library and Museum. It’s about 20 minutes depending on traffic from downtown in a cab but shuttle buses travel out there more inexpensively as well. It is right on the water and very modern as you can see.

The present exhibit at the Hemingway Collection is entitled Hemingway Between the Wars, which covers much if not most of his career. The Old Man and the Sea, The Dangerous Summer, A Moveable Feast, among others came after World War II, (some posthumously. Hem died in 1961 and A Moveable Feast came out in 1964, edited primarily by Hemingway’s surviving wife, Mary. Garden of Eden was also posthumously published.) but The Sun Also Rises, Men Without Women, A Farewell to Arms, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and many of the more famous short stories, i.e. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Green Hills of Africa, all were done between the wars.

Although Hemingway had his first great romance (with Agnes Von Kurowsky, his attending nurse after Hemingway was injured) during the war–not between the wars, the famous photo of her and Hemingway was in the exhibit. While I knew well that F. Scott Fitzgerald had done some serious editing on The Sun Also Rises and cut out the beginning and told Hemingway to start at a different place—and the rest is history—they had the actual letter Fitzgerald wrote to Hemingway expressing his disappointment at the beginning and making his suggestion to cut in strong terms. Uncharacteristically and probably because he was young and not yet confident, Hemingway did not resist and took Fitzgerald’s advice, much to the improvement of the book.

1918 Nurse Agnes von Kurowsky and American Red Cross volunteer Ernest Hemingway, Milan, Italy. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

There also was a list of titles that Hemingway considered for The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1936). For those of you not familiar with this story, it is set in Africa and was published in September 1936 in Cosmopolitan Magazine concurrently with The Snows of Kilimanjaro. The story was eventually adapted to the screen as “The Macomber Affair” (1947).

The story deals with a dysfunctional marriage between Francis and Margot who are on a big game safari in Africa with a professional hunter Robert Wilson. On his first time out, Francis had panicked when a wounded lion charged him, which humiliated him in front of his wife who took far too much pleasure in mocking him about his act of cowardice. It is suggested that she sleeps with Robert Wilson. The next day the party hunt buffalo. Two are killed and one is wounded and retreats. It’s generally bad form, not to mention cruel all around, to leave a wounded animal as it is, and Francis and Wilson proceed to track him so that they can put him out of his misery. When they find the buffalo, it charges Francis Macomber. He stands his ground and fires, but his shots are too high. At the last second Macomber kills the buffalo with his last bullet and Margot fires a shot from her gun, which hits Macomber in the skull and kills him. Good times!

(Sorry, as a divorce lawyer I sometimes have a dark sense of humor on relationships.) Anyway, at the exhibit, there is a list of some of the alternate titles that Hemingway considered such as Marriage is a Dangerous Game, A Marriage has Terminated, The Cult of Violence, Marriage as a Bond.

Fitzgerald's advice typed up so we can read it easily. Actual handwritten letter was in the display. — HAPPY On the Sea

TO BE CONTINUED Next POST!

One True Sentence

Today, as we all ponder the insanity of politics–whatever your leanings–and going low or high, the below article about Hemingway’s simplicity with words struck a chord. I’ve excerpted it and will include the full cite at the end. Yes, we need ONE TRUE SENTENCE.

Commentary: The writer’s quest for that one true sentenc

Updated: OCTOBER 14, 2016 — 3:01 AM EDT By Robert Garnett

Years pass, sometimes decades, in which nothing of lasting interest is published.

20161014_inq_op1garnett14-a — ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ernest Hemingway in Paris just after “The Sun Also Rises” hit the best-seller list.

Ninety years ago, in October 1926, two classics appeared in a single week.

First came Winnie-the-Pooh.

Then came a radically original first novel by a young Midwesterner living in Paris. Among American novels of the past century, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises remains uniquely influential.

There is no better time to appreciate Hemingway’s clipped, terse language than during the rhetorical bloat of an American election year, with Niagaras of twaddle and cliché tumbling into an oceanic puddle of verbiage.

“Zounds!” a Shakespeare character laments, “I was never so bethumped with words.”

It was Hemingway’s insight that English had grown genteel, formulaic, and glib; that mechanically chosen words and phrases, sliding easily onto the page, falsified experience and faked emotion. Shunning sentimentality and drama, genuine passion wastes no words.

“The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence,” his contemporary Marianne Moore observed: “Not in silence but restraint.”

The Sun Also Rises, like most Hemingway novels, is set in Europe.

An American journalist working in Paris, Jake the narrator loves an English femme fatale, Brett.

“Can’t we just live together?” he pleads.

“Not with my own true love,” she replies. For Jake has been emasculated by a war wound, they cannot consummate their love, and the highly sexed Brett has no aptitude for platonic friendship.

“And there’s not a damn thing we could do,” Jake says.

Their dilemma defies happy resolution.

What language to express a world without hope or illusion?

For five years Hemingway rose early, walked to a chilly rented room over a Parisian sawmill, and worked to find the answer. Slowly he developed his voice, reminding himself when discouraged that “all you have to do is write one true sentence.”

Ah yes. One True Sentence. Easier said than done.

Best to all, Christine

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20161014_Commentary__The_writer_s_quest_for_that_one_true_sentence.html

HUNTER THOMPSON AND HEM’S STOLEN ANTLERS

Hunter Stockton Thompson (18 July 1937 – 20 February 2005) was an American journalist and author famous for his flamboyant writing style, known as Gonzo Journalism, which blurred the distinctions between writer and subject, fiction and non-fiction. At the age of 67, suffering a bout of health problems, Thompson died at his home in Woody Creek, Colorado, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Who knew? More than 50 years ago Hunter Thompson was visiting Hemingway’s Ketchum, Idaho home and pilfered a set of trophy elk antlers. In mid-August 2016, his widow, Anita Thompson, gave the antlers back stating that Hunter had always been embarrassed that he had taken them.

“He wished he hadn’t,” she said. “He was young, it was 1964, and he got caught up in the moment. He talked about it several times, about taking a road trip and returning them.”

The Ketchum, Idaho community library has been a repository for things that Hemingway used and that were from his Ketchum, Idaho residence. The antlers were returned to the Idaho community library and ultimately shipped to Hemingway’s grandson in New York City. For years, the antlers hung in the garage of Hunter Thompson’s home outside Aspen, Colorado.

The taking of the antlers has been local lore for a number of years and apparently now the antlers have found a final home within the Hemingway family.

Trivia to be sure, but kind of funny/sad too.

Love,

Christine

The Mystery of Hadley’s Loss of the Manuscripts: A New Novel: The Hemingway Thief

I guess I’m not the only one reimagining Hemingway history. As those of you who follow my blog know, I’ve written my third novel called Hemingway’s Daughter. As those of you who are Hemingway fans also know, Hemingway did not have a daughter. My second novel, a mystery called The Rage of Plum Blossoms, was just published by Kindle Press in ebook form and the paperback comes out in a few weeks. After publicizing it for a few months, I will re-dedicate to editing Hemingway’s Daughter and get that out.

Anyway, the above mentioned new book looks really interesting. Hemingway (well, really Hadley) famously lost a suitcase of almost all of his manuscripts in early 1922. Hadley, his first wife, was to meet him in Switzerland, where he was working to get a story for The Toronto Star on the Lousanne Peace Conference. Thinking he might want to work on his own writing (and Lincoln Steffens had asked to see some of his work), Hadley put virtually 100% of his sketches and written stories of the moment into one valise. Hemingway was as yet unpublished and Hadley packed all she could find including carbon copies. While the train was still standing in the Gare de Lyon, Hadley went to buy a bottle of Evian water leaving the suitcase unattended. When she returned, it was gone. Only two stories remained: Up in Michigan, which was buried in the back of a drawer as Gertrude Stein said it was unpublishable (Ha! Shows what she knew!) and My Old Man as it was out with an editor.

While some Hemingway scholars have suggested that maybe this was a good thing as he had to start over with his improved leaner style and a bit more experience, obviously it was an incredible loss to scholars as well as to Hemingway. He was fairly devastated by it and tried not to blame Hadley. However, a bit of bitterness remained as to that topic despite Hemingway’s forever love for Hadley.

In any event, a new novel by Shaun Harris called The Hemingway Thief tries to find out what happened to those unpublished sketches. It is Mr. Harris’ first novel and features Henry “Coop” Cooper, a struggling novelist kicking back in Mexico. He becomes embroiled in a deadly race for Hemingway’s stolen works.”

The works have never been found. If they turn up in an attic…well, very valuable indeed.

The book could be a lot of fun. Check it out! I know I will when I get a chance.

Another review and description. Sounds like a rollicking mystery and real fun.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/08/the-hemingway-thief-shaun-harris.html

Christine

Faulkner and Hemingway: Sharing the Stage at the Faulkner Studies Center

Hemingway famously huffed: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”

Faulkner also apparently commented that Hemingway seemed to think he had to marry every woman he fell in love with.

Every other year the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University holds a conference that draws speakers from around the world. The conference is of course focused on themes related to William Faulkner, but a second writer is included whose themes and style could be compared and contrasted to Faulkner’s own.

He wrote to Ingrid Bergman too — With Ingrid Bergman

This year, the Center went with Ernest Hemingway. Quoting the director of the Center, Dr. Christopher Rieger, “they’re probably the two greatest American novelists of all time, frankly – certainly of the 20^th century.”

In order to select the invitees to the conference as speakers, the Center made proposals for twenty minute papers on any topic related to William Faulkner and/or Ernest Hemingway. While many of the presentations are academic and talk about critical analysis of the works of the two authors, the Center also has encouraged events aimed at more general audience for those of us who simply enjoy the study of either Hemingway or Faulkner or both of them.

The conference is to be held October 20 – 22. It sounds very fun.

Hello Papaphiles!

Hello Hemingway readers and fans! Every four months, I post my opening post for those just joining in. For those who stop in regularly, I sincerely and truly thank you for reading and for being interested in Hemingway 55 years after his death and 117 years after his birth. So here is my opening post to acclimate you to what will be happening here.

Love and thank you, Christine

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

What Will Be Happening Here?

This will be a place to talk Hemingway and any topics related to him and his life. That gives us a lot of material: writing, Paris, divorce, relationships, Key West, Cuba, Idaho, fishing, boats, bulls, boxing, cats, horses, dogs, the Midwest, movies, other writers. Anything else? Oh right, drinking, awards, depression, friends, cruelty, generosity. Heard enough? Well, there’s still politics, women, religion, Fidel Castro, Gary Cooper, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Africa. Done yet? Uh, no. we’ve still got mothers, hair, sexual ambiguity, sons, daughters, actresses, sex, suicide, death, clothes, honor, hygiene, the IRS, psychiatrists.

And what would Papa say about a blog? Hmm, well, if I wanted to pull a page from Woody Allen, I’d say that he’d say: No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure. He was a journalist first and foremost and he kept up with the times so I think he’d be amused.

So what qualifies me to write this blog? Not too much that’s going to impress you. All I can say is that I love him, just as he was, flawed and fabulous, mean-spirited bully and most gracious of men, driven wordsmith and drunken raconteur, bigot and egalitarian, all of it. I’m no scholar. I’ll leave that to Timeless Hemingway, www.timelesshemingway.com, which does a superb job and is an unparalleled resource. However, I’ve read them all many times: the books, the short stories, the analyses, the biographies, the women, even the Hemingway cookbook which I actually cook from (the trout is delicious). I’m just an obsessed fan, uncluttered by the need to be neutral. I hope to learn from you too.

Finally, I find him fascinating, complex, and yes, manly but I think he actually “got” quite a bit about women contrary to popular myth. That’s a topic for another day. Also a topic for another day is why the mask above on the lovely woman. Also a topic for another day is what do we call him in this blog? Ernest, Ernesto, Wemedge, Nesto, Ernie, Oinbones,Papa, Tatie, Hem, Hemingstein, Hems, or just plain Hemingway? We’ll see. Perhaps we’ll put it to a vote. I have a Hemingway party on his birthday every year (July 21) and I’ll take a poll there too and let you know the results.

The Hemingway July birthday party in my barn

Of course, none of my friends “get” it and think Hemingway was that guy who wrote in short sentences and wanted to fight with everyone and run with the bulls. They are partially right and mostly wrong. But hey, you can’t throw away old friends just because they don’t really read or have an informed opinion about Hemingway–or can you?

These posts will be short and fun (I hope). I try to post at least every two weeks. I hope it’s enjoyable for Hemingway people as well as for casual observers. I’ve looked at the other blogs about Hemingway. Most are terrific but there still is room for a lighter take and for the unending discussion about why we continue to read him fifty-four years after his death. And if you have to ask . . .

Check me out when you have a chance. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.