Eric Sandstrom
Special for the Grand County Library District
The cover of Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms.” Grand County LIbrary District/Courtesy image
Ernest Hemingway’s novel about World War I, “A Farewell to Arms,” has been named one of the 100 best books of the 20th century. Scholars called it a masterpiece. But…
There’s another side to the story. “A Farewell to Arms” was banned multiple times since it was published in 1929 for sexual content, and for its honest treatment of war. It was banned in Boston, Ireland, Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy.
In the United States, parents sometimes demanded it be removed from school libraries. (Which would prompt students to read “A Farewell to Arms” faster than you can say sexual content.)
I fell in love with this book over 50 years ago when a high school English teacher assigned it. Hemingway presents an exquisite study of young women and men struggling to survive the violence of war. His love story is charged with elements that exceeded my experience at 16, which made it an even more powerful read the second and third time around. (If there are prostitutes in the book, and there are indeed, that’s because prostitutes work their trade in every war. It is a sad historical fact.)
The narrator, Lieutenant Frederick Henry, is a Red Cross ambulance driver for the Italian army’s campaign against Austria and Germany. After he’s seriously wounded, Frederick falls in love with Catherine Barkley, an English nurse working in an Italian hospital.
The plot builds tension in two directions. First, Frederick returns to the front after surgery and his ambulance crew transports increasing numbers of casualties, badly wounded soldiers. Second, Catherine becomes pregnant with his child, and her health soon deteriorates.
Hemingway sends his characters into the depths of melancholy where the reader ponders the story’s great irony. Both love and war carry risks that may be fatal. Over time, Frederick changes from a naive do-gooder to a stone-cold killer. He ends up shooting an Italian soldier for abandoning his comrades. War brings out the very best and the absolute worst in people.
The narrator explains, “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain… and I had seen nothing sacred and the things that were glorious had no glory…”
Admittedly, this book isn’t for everyone. Its depiction of World War I combat rings as true today as scenes from Afghanistan. But it shouldn’t have ever been banned. Just as some people prefer a cup of tea to coffee, they don’t have the right to shut down Starbucks. No one individual or mob should have the right to ban a book that millions of readers might learn from.
Celebrity friendships are nothing new, with the business of entertainment bringing together many gregarious comedians, actors and more with bulging egos, but some are more eyebrow-raising than others. Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg are certainly a curious friendship, as is Elton John and Eminem, but for my money, no duo are more mysterious and alluring than actor Gary Cooper and author
Star of such classic movies as 1936’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town by director Frank Capra and 1952’s High Noon by Fred Zinnemann, Cooper was one of the great stars of mid-20th-century cinema. Earning two Academy Awards across the course of his career, for 1942’s Sergeant York and High Noon, Cooper was a prominent name in the industry, recognised as one of the very best of his time. Hem with the “Long-legged son of a bitch.”Hem with the “Long-legged son of a bitch.”
Meanwhile, on the totally other end of the spectrum was Ernest Hemingway, an iconic American novelist who penned such classics as 1932’s Death in the Afternoon and 1940’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. One of the 20th century’s very best creative minds, Hemingway rubs shoulders with the likes of George Orwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald when it comes to the era’s greatest authors.
Despite their totally separate lives in contemporary culture, Cooper and Hemingway became good friends from 1940 until 1961, with their relationship sparking following the film adaptation of Hemingway’s debut novel A Farewell to Arms. The film, named after the novel and directed by Frank Borzage, received widespread critical acclaim, but Hemingway wasn’t best pleased with the movie, apart from the performance of one Gary Cooper.
Many years later, the author promoted Cooper for the role of Robert Jordan in the upcoming adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls, even going so far as to state that the literary character was based on Cooper’s own integrity. The actor earned the role and became the greatest asset of the otherwise underwhelming film, strengthening the friendship of the two stars.
Hem, Coop, Rocky, and Martha
Sharing a love for the great outdoors, the unlikely duo spent many days across several years shooting duck and pheasant in the summer before taking to Sun Valley in the winter to ski. The pair were excitable, fuelled by a youthful exuberance that led them to seize life by the horns, poetically gazing over the wilderness with a similar sense of wonder to their favourite author, Rudyard Kipling.
As Cooper said of friendship and his true passion for the outdoors in the book Gary Cooper off Camera: A Daughter Remembers: “The really satisfying things I do are offered me, free, for nothing. Ever go out in the fall and do a little hunting? See the frost on the grass and the leaves turning? Spend a day in the hills alone, or with good companions? Watch a sunset and a moonrise?… Free to everybody”.
Indeed, Hemingway’s view was reciprocated, admiring Cooper for his passion for the outdoors and his surprising similarity to his charismatic, powerful on-screen persona. Stating in the book Gary Cooper: American Hero, Hemingway lovingly exclaimed: “If you made up a character like Coop, nobody would believe it. He’s just too good to be true”.
Rather poetically, the pair died within just seven weeks of each other in 1961, but not before they enjoyed one last holiday together, taking to Sun Valley in January of that year for a final hike through the snow.
The relationship between the pair is explored in the 2013 documentary Cooper and Hemingway: The True Gen by filmmaker John Mulholland, who had plenty to say about the unpublicised relationship.
During an interview about the movie and the pair’s relationship, Mulholland stated: “Hemingway and Cooper both grew up under the sway of Teddy Roosevelt — live a dangerous life, test yourself, be a man of action. In many ways, Hemingway and Cooper defined masculinity for the first half of the 20th century. Stoic, strong, keep silent about your problems. Your emotions. They managed to hide, both men, their inner selves — sensitive, well-read, intelligent, etc”.
Take a look at the trailer for For Whom the Bell Tolls, the role which sparked the friendship between Cooper and Hemingway below.
A four-page letter that Ernest Hemingway wrote to his lawyer after the writer survived two back-to-back plane crashes in East Africa in 1954 sold at auction for $237,055, according to Nate Sanders Auctions.
Bidding for the letter started at $19,250 and there were 12 total bids before the letter was sold last week, according to the auction house, which is based in Los Angeles and specializes in autographed items. It’s unclear who bought the letter.
Hemingway, 55 at the time, had been visiting Congo, Kenya and Rwanda with his fourth wife, the American journalist Mary Welsh Hemingway, on a hunting safari. Over the course of a few days, the couple were involved in two crashes, the second more violent than the first, that would leave their mark on him for the rest of his life.
In the first crash, their plane “clipped a telegraph wire and plunged onto the crocodile-infested shores of the Nile,” according to PBS. Hemingway wrote about his trip to Africa in Look Magazine in 1954, which included a 16-page spread about his safari to Kenya.
Associated Press recounted the incident in 1954: “A chartered plane carrying the novelist and his wife on a sightseeing trip cracked up Saturday in the wilds near the Murchison Falls but they were picked up unhurt yesterday by a launch taking tourists to the falls.”
The couple had been reported missing when their plane failed to land as expected for refueling, The A.P. reported. They were later brought to a plane meant to rescue them, which then itself “crashed and burned on the take-off,” the news agency said. Everyone aboard escaped.
Dr. Andrew Farah, who wrote a book about Hemingway’s brain, described the second crash as more fiery and more violent, during a 2017 talk at the John F. Kennedy library. The pilot kicked out his front window to escape and save his passengers.
“He pulls Mary out, but Hemingway’s too big to get out the window,” Dr. Farah said. To escape from the aircraft, Hemingway, his shoulder still injured from the earlier crash, “chooses very unwisely to bust open the door with his head, giving himself a skull fracture and another concussion,” Dr. Farah said.
That decision would affect Hemingway’s brain for the rest of his life. After the crash, Dr. Farah said, “his memory was worse” and he had persistent headaches.
Hemingway memorabilia such as letters with his original signature or first editions of his books are auctioned off regularly and often fetch thousands of dollars, with some going for much higher. In Philadelphia in February, a first edition of Hemingway’s “In Our Time” from 1924 was auctioned for $277,000. Another signed letter was auctioned off last month at Nate Sanders Auctions, but went for much less: $6,875 after only one bid. In February, a more modern copy of “The Old Man and the Sea” went for more than $10,000 for a special reason: It had been the copy taken out of a high school library by a young Kobe Bryant.
In the crash letter — which was written on April 17, 1954, but was misdated as 1953 — Hemingway recounted the crashes and their effect on him, and told his lawyer Alfred Rice that he needed money. He also expressed his dissatisfaction with Abercrombie & Fitch, the brand now known for its all-American apparel, which at the time was more known for selling outdoor gear like guns.
“They sent me two .22 rifles of a type I did not order, several hundred rounds of ammo of another type than I had ordered,” Hemingway wrote, adding that he had to “shoot my first lion with a borrowed .256 Mannlicher which was so old it would come apart in my hands and had to be held together with tape and Scotch tape. Their carelessness in shipping imperiled both my life and livelihood.”
Much of the letter, which was handwritten on stationery from the Gritti Palace-Hotel in Venice, also goes into the gritty details of his injuries.
Self-awareness?
“The trouble is inside where right kidney was ruptured and liver and spleen injured,” he wrote. “We’ll get them checked out at this clinic where they have the best man at that stuff in Europe.”
“I am weak from so much internal bleeding,” he added. “Have been a good boy and tried to rest.”
Hemingway’s wife did not come out of the plane crashes unscathed. According to an article by the United Press, she had two cracked ribs and was limping. Hemingway also focused on her mental state: “Mary had a big shock and her memory not too hot yet and it will take quite a time to sort things out,” he wrote to Mr. Rice.
Still, a sense of normalcy is infused in the letter. As Hemingway wrote on the final page: “Everything is fine here.”
The world of literature has expanded significantly during the past two centuries. Many of the male writers from the 18th and 19th centuries influenced modern authors. Regardless of whether you like short stories, works of nonfiction, or critical essays, there are some exceptional male authors to consider. With help from 10 expert sites, our team compiled a list of the best male writers of all time.
Sure, we can find any title by a classic author on our Kindle, but doesn’t that take away from the satisfaction of holding a paper book? It is, after all, how these writing icons started their famous pieces. Digital books on tablets, smartphones, and devices like Amazon’s Kindle are certainly convenient, but according to a new survey, most people still prefer a good old-fashioned paper book. There’s just something satisfying about turning the page and holding a physical book in one’s hands, as over two-thirds of adults say they always opt for a real book over digital reading.
Paper or digital, there are some major benefits to reading fiction. A recent study found that picking something from the fiction section may also help improve your verbal skills while entertaining you at the same time. Researchers from Concordia University in Canada say reading for fun, especially when it’s fiction, boosts a reader’s scores on language tests. Fiction books—from “The Hunger Games” to “Harry Potter“—often don’t receive the same praise for their educational benefits as their non-fiction counterparts. However, the team found that reading for fun led to higher scores on tests than those reading only for “function”—to gain specific knowledge from a non-fiction book. Reading for pleasure is highly beneficial for both children and adults. Studies show that regular reading has a connection to greater social skills, critical thinking, and empathy, in addition to increased language skills, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Authors help you escape reality, some in different ways and genres than others. Male writers have catapulted us from the depths of horror into the deep, angry sea. Of those authors, StudyFinds went to 10 expert websites to compile a list of the best male writers of all time whose work deserves to be part of your library. Tell us about your favorite writers—or the ones we missed—and the books you love in the comments below.
“One of the world’s most successful and prolific writers, Stephen King has published more than 90 horror, suspense, crime, science fiction, and fantasy novels in his lifetime to date. Many of his best-selling books have been adapted into films and television series,” shares Audible.
“The Shining” (1977)
Believe it or not, Stephen King had a period where he thought he might not be good enough to publish. “It is no surprise to see Stephen King as one of the most published authors. He once said that he writes 2,000 words a day, which accounts for how quickly you see his books on shelves (and on the big screen). Records say that King has published 60 full-length works and over 200 short stories,” says Iris Reading.
King also has essays, screenplays, and comics. You have to wonder how one author could write something as horrific as “Carrie” and then create a heartwarming story like “The Green Mile.” King is definitely a writer of all trades. “King’s influence in writing was greatly attributed to his trauma after losing his friend in a train accident when he was a kid and also to his love for horror comics in his childhood,” states Discover Walks.
One of the most persuasive writers to ever come out of the Southern United States is William Faulkner. “Faulkner produced a writing work in the mid-twentieth century that took a couple of years to acknowledge his existence amongst the crowd. Somewhere between 1929 and 1936, he released four books—’The Sound and the Fury,’ ‘As I Lay Dying,’ ‘Light in August,’ and ‘Absalom, Absalom!’—that characterized his continuous flow style and his investigations of profound quality, utilizing characters set in his local Mississippi. He additionally composed screenplays for executive director Howard Hawks for ‘To Have and Have Not’ and ‘The Big Sleep,’ which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1949, which presented to him another degree of popularity,” shares leverageedu.com.
William Faulker’s “As I Lay Dying” (1930)
Before Faulkner became a successful author, he served during World War I. “Faulkner wrote short stories and novels set in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional county in Mississippi. His most famous works include ‘The Sound and the Fury,’ ‘As I Lay Dying,’ and ‘Go Down Moses,’ says Become a Writer Today.
Faulkner typically wrote about themes and topics such as the Ku Klux Klan, racism, the impact of the American Civil War, and the Confederacy. “William Faulkner, born William Cuthbert Falkner on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, and died July 6, 1962 (aged 64) in Byhalia, Mississippi, was an American novelist and short story writer. Published in the 1920s, it was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, when it was still relatively unknown,” states Fiction Horizon.
As a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and short-story writer, many people consider F. Scott Fitzgerald to be one of the best American authors of the 20th century. “Fitzgerald wasn’t very popular during his lifetime. His works gained international acclaim only in the years following his untimely death at 44. Many of his works have been adapted into films,” states The Famous People.
“The Great Gatsby” (1925)
Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota and wrote the popular novel “The Great Gatsby.” “F. Scott Fitzgerald was the most famous writer of the Jazz Age—a term that he popularized. The novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and short story writer was known as much for his lavish lifestyle as his literary works,” says Audible.
No Sweat Shakespeare says “The Great Gatsby” “vies for the title ‘Great American Novel’ with Mark Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and Herman Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick.’”
Ernest Hemingway was an American novelist and short-story writer who had a strong impact on 20th-century fiction. “Hemingway published seven novels and six short-story collections and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. ‘A Farewell to Arms,’ ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls,’ and ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ are some of his classic works. He ended his own life in July 1961,” says The Famous People.
“The Old Man and the Sea” (1952)
Prolific American author Ernest Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. “When World War I broke out, he served as an ambulance driver. He was wounded in the line of duty, forcing him to return home. After the war, he worked as a journalist for a few years. Then, he decided to become a novelist,” shares Become a Writer Today.
The book that positioned Ernest Hemingway as a prolific novelist is “The Sun Also Rises.” While the book did not receive amazing reviews at the time, it is widely considered to be an iconic piece of literature from the early 20th century. “He was born into the hands of his physician father. He was the second of six children of Dr. Clarence Hemingway and Grace Hemingway (the daughter of English immigrants). His father’s interests in history and literature, as well as his outdoorsy hobbies (fishing and hunting), became a lifestyle for Ernest,” states IMDB.
Herman Melville is a poet, writer, and novelist of the 19th century. “Melville was born in New York City to a merchant who did well for himself. However, after his father died in 1832, the family was in a dire financial situation. At the age of twenty, he got a job as a sailor on a merchant ship. He spent much of his life chasing whales in the ocean. He spent a lot of time adventuring on the Marquesas Islands. His first book, ‘Typee,’ was about the people he ran into on that island,” shares Become a Writer Today.
“Moby Dick” (1851)
Melville’s marquee work is “Moby Dick,” which he published in 1851. In the early 20th century, there was a significant Melville Revival, positioning him as one of the greatest American authors of all time. “A novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period, Herman Melville is widely considered to have been unappreciated in his time and throughout his life. His works garnered greater success after his death,” says Audible.
Herman Melville produced several books during his literary career. He published various short fiction works, including “Bartleby the Scrivener.” “It’s easy to forget that the American author best known for ‘Moby Dick’ remained largely unrecognized during his lifetime, especially since his characters—like Starbuck, the inspiration for the café chain, or the ‘white whale,’ now shorthand for any far-fetched aspiration—have settled themselves so firmly into common usage,” explains Christies.com.
Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived very modestly in Paris. Hadley had a small trust that enabled them as young newly weds to go abroad and for Hemingway to focus on his writing. He did earn money from his journalism but the trust helped significantly.
When Hem met and fell in love with a young and stylish writer for Vogue in Paris, Pauline Pfeiffer, he felt guilt but he also had fewer money worries when he left Hadley for her good friend, Pauline. Pauline was from a wealthy family from St. Louis. Her family made money in Pharmaceuticals and her Uncle Gus funded the purchase of the home in Key West. Hem dedicated A Farewell to Arms to Uncle Gus.
Sara Murphy and Pauline Hemingway
Still, it can rankle to live in a house paid for by your wife’s family and Hemingway wrote in The Snows of Kilimanjaro through the main character, Harry, that the rich had ruined Harry’s fervor for writing bravely and writing all that he needed to. The parallels are not too subtle as to Hemingway’s own life,. If you visit Key West, there is still a penny cemented into the pool surround. Supposedly Hemingway was irritated with the escalating costs of renovation and the pool in particular. It was one of the largest in its day. He told Pauline in a fit of pique that it was taking his last penny, so she threw one into the cement as it was setting. It’s still there. The woman had a sense of humor!
Key West is a lovely home, more elegant than Cuba, but Cuba was wilder, rougher, and I think more to Hemingway’s taste.
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.
― Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway was notoriously generous to young writers and fans seeking his input. A.E. Hotchner who became a good confidante and friend met Hem in the Spring of 1948 when he was dispatched to Cuba on assignment by Cosmopolitan magazine to get an article on Hem about The Future of Literature. The magazine was putting out an issue about “the future” of everything: architecture, cars, art, etc. You get the idea. So why not have the lion of literature give an interview on the future of literature.
Hotchner sent a note to Hem saying that he’d been sent down on “this ridiculous mission but did not want to disturb him, and if he could simply send me a few words of refusal it would be enormously helpful to the The Future of Hotchner.” A.E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway. Page 4.
Instead, Hem rang him the next day.
“This Hotchner?” he asked
“Yes.”
“Dr. Hemingway here. Got your note. Can’t let you abort your mission or you’ll lose face with the Hearst organization, which is about like getting bounced from a leper colony. You want to have a drink around five? There’s a bar called La Florida. Just tell the taxi.” A.E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, page 4.
. And thus began a beautiful friendship.(Of course many challenge if this anecdote is true. Hotchner: true friend or self-serving pal?)
Hem, Mary, and AE Hotchner
I recently read an article that detailed how one Arnold Samuelson hitchhiked 2,000 miles, from Minnesota to Florida in 1934 to meet Hemingway. Samuelson was trying to make a go of it as a writer and was so impressed by the short stories that he traveled to get advice from his idol.
Samuelson wrote, “It seemed a damn fool thing to do, but a twenty-two-year-old tramp during the Great Depression didn’t have to have much reason for what he did.”
A Farewell to Arms
Ultimately, Samuelson found Hemingway who provided him with insights, and soon hired him on as his assistant. Hem gave him a list of 16 books essential to any complete education. The list is interesting to consider.
Drum roll: the list is:
1. “The Blue Hotel” by Stephen Crane
2. “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane
3. “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert
4.”Dubliners” by James Joyce
5. The Red and the Black” by Stendhal
6. “Of Human Bondage” by Somerset Maugham
7. “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy
8. “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy
9. “Buddenbrooks” by Thomas Mann
10. “Hail and Farewell” by George Moore
11.”The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12. “The Oxford Book of English Verse”
13. “The Enormous Room” by E.E. Cummings
14. “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte
15. “Far Away and Long Ago” by W.H. Hudson
164. “The American” by Henry James
So what would make your list? A few of the above escape me but most have stood the test of time.
These are interesting relatively short vignettes/interviews in which the writers noted talk about life issues and writing. The Hemingway interviews print out to about 112 pages. The below link is an NPR link about the interviews and how alike the three writers featured were in their approaches to writing.
Here is a quote from the article: “Despite their differences, in their respective interviews, Hemingway, Dick and Ephron are in harmonious agreement about the writing life: namely that it’s composed of one part inspiration and daily buckets of perspiration. Sure, you don’t expect even the most narcissistic artist to go on and on about his or her own genius in an interview, but the degree to which Hemingway, Dick and Ephron — separated by time period and individual temperament — keep hammering home the same message about writing is striking.”
I just finished reading the Hemingway interviews. All were interesting and I particularly like the one by George Plimpton. When Plimpton asked why Hemingway rewrote the end of A Farewell to Arms 39 times, Hemingway said, “To get the words right.” One point that came through repeatedly was how shy Hemingway was when sober and how unwilling he was to talk about his writing “process” or theory. He felt that to try to analyze his “style” or “technique” might destroy it and he assiduously did not want to talk about those issues. In fact, he didn’t really want to be interviewed at all but was polite. At times he rambled but these interviews were during periods when Hemingway was suffering bouts of poor health. Hem is described as seeming old and lonely.
I think you will enjoy them. Two were done in the late ’50s. One was done in 1960, which is a year before his death. Best, Christine
1. Everyone you know respects you. This disgusts you.
2. The door is white and the day is hot. This pleases you.
3. A Jewish man believes you are his friend. This disgusts you.
4. You are a man. A man! A man is a man like a tree is a tree.
5. A Greek man is shouting incomprehensibly at you. This is why you are drunk.
6. You have lost something in a war. This is why you are drunk.
7. A woman is looking at you. She is wearing her hat in a manner you find unbearably independent and mannish. You despise her.
8. You are standing on top of a mountain. The mountain admires you for climbing it. You do not care what the mountain thinks of you, and you light a cigar. The cigar admires you for smoking it. You sneer casually at the sun. Somewhere there is a white door.
9. You are shooting a large animal but thinking about a woman. You cannot shoot her. This infuriates you.
10. You met a homosexual once in Paris. It took you two years snowshoeing across the backcountry in Michigan to recover.
11. You have said goodbye to a young girl with a white face on a black train. You are ready to die.
12. Waiter bring me another rum
13. You hate every single one of your friends. You have no friends. You are alone at sea. How you hate the sea, but how you respect the fish inside of it. How you hate the kelp. How indifferent you are to the coral.
14. Your stomach hurts; that is how you know you are alive.
15. You are standing in a river and something is coming to kill you. You will welcome it with open arms and a booming laugh when it comes.
Dear Readers: I prefer not to post links to make you go to another site but this one would not copy. It is worth a look and fun. Do you agree re the 7 most popular claimed? Thanks for reading! Best, Christine
Hem with the “Long-legged son of a bitch.”
by Janelle Davis
