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Hemingway’s Summer Days: Lake Walloon

WALLOON LAKE, MI — Childhood summers spent fishing and swimming in a pristine Northern Michigan lake would later imbue Ernest Hemingway’s “The Last Good Country.”

The newly opened Hotel Walloon is borrowing that reference for the name of an upcoming weekend devoted to celebrating the literary giant’s Michigan connection: “Walloon Lake: The Last Good Country, an Ernest Hemingway Occasion.”

Photos of Hemingway’s retreat on Lake Walloon in Northern Michigan. He and Hadley honeymooned there as well.

Biopic: Papa: Hemingway in Cuba (Movie)

A trailer has been unveiled for the Papa: Hemingway in Cuba movie. This biopic features the story of a friendship shared between Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, and Ed Myers, a journalist.

I just viewed the trailer and it looks good to me. It echoes Hemingway’s relationship with his great friend, Aaron Hotchner, although this relationship started later in life. Hemingway, for all of his flaws, often was welcoming to young writers and willing to share his personal time and experiences generously.

Please take a look if you have time. Best, Christine

Valerie Danby-Smith Hemingway: Odd happenings

Hemingway often took younger women under his wing and wanted them around. Sometimes it was intellectually stimulating. Sometimes there was an attraction. Sometimes they amused him. Sometimes he just liked them. He had many women as friends: Marlene Dietrich, Slim Hawkes, Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall. He was infatuated with many: Adriana Ivancich is of great note.

Valerie Danby-Smith was initially providing secretarial services to Hemingway. She was part of the entourage of his trip to Spain in 1959 and by the end of the trip, Hemingway wanted her to continue on. Was he romantically attracted? Probably. Valerie asserts that he begged her to continue on to Cuba as he needed her with him. She was 19 at the time; he was 59.. I also think he simply liked her cheerful ways and good nature.

She has written a book about her time with him and is now leading tours in Paris to the old Hemingway haunts. .

Did I mention that she married Hemingway’s son, Gregory? Yes, she did. They met through the Hemingway connection and had four children together. and while their marriage ended in divorce, she appears to have maintained a good relationship with Gregory until his death. She wrote “Running with the Bulls” about her time with Hemingway.

Hemingway’s Letters: Just a few more comments

‘‘It’s such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you’ve done something.’ Cambridge’s new collection of correspondence finds a writer generous to all, at the top of his game.

I have had two other posts on the letters so don’t want to over do it. Still, I can’t overemphasize the value in reading a bit about it to know Hemingway personally. This article summarizes why you should read some of them. They are funny, vulnerable, disclosing. Again, He specifically did not want them published. Those were his explicit instructions. Mary Hemingway, controller of his estate legally, went against that mandate. I don’t like that but I have to admit to loving his letters and what they reveal. Read and enjoy. Best, Christine

More about Hemingway’s Letters

For readers of Ernest Hemingway, it can be tempting to mix the iconic writer’s fictional characters with the public persona of the writer himself. He never kept a journal and apparently integrated many of his personal experiences into his art.

More of Hemingway’s letters are being published and they are so revealing and fun. For example, Hemingway is known as being a bit of a bully to his wives yet some of the letters show great sensitivities to Martha Gellhorn and admiration and support for her career as a writer. Please take a look when you have time.

Best, Christine

EH5598P 1940 Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn in Sun Valley, Idaho, 1940. Photographer unknown in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. — EH5598P 1940
Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn in Sun Valley, Idaho, 1940. Photographer unknown in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Casting the Big Novels: Me as Casting Director

Now, who should play the great parts that Hem has provided for us? My selections in bold:

The Sun Also Rises: (1957)

Tyrone Power (Jake Gyllenhall) as Jake Barnes
Ava Gardner (Blake Lively) Brett Ashley
Mel Ferrer (Matt Damon) as Robert Cohn
Errol Flynn (Jude Law) as Mike Campbell

A Farewell to Arms: (1932)

Helen Hayes (Angelina Jolie) as Catherine
Angelina as Catherine
Gary Cooper (Clive Owen) as Frederic

A Farewell to Arms (1957)

Jennifer Jones as Catherine (Hemingway dismayed that she was 40. Catherine was supposed to be in her twenties.)
Rock Hudson as Frederic

A Farewell to Arms (In Love and War) (1996)

Sandra Bullock as Catherine
Chris O’Donnell as Frederic

For Whom the Bell Tolls: (1943)

Ingrid Bergman (Rooney Mara) as Maria
Gary Cooper (Ben Affleck) as Robert Jordan

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)

Gregory Peck (Ed Harris) as Harry
Susan Hayward (Sharon Stone) as Helen
Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) as Cynthia
Kate Beckinsale

The Old Man and the Sea ( 1958)

Spencer Tracy ( Javier Bardem) as Santiago

SO HOW DID I DO?

When More Is . . . More

Purple is not only highly coloured prose,” he wrote. “It is the world written up, intensified and made pleasurably palpable, not only to suggest the impetuous abundance of Creation, but also to add to it by showing – showing off – the expansive power of the mind itself … When the deep purple blooms, you are looking at a dimension, not a posy.”

On praise of purple prose — In praise of purple prose

This is an interesting article in praise of “purple prose,” the opposite of minimalist prose favored by Hemingway. It does not pan that prose but argues that there is a place for “more.” nice commentary. Best, Christine

Restoring the Finca Vigia outside Havana : Work to Begin

#HemingwayFincavigia

#Hemingwaycuba

Havana, Cuba (CNN)Ernest Hemingway’s home near Havana is expected to soon receive an infusion of badly needed building supplies from the United States.

Before it is too late, actual collaboration between the U.S. and Cuba is happening regarding the restoration of Hemingway’s beloved Cuban home. He lived there for about twenty years. As mentioned in previous posts, he and Mary left many papers and mementos when they were not allowed to return. Apparently, there remain many writings/notes of historical and literary interest even after Mary was permitted to remove some of them post-Hemingway’s death.

The opportunity to write in Hemingway’s Key West Studio

Anybody can tour the Spanish colonial estate in Key West, Florida, where Ernest Hemingway lived in the 1930s. Now a new contest is offering one lucky and talented writer a chance to work in the studio where Hemingway wrote.

Most of us can’t be a Hemingway even if surrounded by his aura and his home. Still, it has to inspiring. Enter the contest and maybe you can be the one to sit in his chair and banish any thought of writer’s block. Click above link for details.