Hem

Here is a cafe Hemingway hung out in.

The Dearborn biography does a good job of disillusioning someone that perhaps Hemingway was a great man. He lied, he cheated, he was venial. I guess it's good to see people's clay feet.

I'm reading The Sun Also Raises. At first I felt a connection to the beats, who celebrated celebration. They threw a lot of parties, and the Americans in Paris drank a lot. They got "tight". I like the silly slang and nick names he gives in his dialogue. You can feel he could be a good friend (as long as you were not in competition with him). You could feel he was a good friend until he wasn't.

By giving the narrator an inability to perform in standard sexual ways, and because they probably didn't want to go into other practices, Jake is an interesting narrator, who at once wants but can't have, and is also perhaps not fully embroiled.

Being in Paris at that time seems romantic. I sat in a cafe in Paris and the owner was really cruel to his puppy dog. I like the photo above, there's a kid there. It's kind of like a beer garden, or perhaps a bar that is also a restaurant. I love the family getting one's drunk on.

He's about to go fishing, a lovely respite.

Thoughts on Dearborn's Hemingway

Ms. Dearborn has two negative interpretations on Hemingway. By him describing hair, he is obsessed sexually with hair. She also makes his career struggle to be immature and petty. I guess I'm like one of those people who stand up and say how Hemingway made him possible, made him who he was.

I went to the wiki page on the actress Hem flirted or had an affair with, and they don't mention the relationship. I wonder if they don't want to go that deep into her private life, or whether they really want me to add that in and cite the book I'm reading.

I'm on page 141 and some manuscripts are lost and he thinks he's going to be a father, and that leads to a manic output of journalism and attempts to get recognized in the literary world, through friends like Ezra Pound.

I was surprised Hemingway was influenced by Sherwood Anderson, knew him and carried letters of introduction with him to Paris from him. I've read Winesburg Ohio, which is free.

Another surprise influence was Kipling. I've been listening to the Just So Stories on Librivox. I've ignored Kipling and maybe I can read them to my daughter.

Hemingway

I'm reading Mary Dearborn's biography of Hemingway. I'm only 52 pages in and I find the early years hard to read in most biographies.

I read all of Hemingway when in college, on my own, not as an assignment. I continue to read The Sun Also Raises in my rereading of my favorites rota. I enjoyed A Million Little Pieces which copied the style of Hemingway.

I have been to his house in Chicago, where he grew up, and to his house in Key West, where there were 6 toed cats. I've been to Paris and hung out in cafes like in A Movable Feast

To Have and Have Not is a terrible novel, but made an excellent debut for Lauren Becall in rewritten movie form. I can't help lusting over her, even though she is dead and in the ground.

 

Their son was married recently, I saw in the times. 

Anywho, I hope to do further posts about Hemingway.