Hemingway's guns

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Grantham Forester

Alice B. Toklas and Pauline Pfeiffer's sister Jinny were both Lesbians, back at the time when homosexuality was a dark dirty secret. There is a theory that one reason for Hemingway's youngest son, Gregory (aka- GiGi) turned out so "mixed up' about his sexual orientation is the great amount of time he spent in the care of Jinny Pfeiffer, while his mother and father were away on jaunts. Unlike Pauline's super wealthy uncle Gustavus Pfeiffer, who favored Ernest and Pauline with funds to: Take their first trip to Africa-- order the Wheeler fishing boat named the Pilar, purchased several new cars and also bought the house in Key West on Whitehead street for them, Jinny hated Ernest and did apparently try to be a divisive force in their troubled marriage. The best read on this is Bernice Kert's novel "The Hemingway Women", she did her research very well indeed.

You wrote of several things that I did not know. Thanx.

I just Finished Valerie Hemingway's book about her life with the "Hemingway Men". She was Hem's final secretary and also married Gregory "Gigi", meeting him at Hem's funeral. Gigi was a cross dresser from his early life (according to Valerie), which was probably why Hem disowned him - refused to mention his name, etc...

I wonder if there is a reason that people become cross dressors, or do they just have a hankering to do such a thing? Probably varies with the individual. Gigi took it to extremes, having a sex change operation and changing his name to Gloria. Weird. He died in a women's jail.

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Grantham Forester

--The same eulogy that Ernest Hemingway wrote in 1939 for his Idaho friend, who died in a duck hunting accident near Silver Creek, could as well have been his own in 1961. I was still in HS when he took his own life, we had read both "Big Two-Hearted River" and "The Snows of Kilamanjaro" as part of English Lit. back then. He had a flair for picking great titles. I was editor of our HS paper my Senior year, and always respected his solid background as a reporter and a correspondent.

I have an older Model 12, as apparently he did, and this excerpt from the book "The Idaho Hemingway" by Tillie Arnold speaks to his views on guns as working tools for a hunter: "Ernest and Lloyd were opening up the gun cases, removing guns, and I saw Lloyd (Tillie Arnold's husband) pick up a Winchester Model 12 pump shotgun. As he did so, he told Ernest that he also owned one. But I could see that Lloyd was shocked when he opening and closed the breech.--' It rattled, it's action was loose, oil sprayed out of the action and the stock had a major split, so loose it almost fell off. ' Ernest noticed Lloyd's attention to the loose stock and said ' I'll bet your Model 12 isn't as beat up as mine. ' 'Ernest, this stock is a bit loose. ' Ernest replied ' Yeah, we gotta get her tightened up, Chief-- I can't operate without this old stopper."

This was in September 1939, a month or so before the tragic death of Gene Van Guilder. Going back to the Model 12 from an earlier 1933 occurance, the fire at the Pfeiffer (Hemingway's second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, heiress to the Richard Hudnut cosmetics wealth) farm in Piggott, AK-- and from his later published book about Africa- "True at First Light"-- pg. 240: "I had the old, well-loved, once burnt up, three times restocked, worn smooth old Winchester model 12 pump gun that was faster than a snake, and was from 35 years of us being together (1928-1953), almost as close a friend and companion with secrets shared and triumphs and disasters not revealed as the other friends a man has all his life"--

I find this quote reveals both Hemingway's credo that "Guns are to shoot, and to shoot with well" and also the same affection that a man would have with his hunting dogs.

Beautiful post.

[charlie cleveland]

some really deep and good thinking here.... charlie

[Grantham Forester]

Hemingway described with unusual knowledge and authority physical pleasure, the natural world, violent experiences, and sudden death. He portrayed the heroic possibilities and tragic consequences of wars, the psychic dislocation in battle, and the stoicism of survival. He created unsurpassed images of Italy, France, Spain, and Africa. As a man, he had intense idealism, curiosity, energy, strength, and courage. He attractively combined hedonism and hard work, was a great teacher of ritual and technique, carried an aura of glamor and power. As an artist, he wrote as naturally as a hawk flies and as clearly as a lake reflects."

Ernest Hemingway died 51 years ago this month. IMO, he, and one other American writer, who also had a newspaper reporter's training, have been enduring influences on the entire field of literature, and will be so for as long as man takes pen to paper. The other writer is Samuel Langhorn Clemens.

[Andy Kelley]

Steve , i humbly disagree with some of the points you raised about my comments and would ask you to condsider , with an open mind, my response.Hemingway was dressed as a girl not to fit in with fashion but because his mother wanted twin girls.This was a fantasy she was very open about.Hemingway had nightmares at Christmas because he was afraid Santa would think he was a girl and bring him girl toys. As I remember it Hemingways mother moved a female student into their house because she was in love with her. You can imagine what this did to his fathers self esteem. Your comments about his wounds not being too much to be concerned with are open to a further debate. I must assume that you like me are a combat vet and have a valid point of view. I can only say that a mortar attack is frightening event and stays with you for a long time .Hemingways uniform was shredded and his body filled with shrapnel.We really don't know a lot about PTSD and there is no hard and fast rule about who is vulnerable to the after effects of combat. When viet nam vets came back early from the war and complained of hearing voices and screaming in their heads they were incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia .Little did the doctors know that real past experiences of combat were being replayed in their heads. Hemingway was diagnosed as bipolar and I think the episodes of fighting and boozing during his manic stages are very well documented. I rest my case and will now open the Bourbon and go to sleep.

[Grantham Forester]

There was no question during WW1, when Italy was NOT an ally of Germany, unlike WW11, about Hemingway's courage. He lied about his age by one year and tried to get into the US Army, but was turned down due to poor eyesight, mainly in his right eye. So he volunteered for the Red Cross as an ambulance driver, received a commission as a Lt. by the Italian Army, and went under heavy fire to rescue two Italian soldiers wounded by German mortar fire. Both his legs were filled with shrapnel, and he recuperated in an Italian hospital (later the theme in "A Farewell To Arms") and fell in love with a nurse who tended to his wounds. His short story "Soldier's Home" may speak to what we now commonly call PTSD.

Hemingway's mother, Grace Hall, was a somewhat talented opera singer and musician, about in the order of German opera singer Gertrude Schenk. She lived across the street from Dr. Hemingway, who had his medical practice in his home, and after a courtship, they were married. She dominated Dr. Hemingway in their marriage and the five children they had together, two boys: Ernest, and his 15 year old junior brother, Leicester, the last of the litter. Both Ernest, Leicester, his father Dr. Clarence Hemingway and later Hemingway's third son, Gregory-- committed suicide.

In one of his stories about his boyhood in Oak Park, Hemingway detailed his mother's callous disregard for her husband. He had just returned from a hunting trip (he was a superb wingshot with hawk-like vision, unlike Ernest) and while he was gone Grace threw out all his bottled collection of bird and animal specimens, plus his collection of Indian artifacts, mostly arrowheads picked up when they summered in Northern MI at their Windemeer cottage on Walloon Lake--

[charlie cleveland]

reading this makes me want to cut a hickory switch and give himmingways momma a good thrashing... charlie

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Andy Kelley

Steve , i humbly disagree with some of the points you raised about my comments and would ask you to condsider , with an open mind, my response.Hemingway was dressed as a girl not to fit in with fashion but because his mother wanted twin girls.This was a fantasy she was very open about.Hemingway had nightmares at Christmas because he was afraid Santa would think he was a girl and bring him girl toys. As I remember it Hemingways mother moved a female student into their house because she was in love with her. You can imagine what this did to his fathers self esteem. Your comments about his wounds not being too much to be concerned with are open to a further debate. I must assume that you like me are a combat vet and have a valid point of view. I can only say that a mortar attack is frightening event and stays with you for a long time .Hemingways uniform was shredded and his body filled with shrapnel.We really don't know a lot about PTSD and there is no hard and fast rule about who is vulnerable to the after effects of combat. When viet nam vets came back early from the war and complained of hearing voices and screaming in their heads they were incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia .Little did the doctors know that real past experiences of combat were being replayed in their heads. Hemingway was diagnosed as bipolar and I think the episodes of fighting and boozing during his manic stages are very well documented. I rest my case and will now open the Bourbon and go to sleep.

Thank you, Andy for your kind and thoughtful response. I have read several bios of Hem; Bakers, and Hotchners and I've read other biographical pieces. I read them when the works were first published...so some I read 20 years ago, and my memory, being martini soaked may be, and probably is, flawed.

Carlos Baker's book was my fave, and I think I still have it. I should re-read. Concerning the VN war, I was an attack pilot and did not spend time in the bush, as you apparently did. When we experienced the occassional rocket attack we had to get our Marines off of the roofs of their hooches because they wanted to click away with their new Japanese cameras.

The experience of war affects different people differently, and yes, HEM was badly wounded. I believe he spent a year in the hospital where he met and fell in love with his nurse, Agnes, several years his senior. I doubt he suffered from PTSD because he did not hesitate to discuss the event and was proud of it.

Nor do I see evidence of serious metal disease, as you allude to. As I posted earlier, I do believe that he experienced a mental disorder, but only late in life when he suffered brain damage by butting his head into the door of his crashed aircraft. Dura fluid leaked from his ears. Hem must have become depressed and with today's drugs he probably would have done much better than he did. He was under a doctor's care and he took drugs and shock treatments.

Hem experienced many successes which leads me to believe that he was not only sane but also in control, at least for most of his life. Hard writing requires a clear head and organized mind.

Hem was ego driven; not unique. When his self image began to falter (in his eyes) his ego was crushed. He could not tolerate the man he had become and being a man of action, he killed himself.

Which leads us to the question: Can a man with such a gigantic ego and all consuming self awareness who committed suicide also be sane? As I am sure you can tell I am no expert, my degree is in history. Was Hem tormented because he was dressed as a girl? I doubt it, because it was a common practice.



This boy is John Ernest Robert, Sallie and William Robert's eldest son. Sallie was a friend of Billy the Kid. She dressed her son in a dress. He turned out fine. This boy was born in 1881.

[Andy Kelley]

Steve, you make many thoughtful remarks and I'm glad we're still friends..I think my clinical impression about the PTSD diagnosis comes mostly from my experience with VN vets in the Tucson VA hospital when I was doing an internship there. One common thread among the vets was a seemingly normal life prior to the war and then living a nightmare when they returned. Speaking about war experiences or not speaking about them really wasn't a hard and fast measurement of sound mental health. I think that it is very telling that in The Sun Also Rises the narrator, a war vet, has been emasculated due to a war wounding. Maybe that was Hemingway trying to tell us how he felt about his own war experience ....Aren't we supposed to be discussing Parkers.

[Grantham Forester]

I am going to order a copy of this book about Hemingway and his guns- from all the replies posted here, it sounds like a great read. So-- the question before us-- did the late Ernest Hemingway ever own and shoot Parkers??