Hemingway's Guns- great read indeed

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Karen Pfeiffer

Thank you, Steve! This has been quite helpful. I will look into those books. :-)

In the past year or so several new Hemingway related books have been published. I found Valerie Hemingway's fascinating. I bought it as an E-book, so I cannot reference it. I think the title is: With the Hemingway Men....something like that.

The new edition of A Moveable Feast was much better than the one edited by Mary in the 60's. They seem like two totally different books. I think Hem looked back on his Paris years with Hadley and "Bumbi" as some of his happiest. They didn't have a dime and lived in a one room flat over (next to?) a saw mill!

I have an old edition of Death in the Afternoon which I love for its title if nothing else. I've just started it for the third or fourth time. Can't get thru it.

The new novel of Hadley and Hem in Paris is written in Hadley's voice. Interesting. She lived for quite a while after she and Ernie split. I think she remarried.

In Valery's book she writes about the Calder painting. I think I have seen a picture of it. Do you know where it is today?

I enjoy comparing Hemingway with Ruark. They almost met in one of Hem's favorite Cuban bars. Ruark wrote about walking in there and seeing Ernie working away at editing on a rear table. He didn't have the nerve to bother him. I wonder if the two men would have gotten along? Somehow I doubt it.

Read Hotchner and Baker's bios of the man. If I could go back to anyplace in time, it may have been on board the Pilar searching for U-Boats.

[Steve McCarty]

The story of Gregory Hemingway is a troubling one. Valerie met him at Ernie's funeral. They married. He had been a secret cross dresser when even a child. Ernie finally figured out what his son was doing and severed all ties with him. Valerie said that Gregory, called Gigi, was the best shot of the boys. They had several children and then divorced. He eventually had the sex change done and changed his name to Gloria. His drinking got worse. He died in a cell in a women's prison.

The spectre of being one of Ernie's sons held sway over all of his children to one degree or another. Insanity ran in strains through Hemingway's family and reared it's head throughout generations.

[PML]

Here is a link to some period footage of Hemingway and pals hunting in Idaho.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDs3lg5ZoCs


Patrick

[Bill Murphy]

Parkers and Model 32 Remingtons, but what else? Did anyone notice that last pair of skeet doubles?

[Jeff Christie]

You want to have fun? Take Hemingway's A Movable Feast to Paris. Read it and go to all the places that he mentions and have drinks, food etc. You'll have a ball, I kid you not. Been there done that and would happily do it again!!

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Jeff Christie

You want to have fun? Take Hemingway's A Movable Feast to Paris. Read it and go to all the places that he mentions and have drinks, food etc. You'll have a ball, I kid you not. Been there done that and would happily do it again!!

That does sound fun! I think we all dream of doing such a thing as we read "A Moveable Feast". Valerie Hemingway mentions doing just that, but with Hem himself in the late 50's.

Are most of the places still there? Unchanged?

New book "To Have and Have Another" by Greene describes what Hem drank, which was just about everything with lime in it.

[Steve McCarty]

I read somewhere that all real men either want to be like Hemingway, or be liked by him. He did man stuff. He womanized, hunted big game and birds, loved bull fighting, participated, to one degree or another, in wars. He wrote about heroes who sold their lives dearly and were adored by beautiful women. He was a man's romantic.

Women who wrote about such things penned that he wasn't much of a lover, and his children and children's children said he wasn't a very good, loving or attentive father. He, pretty much, failed as a husband. Loyalty to his bride was not his long suit.

I think that Hem liked people who loved him. Nor do I think he handled criticism with aplomb, rather he rankled. Hem was deeply in love with Hemingway. Eventually his carefully crafted self image faultered, either from the booze or a series of concussions he suffered in two back to back plane crashes in Africa. He was not very old, but looked ancient. He did not like the image he saw reflected in the mirror and believed that he had lost his knack to write. He was always first and foremost a writer. So, he blew his brains out. It made quite a mess.

[Steve McCarty]

Today American men are hurting for a role model. The so called modern women claims that masculinity is old hat. I heard one say that testosterone is a poison. So they want little boys to play like little girls. No more toy guns and if they do make one it is yellow or pink. Can't play dodge ball or tag at school. Too aggressive. Boys want to be aggressive and we should encourage them to be so. It is what men do.

Ironically, no matter how hard they try not to, women still are attracted to masculine men. They are becoming harder and harder to find. Some go man hunting in Australia. Amercian men go to the same place to find feminine women. (Yes, I know that I am generalizing, but you get my drift.)

I see a resurgence in Hemingway's popularity, maybe because American men are searching for a masculine role model. Failed or no, Ernie provides that.

[Bill Murphy]

Now I'm trying to figure out who is going to "pen" their descriptions of my sexual prowess. Hopefully, my feminine contacts will not be as you describe as "women who wrote about such things". We seldon think that these things will be recorded in writing.

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy

Now I'm trying to figure out who is going to "pen" their descriptions of my sexual prowess. Hopefully, my feminine contacts will not be as you describe as "women who wrote about such things". We seldon think that these things will be recorded in writing.

Of course, somethings are best kept private. I cannot recall the source for my original statement. I read a lot about Hemingway and it was in that lot someplace. No matter how hard I try to avoid him, I still find him fascinating. I eagerly read his books, stories and the well known bios of the man.

I don't like to consider myself a fan of anybody. However, I find some folks more interesting than others (Goes without being said!). Hemingway was interesting and thru his books, which are of course, personal, we can try to crawl inside his head in an attempt to get to know, or at least to understand the man.

I keep asking myself if whether or not I would have liked him if we had met. I have no idea, and I find the question compelling. If I met him and genuflected he would probably have liked me and if not, then not.

Isn't, or wasn't, one of his sons a member here? I think Patrick is still living and Jack recently passed. He was the father of the two beautiful daughters, one a suicide. Bipolar.