Ernest Hemingway by Verna Kale

Hemingway could be killed just by...Hemingway, realistically.

It's the strong opinion by the author of this fascinating biography of the beloved American author. Written by Verna Kale: who was Hemingway?

A man, who, from his tender age, developed all his love for fishing (he captured his first fish at the age of three) and outdoor life in general thanks to the attentions of his father, another man in love for hunting, fishing and outdoor life.

The mother of Hemingway discovered soon the literary attitudes of his kid and tried all his best for encouraging little Ernest in every possible ways.

Sure his parents left him also illnesses with which he would have coped later: type 2 diabetes and difficulty in the vision; plus a dangerous bipolar and depressing condition. At that time, being the family a so-called respectable one, this topic not treated for obvious reasons.

But, also the dad of Ernest Hemingway, Clarence would have killed himself and this horrible fact caused to this sensitive boy a great negative impact.

The same destiny would have been this one for him. In his correspondence Hemingway talks openly of a possible suicide, as a sort of inevitability; sometimes just for being cuddled a bit writes Verna. 

Both the parents of Hemingway suffered of bipolarity and of course this fact impacted a lot little Ernest.

He started to be soon, a pasionario; box, fishing, hunting, he was a man of strong emotions; he also created some messes as often teenagers do.

Hemingway would have taken care of his mother Grace, although their relationship not great, forever; in a letter dated 1917 when he was injured during the first world war conflict, he asked to his mother of not touching or throwing away anything from his bedroom, desperate of not finding anymore the material once returned home.

Later he would have used his mom Grace, defining her as "All American bitch" in various characters of his books but never in a positive way.

Hemingway started to publishing short tales in the literary magazine of his school called The Tabula and also at the Trapez.

Discovering a true and genuine passion for journalism, young Ernest joined the Kansas City Star as a newspaperman.

In the newsroom he had available a typewriter and a desk. All for him. He was electrified.

The circulation of The Star was of 200.000 copies so young Ernest could start to create his good reputation in this profession.

Substantially, as I had suspected, reading his book A moveable Feast, Hemingway's structure remained incapsulated in the journalistic-style.

The Star asked at their reporters "for a strong english, short sentences; eliminate any superfluous word."

In 1917 the idea of entering in war.

In 1918 in Italy his first assignment was  to collect the dismembered remains of people killed during an explosion in a factory.

Hemingway is soon injured and will be cured in Milan. In the while he will fall in love for a nurse, American, Agnes von Kurowsky.

Once returned home, Hemigway fell a great disconnection with the past, people, realities he had touched in Europe.

Agnes understood that for Hemingway was better to return home, leaving alone Europe and its many temptations. But Hemingway later will become what Agnes had predicted and what he describes so well in The Sun Also Rises: "an expatriate obsessed by alcohol and sex, spending his time talking, not working and hanging around cafés."

Agnes remained for Hemingway, who married four wives in total, that dream never realized, maybe because the most genuine one.

Hemingway would have followed Agnes wherever he went. There are records of informations requested by Hemingway dated 1956. Agnes was a great love for this man.

Hemingway moved to Toronto where he started to work for the Daily Star and Star Weekly. He didn't like the city a lot but it was the change he was searching.

In Chicago where he moved for a while Hemingway would have met his first wife, Hadley Richardson marrying her on 1921.

Hemingway wanted to return to Italy but it was Hadley who inspired him telling him that Paris was the best nest, the best place for Americans.

There he would have met Getrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach.

Gertrude Stein would have encouraged him while Pound was a sort of agent for this young aspiring writer.

Sylvia Beach, owner of Shakespeare and Company told that Hemigway was "Her best customer," while Hemingway with his common sincerity told in A Moveable Feast that "In those days there was no money to buy books."

Hemingway wrote on A Moveable Feast, published in 1964 that Sylvia Beach was a great person. "There was no reason for her to trust me."

Hemingway was an avid reader in particular of  Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Candidly, Sylvia Beach admitted that, although Hemingway was a voracious reader, who taught him to write.. was Ernest Hemingway."

Hemingway had a strong character and of course it meant that he could be incompatible with certain other writers, or poets of the time.

Hemingway's works started to be published in New Orleans and Chicago.

Heavily influenced by Gertrude Stein he didn't send for a possible publication a tale about a rape, preferring to send another short tale.

But which were the thematic mainly dear to Hemingway? These ones  developed when he was to Paris and he wrote successfully "My Old Man" and "Up in Michigan"; life is a fixed race; pregnancy is a punishment; that insider knowledge a priviledge of few people.

Robert McAlmon a dear friend of Sylvia Beach having a publishing house decided to release in 300 copies a Three Stories and Ten Poems in 1923.

Sketches, vignettes, becomes part of Ernest's work for other prestigious realities.

In 1923 an abrupt choice: the one to return to work full-time at the Star. This decision hasn't never been cleared. In the while Hadley was pregnant.

It was a brief experience. Hemingway felt nostalgia for Paris, at the same time the work at the newsmagazine for various reasons not sufficiently gratifying. In Europe he had wagons of friends welcoming back him again.

Sylvia Beach put on a shelf of his bookshop as additional promotion the book published by McAlmond, Bill Bird in love for Hemingway's vignettes.

Once returned, they were three: John Hadley Nicamor "Bumby" Hemingway was born.

At the same time a big American Publishing house contacted Hemingway: Scribner for reading one of his manuscripts.

In 1925 Hemingway understands that he wants to write novels. Ready for Fiesta, he writes at The Little Review that he is uninterested to continue to write short pieces and sketches.

Although in contact with other publishing houses as Boni&Liveright, at the end Scribner had the best. Hemingway wanted a big promotion of his books; at the same time, a new friendship was cemented the one with Francis Scott Fitzgerald and a new woman at the horizon: Pauline Pfeiffer. The end of his first marriage was close.

Ernest Hemingway tried his best for keeping alive his marriage, but the passion he felt for Pauline won and although his parents pretty upset, conservative people in love for traditions, at the end the Hemingways choose for separation.

Becoming always more popular, he also "lost" some of his friends. Stein, Anderson the one at first who had helped him the most, were searching for someone else. He became a great writer thanks to to these precious friends. He could fly away.

For the first time the idea of killing himself starts to take shape in Hemingway's mind. His first wife wanted to try to see if 100 days of separation of the three, yes, she also requested also a separation of Hemingway from Pauline would have sorted out something. Or not.

While his private existence is messy, his career becomes fulgid with The Sun also Rises published in 1926 and Men Without Women released the year after.

Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan searched for collaborations with him.

What did Scribner with Hemingway was to present him all the possible freedom for experimenting new genres.

In the 1930s the publication of Death in the Afternoon; the book appeared during the Christmas's time. Thematic pretty heavy, it was not sponsored a lot and received a bad review from The New Yorker with a long polemic.

The years in Spain are characterized this time by a new entrance in scene, the one of Martha in Hemingway's life. Previously he had had a story with Jane Mason; we see Ernest as a correspondent in Spain for the Alliance.

Writing for the Esquire about the tumultuous years that would have brought at the second world war, Hemingway didn't hesitate to saying that the biggest problem experienced by the world was: Propaganda and Public Hysteria. This combination supported and wanted two dictators as Mussolini and Hitler.  

Hemingway returned to be appreciated by American readers with his novel:  For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1939.

At the same time while working at this novel ideas of a possible suicide re-appeared in his mind. He betrayed the second wife; he betrayed the first one. He felt a sensation maybe of loneliness, while for example Hadley was a very happy and cheerful wife of a journalist now.

Martha was an independent woman and the couple survived a bit because they could stay away at long.

Hemingway decidef to buy an estate to Cuba, called Finca where he will live at long.

In love for war, Hemingway worked intensily for reporting the second world war for various magazines.

It was thanks to it that Hemingway met his last wife, Mary Walsh Monks, a war correspondent for Time. They still were both married with other partners.

At the end these problems were sorted out but going on, Hemingway developed a lot of other problematic: paranoia, fixations of not being in grade to write anymore anything (a problem started when he was a young man) and irritability.

That was why during the 1940s and 1950s Hemingway didn't produce a lot.

An incident at the head experienced by Hemingway decades before, maybe was a co-cause for his suicide as well, because cronic traumatic encephalolopathy causes depression and irritability writes the author. Hemingway in his life experienced a lot of incidents, concussions.

At La Finca, although no one could meet him while he was writing, Hemingway agreed to meet a staffer of Cosmopolitan in search for a piece about the future of literature.

At the same time, Heminway will travel in Europe again ending in Venice where he would have met his final flame: Adriana Ivancich. 18 years old he became the new muse of Hemingway.

Back to Cuba after a worrying infection experienced in Europe, he started to write Across the River and Into the Trees, receiving from Scribner an uncertain reaction: thematic dear to Hemingway yes, but not the one of ageing.

If writing was going on well, Mary decided that after all someone like Adriana was not a danger. Hemingway had continously a lot of stories and flirtations; she would have remained close to him. Forever.

In 1951 the death of his mother, although Hemingway didn't attend the funeral. Also the founder of the publishing house, Mr. Scribner died suddenly and Hemingway discovers that literary critics are curious about him, his writing-style; the idea of being studied or defined annoyed him mortally.

At the same time The Old Man and the Sea was released in full but  Life Magazine, on 1952.

5 million of copies sold of Life Magazine. The biggest success for this writer, who, the year after would have sold also the movie rights.

Hemingway won the Pulitzer.

During a Safari in Africa, Hemingway seemed to fall in love for a girl of the place called Debba and the wife didn't do anything for stopping this story, keeping, writes the author, the marriage bed interesting.

For celebrating a great Christmas, Hemingway presented to his wife an air safari, but that one would have ended in a great crash. Again the head of Ernest was injured and the patient untreated well for many days.

In 1954 Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1957 the return to Paris. A different man from the one who had lived in the french capital in the 1920s. More old, more problematic under many ways. The young and fresh boy plenty of expectations with the time left the place at the affirmed writer, at the same time plenty of  problems.

When Hemingway killed himself, his wife Mary tried her best for keeping this departure an accidental death, but people knew and in 1966 she declared that Hemingway committed suicide.

Hemingway was buried because of these doubts after all possibilistics, with a catholic funeral mass.

I read this book in an afternoon. It is written with great love, competency, and it is quick because of the passion put by the author, great Hemingway's estimator, in this book.

If you don't know well Ernest Hemingway, this book is for you, but it is for you also if you want to be introduced at his numerous books, "feeling" them with Hemingway's eyes. After all, all Ernest Hemingway's books had a strong auto-biographical touch. Passions, love, experiences, people met along his way moved him in the profound.

I thank Reaktion Books for this book.

Anna Maria Polidori