Two weeks ago I went to the new second-hand bookstore open by the ladies of Books for Dogs. I was searching for some special books although I still didn't know what exactly I would have brought home.
I discovered in the various sections visited and re-visited many times,
The Paris Wife
This one is an absolutely stunning book about the life and existence of Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, and of that precise segment of her life in which she was married with him.
The portrait created by the author, let's start to say this, it's beautiful, intense, true, punctual.
Narrated in first person, the narrator is a credible, sweet Hadley.
Ms. McLain told she did an accurate work of research. It is visible, I can assure you this and very well done.
There are here and there dialogues, but they are well structured.
The portrait of this lady is wonderful.
Hadley Richardson hadn't had time for love. His dad killed himself, his mother fell sick and she was still single and virgin at the age of 28 when she would have met in Chicago Hemingway. She was conquered by him, his personality and his character.
Hadley was a remissive, romantic girl, someone tender, someone absolutely in love for him.
Once married, the two will decide, because of Hemingway's work to go to Paris for a living. "If you want to work seriously forget Rome, go to Paris" said him a common friend writing down several letters of recommandation for the various writers expatriated in Paris. Big names of American culture lived in Paris: Pound, Stein, Beach, many journalists, reporters, editors.
Immediately after the marriage and her life in Paris, Hadley understands that Ernest Hemingway is taken by his own necessities, he is worried for his work and what it will be.
Sometimes Hadley, a pianist had the impression of seeing a kid more than a man while he was sleeping, someone who wanted to be reassured, who didn't want to stay alone; someone who needed a wife close to him.
His Paris Wife.
The two lived in the Left Bank and Hadley couldn't wear glamorous dresses, following fashion, but after all she didn't care because she had the love and affection of her husband.
When this relationship starts to end?
There is always a reason.
Maybe it was when someone stole Hadley's luggage with all the written material of Hemingway. From there, including the arrival of Bumby, (Hemingway felt he was in trap, because he still didn't want that baby) the trust of Hemigway on Hadley fell miserably.
They started to see rich friends, and one of these ones was a mermaid called Pauline Pfeiffer. At first a great friend of Hadley, later, as you will see, she stole her husband.
Pauline was beautiful, rich, she wrote for Vogue, it says all just this, but as Hadley/Paula will write at a certain point, this new people with which they started to hanging out with didn't represent her.
At the end Hemingway chooses Pauline and... other two wives.
The end of the relationship with Hadley was pretty stressing as you will read.
Hadley was much more lucky in terms of love, because with the second husband she experienced that solidity Hemingway absolutely couldn't give her in any possible way.
I found, in particular at the end of the book, a great great sadness, more than for the promiscuity of situations told, because the various protagonists were lost and suffered a lot, in particular Hadley and because that new-born love wanted by Hemingway was pretty weird and without any touch of the romanticism seen with Hadley.
Anna Maria Polidori
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