"After a few brandies ...."

What you are seeing is a line of oft-read and well-worn books by or about Ernest Miller Hemingway, primarily a novelist and short story writer, but also a bit of a poet and who has one stage play among his credits. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, ostensibly for his magnum opus, "The Old Man and the Sea." Foremost in this line is the latest book about him, "Hemingway in Love -- His Own Story," by one of his closest friends and confidants, A.E. Hotchner. This slim volume was published just last month. Read on, to learn more. The music accompanying this post is composed of a pair of songs by and from Styx. One reflects my thoughts about a Lady named Liberty and the other my memories of a Lady named Claudette, who chose to stay behind rather than to run with me.

Words spoken by Ernest Hemingway
in "Hemingway in Love -- His Own Story"

by A.E. Hotchner (2015)

"When I dream of afterlife in heaven, the action always takes place in the Paris Ritz. It's a fine summer night. I knock back a couple of martinis at the bar, Cambon side. Then there's a wonderful dinner under a flowering chestnut tree in Le Petit Jardin, the little garden that faces the Grill. After a few brandies ...."

A student again -- for a few hours
 

I was surprised -- no, actually I was amazed -- to learn a few days ago that there is a new book out about Ernest Hemingway written by one of his confidants. Hemingway died in 1961 -- fifty-four years ago -- and I would not have guessed any of his close friends were still living. Well, I live to be surprised ....

The author of this Hemingway memoir is A.E. Hotchner, who happens to be alive and, apparently, active at age ninety-five. Hotchner himself has written seventeen books, a few plays and screenplays, and been a personal friend of more than a few celebrities, including actor Paul Newman. Hotchner's best known work regarding Hemingway was a biography published in 1966 and entitled, "Papa Hemingway."

This new book, entitled, "Hemingway in Love -- His Own Story," consists of recollections of conversations Hotchner had with Hemingway, mostly about his first marriage to Elizabeth Hadley Richardson and second marriage to Pauline Pfeiffer, as well as other elements surrounding his time in Paris during the 1920s. The book is brief, one hundred sixty-five pages with a forward. I read it over the course of a day.

I do have more than a bit of skepticism about the contents of the book. Much of the material, Hotchner claims, was told to him by Hemingway in 1954 and 1955, about thirty years and more after the fact. More of the conversations took place in 1961 while Hemingway was a patient in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, under the care of Mayo Clinic doctors, just days before Hemingway killed himself. Hotchner admits to scant notes existing from these talks, and although some were recorded, the tapes no longer exist. Of these facts, Hotchner writes:

"I have lived with Ernest's personal story for a long time. This is not buried memory dredged up. The story he recounted over the course of our travels was entrusted to me with a purpose. I have held that story in trust for these many years, and now I feel it is my fiduciary obligation to Ernest to finally release it from my memory."

Who am I to be a doubter about the honesty of Hotchner's memory ??

As to the content of the book, these words from Hotchner might describe it best:

"Over the following years, while we traveled, he (Hemingway) relived the agony of that period in Paris when he was writing "The Sun Also Rises" and at the same time enduring the harrowing experience of being in love with two women simultaneously, an experience that would haunt him to his grave."

How is that for a teaser ??

I first encountered Hemingway's short stories in an anthology of required reading as a high school sophomore. I fell in love with those stories and, later, with the novels. Work for my master's degree centered upon him and naturalism in literature. There was a time when I could accurately claim to have read everything published in book form by or about Hemingway, but I drifted away from words written about him quite some time ago. Whatever .... encountering "Hemingway in Love" made me feel like a curious student again -- at least for a few hours.

I am not going to go any further in the sense of a review, but I will add that the book offers not only insight about how and why Hemingway's first two marriages fell apart, but also sort of a superficial psychological study of the man and his relationships with others, including notable writers of the era like F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce.

Sometimes twists and turns in books seem to bring events into a focus more sharply for some than for others. That is happening here to me. My father died and my former wife No. 2 had surgery in St. Mary's Hospital, where Hemingway was treated twice by Mayo Clinic doctors for depression and suicidal tendencies. Hemingway underwent electroconvulsive (shock) therapy for depression at St. Mary's. I know someone who experienced the same treatment, and I recently completed a pair of books by or about Sylvia Plath, who experienced the same treatment. Random coincidences of life and books intertwining, but they combine to allow me to understand people and their situations better, I think.

 

I also think I will say no more .... finis ....
 

".... After a few brandies, I wander up to my room and slip into one of those huge Ritz beds. They are all made of brass. There's a bolster for my head the size of the Graf Zeppelin and four square pillows filled with real goose feathers -- two for me, and two for my quite heavenly companion."