By Mary V. Dearborn
I purchased this book as soon as I found out that it had been published. For years I have made a point of reading or watching everything about the man. By my late forties I had decided that there were parallel threads to both our histories. Not that I was as abusive or as talented as ‘Papa.’ It was something more vital than that.
I’ll have more to say about that toward the end of this book review.
I was anxious to read this book since it was the first biography of Hemingway that had been written by a woman. Finally, a different view of manufactured “machismo”. This version details a man who defined a lifestyle in the 20th century from a female insight. Others have done similar work with the same basic research materials. They were all men. Ms. Dearborn had the added advantage of the Cuban materials, articles and exposes. His home in Cuba, Finca Vigia, has been a museum since 1961, with plenty of research materials stored and cared for. Now that Cuba has been opened by the Obama Administration, they should have been available.
It has been my experience that when men speak or write about Hemingway, it is always with a level of hero worship. There is always the sense that the authors were establishing a pecking order or as Papa might put it, “a pissing contest.” There is always an envy factor involved when it comes to Ernest Hemingway. Not with Ms. Dearborn.
‘Papa Hemingway,’ written by A. E. Hotchner, for me, was the perfect example. Mr. Hotchner was his biggest admirer, protégé and best friend for fourteen years. Naturally he wasn’t going to expose any deep dark secrets, especially about his sex life with proclivities.
That said Ms. Dearborn’s version of Hemingway’s biography was an excellent read with plenty of the new perspectives not previously mentioned or written about.
The early years of family life was very detailed, setting the foundation for later life. The ‘Alpha’ of the family was his mother, Grace, yet he continually made efforts to please his father.
Maybe understated by Ms. Dearborn and most others was that his mother Grace dressed Ernest and his sister in female clothing. Not stopping there, she called him her ‘Dutch Doll’.
One of the most influential incidents of his young life was not attending college. He blamed his mother for this. Evidently she opted to build a summer cottage rather then send him off to be enriched.
The combination of being socially, therefore emotionally abused and neglected when it came to college, created a lifelong attitude toward his mother. He never failed to call her “that bitch.”
The seminal event of his life occurred on the Austrian Front in Italy during World War I. He was an ambulance driver with the International Red Cross.
While he moved from one position to another, distributing chocolates and cigarettes, he was violently interrupted by an Austrian Mortar Shell that landed only a few feet away from him. The burst of energy knocked Ernest unconscious. Once he regained awareness he observed two Italian Soldiers. One had expired. The other had his legs traumatically amputated.
A third soldier caught his attention. The man had survivable wounds. Not being aware of his own wounds, he proceeded to pick the soldier up with intention of delivering him to a First Aid Station. This happened with over two hundred shrapnel wounds in both legs.
Stumbling toward to the First Aid Station, Ernest was hit again in the legs. This time it came from an Austrian machine gun. This second injury terminated his heroic effort to help the soldier. Now, they both needed help.
Whether he was able to carry the soldier at all, let alone any further, has been debated and speculated about ever since. This was the pivotal event of Mr. Hemingway’s history. The events as recorded happened. Whether the facts were expanded upon by Hemingway is inconsequential. He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Valor with the official citation reading as follows: “Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated.”
From that point on Ernest Miller Hemingway would begin his long bitter/sweet passage into American History. The journey was assisted and enhanced by his talents for writing and self-promotion.
In 1923 Mr. Hemingway made his first trip to Pamplona, Spain. It was a secondary experience of a lifetime. I’m sure it brought back all the adrenal fluids that had evaded him since July 8, 1918. The ideas of death, avoiding it and bravery all came flooding back like the shock of hysteria, into his psyche.
This episode was the impetus for “The Sun Also Rises.” An exciting work highlighting drinking, fighting, running with the bulls, love, love lost and betrayal.
I personally believe the experience, of 1923, cemented a formula for Hemingway. I think he found that if he wrote about life in the extreme, death dying, love and loss, he could not avoid success.
He was correct.
My impression of Ms. Dearborn’s descriptions of his marriages is that his first wife, Hadley Richardson, was his true love and the one he felt guiltiest of divorcing. His fourth and last wife, Mary Welsh, was his care taker and the one he verbally abused and socially embarrassed the most. She probably loved him more then he loved himself.
According to Ms. Dearborn, World War II was the beginning of the end for Mr. Hemingway. He became ‘Papa’ in Cuba in the 1940’s and remained with that moniker for the duration of his life.
Ms. Dearborn describes his auto accident in London which concussed ‘Papa’ severely enough to put him into the hospital. His irreverence and complete disregard for his condition in combination with his overinflated ego driven desire to be involved in the largest invasion of all time, took him out of his hospital bed and into the action. This was the dumbest and most impetuous act of his life. He was still suffering from the concussion and needed weeks to recover. He chose to enhance is stature among men and the literary society.
Ms. Dearborn identified five major head traumas. Without question, they were severe and would lead anyone to believe that ‘Papa’ was affected by ‘CTE’ or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, as we know it today.
I would add that severe head trauma was sufficient enough to cause his mental deterioration of the 1940’s and 50’s. In addition to the recorded events, there were supplemental explosions during his hotel stay in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Not to mention, the running with the bulls in Pamplona of 1923, World War II experiences that involved any number of explosions and his boxing experiences, including a sparring match with Gene Tunney, and others.
In order to demonstrate his “Machismo” and leave no doubt of his endurance, he developed the trait of self-destruction. Perhaps he always was self-destructive. From his decision to “join the War in Europe,” to the aircraft accidents in Africa, he demonstrated, effectively, that his safety was secondary to his public image.
The winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature must have been a surprise to him and everyone around him. It wasn’t a planned stand-alone book. It was in fact, a piece of a larger work that he delayed out of mental and emotional indecision.
If you take the time to read “The Old Man and The Sea,” and you have the imagination to read between the lines, you can envision the story is a metaphor of his life.
The Old Man was “Papa.” The boy was all of his friends that he ignored from time to time. The “Big Fish” was the title of “Writer or Author.” And the Sharks were the critics, publishers, public and friends that all wanted a piece of him. The Old Man’s reading of the Dolphins, currents, weather and eating was his description of his struggle to become what he wanted to be . . . Author.
He even writes what he felt in the text of “The Old Man and The Sea.”
Preparing to go to sea, “It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
After he hooked the fish and began the fight to bring him in. “Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.”
Once he killed the fish. “I am only better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm.”
From his involvement in World War II thru to his suicide was the worst period in time of his unraveling, mentally, physically, socially and professionally.
According to Ms. Dearborn’s well chronicling “Papa” fit a number of diagnosis’s as described in the ‘DSM’ or The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The worst of which was mentioned but not officially made by any doctor was ‘Psychosis’ or ‘Psychotic’.
Ms. Dearborn plainly indicates that many mentioned or suggested but nobody wanted to paint ‘Papa’ into that kind of social straight jacket.
‘Papa’ took about twenty years to pay for his impulsive, cavalier, “devil may care” decisions and behavior. The same youthful behavior that made him larger than life, would eventually destroy him.
To sum up, Ms. Dearborn has written an insightful chronology of Ernest Miller Hemingway’s travails thru life. From her perspective I thoroughly enjoyed and learned, maybe more than I wanted, surely more than I expected.
I’m not a writer or businessman. As a consequence she lost me during ‘Papa’s’ early years while he maneuvered himself into being published consistently. I personally would not have been able to deal with him as a publisher or editor. I certainly would not have been able to deal with any his frustration of being rejected.
Two points that were not touched on in this mammoth undertaking and a third remains controversial. They were his activities as an Intelligence Agent, the contents of his FBI File and the weapon that he committed suicide with.
It seems that he not only worked for the US Government but also for the Soviets. The US involvement was complicated and more enduring then the Soviets, reaching from the Spanish Civil War, World War II in Cuba and Europe, extending into China with his third wife Marth Gellhorn. These adventures are better investigated in “Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures,” by Nicholas Reynolds.
The FBI Files are a different story. J. Edgar Hoover was a strange man. He kept a file on ‘Papa’ (FBI # 64-23312) and his final entry into the file was as follows; “Knowing Hemingway as I did, I doubt he had any Communist leanings. He was a rough, tough guy and always for the underdog.”
The controversy of the weapon is convoluted. Mary Hemingway ordered the shot gun destroyed by a local machinist, once ‘Papa’ was buried. It seems the craftsman followed instructions and cut it up, buried the remains in a field. However, he kept some identifying parts as “souvenirs”. The whole episode is documented in “Hemingway's Guns: The Sporting Arms of Ernest Hemingway” by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsley, and Roger Sanger. (Review)
Ms. Dearborn’s work should open a series of other works, for years to come. A man’s life, simple or complex, doesn’t get explained away, unless done by a multitude of perspectives. With her effort, she has opened eyes and minds.
Well done, Ms. Mary Dearborn.
Addendum:
As I mentioned earlier, there were common events and attitudes that paralleled my life to that of ‘Papa’ Hemingway’s life.
I enlisted in the US Navy as a junior in High School. I was seventeen years old. I went to war in my 19th year. I returned home with no extra holes in my body, however, something was amiss. In fact, I had been poisoned with “Agent Orange,” and a number of the “Rainbow Barrels of Defoliant,” used throughout the war. I also worked in an environment that was painted with “Lead Based Paint,” and used munitions and explosives containing “Mercury Fulminate.”
Hemingway’s drama came in fits and starts. If they weren’t spontaneous, he created the circumstances that would have lead to drama.
My drama came so slowly it was essentially imperceptible. I got no metals that would get me gratuitous attentions, nor did I ever speak or write of my experiences.
I did have relationships with a number of exceptional women. I married only one and remained loyal to her until her death, forty two years later.
I now spend my life in a community of veterans of different wars, from World War II thru to present day. Each veteran has lived with the same intensity that Hemingway lived during June and July 1918. Some more intense, others less.
The differences are profound. Most, if not all the veterans I live with are willing to talk only to other veterans. Hemingway would talk to and wrote about the torrents of his life to anybody and everybody.
My self-destructive behavior was limited to smoking tobacco and the occasional over indulgence of alcohol. Hemingway’s self-destructiveness bordered on euthanasic behavior extending to everyone he knew, loved or admired. He reserved the ultimate act for himself.
I have endured twelve years beyond his tenure and continue to flourish. I never needed the idol worship that he seemed to thrive on.
Hemingway’s Lesson
“If you are going to ride a trolley, you must expect to pay the fare.”
Richard Diaz
