Sweet Saturday

Reading about Hemingway makes me want to set sail for south Florida.

Well, that and the fact that it's COLD outside.

Can't complain, though. We've had a mild winter. My electric bill is cheaper this month than it was in January.

Speaking of which, the power went out this afternoon. Most likely it was due to the high wind we've had here today. Just went out. No flickering. It just went. Lasted about an hour and a half.

So, I turned on the gas fireplace. Seeking sunlight, I propped open the door. Read the Hemingway book.

Now, I'm watching Tennessee duke it out with the Gators. Should be a frenzied final few minutes.

Jenn is sick. Bad cold. She's in bed. I've used the frigid afternoon as an excuse to detox, be lazy, rest. It's nice. Quite nice.

Sweet Saturday.

'Hemingway's Boat'

Longtime friends and anybody who's wasted any time here at Pull Up a Chair can you tell you how much I admire the writing of Ernest Miller Hemingway.

You know why. Economy of language. When he was good, he was brilliant. (When he was bad, he was boorish, but that's a different story.)

Anyway, I'm reading a new book, "Hemingway's Boat" by Paul Hendrickson. Saw it at Barnes and Noble and checked it out from the library.

Good stuff. The author is taking a unique approach, using Hemingway's beloved boat The Pilar to frame a narrative around Papa's loves and losses from 1934 until his 1961 suicide.

I awoke with a start about 4:30 a.m. Picked up the book.

Just finished a heartbreaking chapter about Arnold Samuelson, a would-be writer who spent a little more than a year as a caretaker for The Pilar in Key West as a young man. He never quite recovered.

Frustrated as a writer, obviously suffering from bipolar disorder, Samuelson lived out the remaining years of his life as the local eccentric in a small Texas town called Robert Lee. He sold a couple of stories to magazines during his life, but barely talked, even to his family, about his brief friendship with Hemingway again.

Hendrickson includes a quote from Scott Fitzgerald that sent shivers up my spine:

"A writer not writing is practically a maniac within himself."

After his death, Samuelson's daughter discovered a yellowing manuscript that detailed her father's stint on Hemingway's boat. It was published in 1984 as "With Hemingway." It's next on my reading list.

Hendrickson writes with both a fresh approach and a lively voice. I never thought I'd ever again find a nonfiction work about Hemingway that would get me all giddy.

Congratulations, Paul. I'm losing sleep over your fine work. And loving it.

Ready to read

And so the rains have arrived on Rocky Top.

The meteorologists are now saying we might get lucky, that this sudden squall has weakened, might save us from the Category 3-like pressure that shocked the Midwest earlier this afternoon. What a strange day. We set a record here -- mid-80s in late October. Crazy.

I am hunkered down at the house, tired of the television, ready to read.

For some reason, I can't get Pat Conroy out of my mind. Maybe it is because I finally got around to reading "Beach Music" when we were in Florida back in September. Maybe it's because he is releasing a new book, "My Reading Life," next week. Maybe it's for no reason at all.

I keep vowing that I'm going to give up Conroy. He keeps writing the same book. He's too wordy. His books are like mini mental breakdowns, full of pain and passion and misery and mysticism.

But, heck. He's such a good wordsmith. And he tells a good tale.

I think I'm going to like this next one. It's a memoir, about the writers and the writing that shaped his life. One can relate. Don't know where I'd be without Hemingway, Hamill and the Hardy Boys.

I've told you before how much it bothers me that people don't read books anymore. It scares me for one thing. Occupational hazards and all that. But it also makes me wonder what kind of society we've become.

Plus it's so much fun.

Maybe I will venture into the Spanish Civil War later tonight with Papa Hemingway's Robert Jordan. Maybe I will "Look Homeward, Angel" with Thomas Wolfe. Or maybe I'll find myself walking once again along the Carolina coast with Conroy.

Whatever I choose, the journey will be mine, singular, solitary, satisfying.

Such is the pleasure of a good book on a rainy Tuesday night.

My old friend Ernie

Funny, but reading Hemingway seems like spending a few minutes with an old friend.

I guess I've always admired the bastard because he lived life to its full extreme -- loving every woman, drinking every glass of wine, running with the bulls, hooking the biggest marlin, forever in search of the one, true sentence. He was brilliant, possessing such talent; but he was also volatile, manic depressive, perhaps even insane during those last, tragic days in Idaho.

I'd love to have enjoyed drinks and conversation with him during his prime. He must have been one hell of a guy.

Tonight I'm sitting by the fire reading Michael Reynolds' biography of Papa Ernie's last days. Picked it up at the Halls Library this afternoon. Its opening pages remind me that I've yet to read "For Whom the Bell Tolls," the novel many consider to be his best. (Although I fail to see how it can surpass either "The Sun Also Rises" or "A Farewell to Arms." You never know, though -- good literature is like that.)

Reynolds is describing the high that Hem felt just during and after the publication of his Spanish Civil War love story. It's both amusing and poignant that Hemingway always said that a part of him died whenever he'd finish a piece of work. It was, you see, a story that would never again be told.

I don't know why his stories have fallen out of fashion. Oh, I have a guess or two. Probably it has something to do with political correctness as well as the cyclical nature of these things -- Hemingway was so popular for so long, it later became fashionable to rip him and his work to shreds. (Others accuse him of being a misogynist; I think he's simply a man of his times who never quite became comfortable around women.)

But, what do I know? I'm just a fan who came across his work 30 years after his death. That's the way it is, though, with Ernest Hemingway. At the end of the day, when you're enjoying his words by the fire, he seems ever so much like an old friend.

One hell of a scribe

I've written a lot lately about my favorite writer, but I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that today would have been the 109th birthday of Ernest Hemingway.

It's difficult to know why one develops attachments to various authors. With Hemingway, I think it's first and foremost because, at his best, he wrote better than anyone else. Period. He's great training for a newspaper writer. Tough, terse prose. Short, declarative sentences. Highly descriptive.

My first contact with him was through "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in an American Lit class at UT. About that time I also watched an A&E "Biography" on "Papa," narrated by his granddaughter Mariel Hemingway. The following Memorial Day weekend, I sat out on the deck at the cabin, engrossed in "The Sun Also Rises." By then, I was hooked.

Hemingway has been called a lot of things. Overrated, for one, by jealous critics. A genius by others, closer to the mark. No doubt he revolutionized American, indeed world, literature by ushering in the modernist movement -- Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson and a few others.

I'm forever haunted by his depression, by his enveloping madness, by the loss of his ability and, of course, the 1961 death by his own hand. I wonder what could have been. I'm grateful for what was.

It's hard to pick a favorite. "The Sun Also Rises" is quite special. So is "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Old Man and the Sea." I can pick a favorite short story. Hands down, "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." Brilliant.

That being said, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" will haunt your dreams. Hemingway once wrote that "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened." Let's just say I felt like I was on that safari, and nearly broke out into a sweat when it finished. I won't say more in case you ever read the piece, which you should, if you haven't.

So happy birthday, Ernie, wherever you are. You were one hell of a scribe, I know that.

You gotta wonder...

You gotta wonder about people sometimes.

Ate brunch at my favorite spot downtown today. Ordered the usual: mountain eggs, mixed fruit and brunch potatoes. Favorite server Lindsey waited on us. Found out she's working toward a doctorate in forensics at UT. She wants to go into law enforcement.

Headed over to McKay's with time to kill before "Vertigo" at the Tennessee Theatre. Found a couple of good pieces on Hemingway, a travel book on Vietnam, a memoir I'd read good reviews about, and a Lost Generation classic.

While strolling down the biography aisle, I noticed two roughnecks, out of place, hastily coming in my direction.

"I didn't know this many people read," one said, loudly, to the other.

I looked up, sporting what I'm sure was an angry look.

"Yeah, it's great. Some of these books don't even have pictures!"

During the movie, a couple of hours later, the guy two seats down from me actually laughed -- loudly -- when the police officer falls to his death off a roof at the start of the film.

"I didn't know this was a comedy," said I to the person on my left.

"Me either. What a moron."

Still, it's difficult to ruin the screening of a Hitchcock classic in an old-time movie palace. I went home happy, still wondering, though, about the guy who laughed out of place.

Papa's last summer

They are running with the bulls this week in Pamplona. Which, of course, always makes me think of my favorite writer.

Spent a rather quiet evening at home last night after working out and enjoying dinner at Calhoun's. The Braves were playing on the West Coast and the Tigers were off, so I eased back in the recliner and continued reading A.E. Hotchner's superb memoir of Hemingway's twilight years, "Papa Hemingway."

It's an engaging story, seeing the famed author "behind the scenes," figuratively watching his eyes light up over good wine, bullfights, friends, African safaris and solitude in Cuba. But, it's a sad tale, too.

Hemingway lost something after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1954. He continued to write, but never published another novel during his lifetime. Pain from various accidents suffered during the '50s all but incapacitated him.

I drifted off to sleep just as Hotchner was describing Hem's last true, enjoyable summer -- 1959, the bullfighting trip that was eventually chronicled in the posthumously published "The Dangerous Summer."

Was kinda glad I stopped there. I don't want to read what's coming -- the final summer in Ketchum, Idaho; the shock treatments; the enveloping depression; the suicide.

No, I prefer to think Hemingway is still writing early in the morning in the upstairs bedroom office of his beloved finca in Cuba. Or he's sipping on fine wine somewhere in Paris. Or he's enjoying the year's best matador at the bullfights in Spain during the fiesta.

He will forever live on through his words, but I just wish he'd have lived to be an old man.

Sobering thoughts for a would be writer on a muggy Tuesday morning.

A clean, well-lighted place

Often, when I duck into Barley's on Sunday nights, I think about Hemingway.

Well, let me back up. I don't think so much about Papa himself, but rather about his short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

I've always loved that piece. Hemingway was at his best in the short story format. His tough, terse prose lends itself to it.

I often encounter a few seemingly lonely people, sitting at the corner of the bar, taking in the music. Sometimes I wonder about their lives, who they are, where they're headed. And, like the old man drinking his brandy, I too am warmed by it all.

Oh, of course a big part of that is Robinella, I know that. She was in rare form last night. I swear, she sings those sad songs better than anybody. I felt sorry for the folks who left to see Tom Waite. They missed the show.

Got to sing Don Williams' "Amanda" with her again. Made me feel like a million bucks.

Andrea, Chris and Drew took in the show, too. The conversation was good; it warmed the night.

When I got home, I pulled Hemingway off the shelf and read about the old man drinking his brandy. And I thought about how special it is to forget about life for a couple of hours, enjoy the company of friends and hear an angelic voice create her art up on the stage.

But, you see, that's what often happens on Sunday nights, in the Old City, at a clean, well-lighted place.

Hemingway, Hotchner and haunting, sad eyes

Lindsey has a beguiling quality and haunting, sad eyes.

But early this afternoon at the Downtown Grill, it's readily apparent she's only interested in taking my order. So, I forget about flirting and ask for Mountain Eggs with brunch potatoes and bacon. It's a good meal for a lazy Sunday.

Afterward, I forget about Lindsey, and we walk south on Gay Street, looking at the classic cars that have made their way here for the special screening of "Thunder Road." But I'm not much into Robert Mitchum and bootleggers, so I head west on Kingston Pike to McKay's.

The pickings are slim, but I unearth a couple of books on Hemingway and a military history of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Driving home, I get stuck on Cunningham Road behind a car with Loudon County tags that doesn't appear to know where it is headed.

Heavy afternoon thunderstorms negate the idea of watching TV, so I crank the air conditioning down and curl up in the recliner to read.

A.E. Hotchner was one of Papa Hemingway's best friends the last 15 or so years of his life. "Part Boswell, part Euripides," as the Times Book Review once called him, Hotchner observed, remembered, put down a few stories.

Mary Hemingway didn't like the fact that he wrote openly about Papa's 1961 suicide, but Hotchner said Ernie would have wanted it that way.

"He said that for him there was only one way to account for things -- to tell the whole truth about them, holding back nothing." And, if we know anything about Hemingway, surely that statement must be true.

I napped in between claps of thunder, still thinking about Lindsey's sad eyes, and wishing I could have bombed around with Papa and Hotchner on long ago adventures in Key West and Havana.

Oh, well. In some ways it's better reading about it from the comfort of your easy chair on a rainy Sunday.

A farewell to melodrama

Maybe whoever comes up with the ideas to remake all of these old movies should take a look at "A Farewell to Arms." Unlike most of the classics Hollywood later decides to butcher, Ernest Hemingway's best novel has yet to receive a worthy film adaptation.

I watched the 1932 original, with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes, sometime last year. No need to repeat myself; it sucked.

So I tried again tonight with the big budget David O. Selznick 1957 Fox CinemaScope version, starring Rock Hudson and Selznick's wife Jennifer Jones.

And I'm still waiting to see a good version of this tragic, beautiful story.

The later version is pretty. Director Charles Vidor captures some beautiful footage of Italy and Switzerland. The ending is much closer to Hemingway's final pages than the overblown closing frames of the '32 film.

And that's about all I can say. Jennifer Jones was a beautiful woman, but it's obvious she would not have been cast in this film had she not been married to the producer. Hudson has his moments, but just isn't emotive enough to play Lt. Frederick Henry. When he tries, you can cut the melodrama with a knife.

Hemingway's novels have found little success on the big screen. He's meant to be read, of course. Without Papa's tough, terse prose, it just doesn't work.

If you love this novel -- and to read it is to love it -- don't watch either film adaptation. Go see something at the theater. TiVo your favorite TV show. Flip on the radio. Take a walk in the woods.

But don't see this movie. It's kind of like returning to the park you loved to visit as a child, only to discover it's now a parking lot, with a Pizza Hut on one corner and a Blockbuster Video on the other.

On second thought, Hollywood, don't even bother trying to remake this film. You won't get it right anyway.

Besides, the bookshelf that holds all the Hemingway novels is only a few feet away.

A letter to 'Ernie'

Dear Ernie,

Why'd you have to go and shoot yourself, all those many moons ago? You were such a talent and would have made a hell of an old man.

I remember trying to read you as a kid, gazing at the novel, impressed by the words, but unable to understand it. Then came college English and the story of the dying writer in Africa. God, how wonderful that was, and is.

A year later, I took your story about the Fiesta in Pamplona to the lake over Memorial Day weekend. I sat on the deck, enthralled, ignoring the bluegill, barely moving until it was finished.

Then came the beaches of Florida, which put me in mind of your beloved Key West, and thus meant a trip also to the local book shop, to find your beautiful story of the first World War. I think I fell a little in love with Catherine myself that spring, not to mention in love, too, with language, writing, the craft of it as a vocation.

A year or so ago, I somehow gathered the gumption to revisit the Pamplona story. For years I had feared this, afraid a re-reading would spoil that first, virginal experience. It did not.

Somewhere along the way I found your short stories, Ernie, and am convinced that is where your true talent lay. Nick Adams, up in Michigan, is the finest of American letters. Let anyone say with a straight face there's something better and I'll punch them senseless out in the street, all in your honor, of course.

My favorite is "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." How fine that is, Ernie. How simply, wonderfully fine. A better understanding of the human condition, of what makes a man hurt inside, does not exist.

There are others. Francis Macomber. The hills like white elephants. Even Harry Morgan and his rum running is good, in its way.

Reading your biographer James Mellow's words this morning makes me yearn to point the Xterra southward, toward Miami and beyond, not stopping until I reach the corner of Greene and Duval. You know where I mean.

Or jaunt off to Pamplona in July. Do I dare run with the bulls? I know I could lose myself in the cafes and at the bullfights, hoping that my own Lady Brett Ashley awaits me there.

One last book awaits, my own personal Kilimanjaro, a journey I've yet to endure. It's the Spanish war book, Ernie, and I don't know why I've yet to read it. I have this crazy theory -- you would, no doubt, call me a fool over it -- that one reads books when one is supposed to, that the words and the moment meet for a strange and wonderful rendezvous in the mists of your mind, right at the perfect time for you both.

I don't know. It will happen soon, Ernie. It has to happen soon.

I think often about those last days in Ketchum, when the Black Dog had become a vulture, (or maybe more appropriately a hyena), attached to your bones in its horrific way. And when it all became too much, when you'd at last lost the final battle with the life you lived so well, did you meet the end with the grace of your characters? Or was that, too, just a lie?

Whatever the case, Ernie, you'll always be the writer of that lost generation. Scotty, Pound, Dos, Gertrude, Sherwood -- none of them can touch you now. You belong, like Lincoln, to the ages, forever tangled between the man and the myth.

Only your words remain, the best, last legacy of any writer's life.

Sincerely from a big fan,

Jake

Ghosts

A little fiction...

He took the book and sat near the fire in the fading twilight. He liked to read Hemingway up here, the way his words flowed, tearing into your consciousness with the force of the Ocoee waters. It was soothing and it was religious and it cleared away the cobwebs of his soul.

Paris in the twenties, Pamplona during the fiesta, it all was so foreign and yet so familiar, as if he were returning to something he'd lost somewhere along the way. Papa's words about Hadley put him in mind of something else, though. Something close, and very real.

After awhile, he put the book down, and took a drink. He sat there awhile, smoking, and watched the light from the big moon ripple across the water.

He remembered how her face looked at twilight, how the disappearing red hues contrasted with the brown oceans of her eyes, and that way she had of looking at you that replaced the memory of a thousand sunsets. The image engulfed him, the waves crashing into the sands of his soul. He tried to make it stop but it wouldn't let him be.

He thought about disappointments, how sometimes the very thing he feared came true, when he was weak and couldn't fight it away. Vulnerable. Tired.

It was part of life, they told him. She isn't worth it. Grace under pressure, and all that stuff Papa wrote about.

And he wanted to believe them, said they were right, but knew he'd carry the memory of that awful night with him for a hundred other full moons and beyond.

He worked at it until the pain eased. Sleep came easily, but he was up before first light, frying bacon, gathering the bait, cleaning his knife.

Her ghost sat there with him, watching, waiting, refusing to leave until the sun found its way into the morning sky.

Just like they did in Key Largo...

"We can find it once again, I know, just like they did in Key Largo." --- Bertie Higgins, "Key Largo."

If I ever get out of work tonight, I think I'm going to fix myself something cold to drink (can you believe this heat?) and watch "Key Largo."

Did ya ever see that movie? Oh, it's a classic. Bogie and Bacall. Need I say more?

Bogie plays Frank McCloud, a World War II vet who shows up in the Keys to visit his buddy's widow and father, Nora and James Temple, played by Lauren Bacall and Lionel Barrymore.

McCloud stumbles into a bad situation. Mobster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) and his cronies take over the hotel the Temples run just in time for a big hurricane to hit.

All hell breaks loose and Bogie has to help save the day. Definitely falls into the "they don't make 'em like this anymore" category.

If I can get rid of this headache, I might skip John Huston's picture and read Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream." I need to pretend like I'm on the beach somewhere.

Late summer is good for nothing but a trip to some place cool and/or near the water. Since I'm doing neither this month (I'm going to Michigan), I'll have to get there via the green fields of the mind.

Wish I could have seen Key Largo when Bogie and Bacall made this film, or wandered down to Key West during the time Hemingway spent his days writing there, working on the novel that became "A Farewell to Arms."

(If you want to see American prose reach an ever-elusive perfection, read Papa's short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Brilliant. Simply brilliant.)

Alas, I'm sitting here in my office, situated as close as I can to the fan, fighting a losing battle with the heat.

Could be worse. At least I'm not breaking my back with those guys widening Emory Road.