by Ann Bogle
A quotation came my way about neighbors. Nabo in Norwegian or Nabo Sueco and Naba in Spanish. But first, a ramble, as Professor David Mikics told me is the name of that genre in history.
The young man sitting next to me on the plane was reading Italo Calvino. The young man was handsome and athletic. Readers may fault my writing for neglecting people's physical descriptions. This young man, who, in addition, wrote notes to himself in an appealing, could-have-been Moleskine pocket-sized notebook, was culturally attractive and might have been attractive to men or women, but especially to women. I was reading Ernest Hemingway. Neither the young man nor I started a conversation. I was reading a passage in A Moveable Feast about a would-be writer who had found Hemingway in the café where he most liked to work, near quarters where he lived with Hadley in Paris. What struck me most was not Hemingway's ghastly rudeness to that writer, nor even his feeling that his rudeness was not violent enough, that only breaking the other writer's face would have sufficed, but not breaking his jaw, or, why not his jaw? Nor even that he wrote about it. His accountability regarding his own temper is documented. What surprised me more is what Hemingway specifically disliked. He disliked intrusion and very specifically innocuous intrusion, nice guys, one might say, who tried to be near him to learn something from him or who admired him but who, as in that passage, came merely to disturb his work. What also surprised me is Hemingway's insistence on working in public without being disturbed.
Hemingway ends a chapter and a passage about Zelda Fitzgerald with the word “insane,” not the last word on wives of writers. I see Zelda as a writer's wife, who, as Hemingway relates it, is more jealous of her husband's writing than of anything else. Her husband's productivity slips as he tries to appease her, and Scott—Fitzgerald when Hemingway is put out by him—begins to try to disturb Hemingway's productivity, a grave decision, as when Scott comes to visit him poisoned by alcohol. Penis dimension is a related topic then. Tip-of-the-iceberg or glacier breaker. I was surprised at Hemingway's deftness in introducing it by directly quoting Fitzgerald indirectly quoting his wife as a way to trace blame to her, while not redacting this test.
Hadley is a writer's wife as well, but Hadley has more sense as Hemingway portrays her in the chapters. Hadley is better at being a wife, specifically at being a writer's wife because her memory is so keen and her understanding of literature is keen. I particularly like Hemingway's description of Hadley's walking to the public bath on their street without complaint at his sparing the expense of private facilities in their rooms. I like Hadley. I agree with her literary judgment, as Hemingway portrays it, and her indirect assessment that Gertrude Stein presented a social difficulty for women who met her. Stein was rich, with the behavior of the rich, a great not a minor woman, and like a military general, she nixed examination of the other general, James Joyce, in her important house. Stein was a highly original artist not a wife. She disregarded women who visited her, wives, such as Hadley, as well as women writers, such as Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote about it handily in essay. Stein disliked women writers more than Hemingway did. Hemingway liked Karen Blixen—Isak Dinesen—for example, and wrote that her husband, the Baron, felt proud of his wife for writing. The quotation about neighbors is from Italo Calvino:
“The writer is someone who tears himself to pieces in order to liberate his neighbor.”
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Rejected by Brevity October 27, 2013.
Ann-There are many wonderful sentences in this essay and sharp perceptions. I think it is in "Islands In The Stream" that Hem waxes eloquently about Joyce's genius to his son(s). Having spent the last few days immersed in Joyce, I can appreciate those who recognized Joyce's genius early. There are many things to dislike about Hem and many things to admire. I spent a happy day in Paris tracing Hem's haunts mentioned in "Moveable Feast". I think Hem had a life-long jealousy of "Great Gatsby". Thanks for a nice essay.
I am struck, on reading this, by Hemingway's singularly male conceit that one is entitled to exist without intrusion in a public space and the parallels between all sorts of "nice guys" in their seeking to take away a piece of him for themselves. I cannot fault Hemingway's aggressive rudeness as a reasonable response.
" The young man was handsome and athletic. Readers fault my writing for not indicating enough the appearance or physical type of persons in it. "
I love this progression.*
"The quotation that came in my email today is from Italo Calvino:
'The writer is someone who tears himself to pieces in order to liberate his neighbor.'"
Good piece, Ann. Especially like your view of Hadley. Wonderful writing.
Or in much of this story, it seems to be a writer is someone who tears his neighbor apart to liberate himself. I like this story. The writer studying the writer. Reconstructing the pieces, like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. At first, I was put off by the blockiness of text; I like white space. But I found myself engaged and easily led through this to the end, and even wanting more. I agree with everything that has been said before. Intriguing piece, Ann.
Ann--you are a brilliant writer. Once I start, I can't stop reading you! (That's not a complaint.) I'm just gluttonous for your prose.
*
I agree that the blockiness creates a visual barrier, Emily, unlike in Chris Okum's stories, where the blockiness visually attracts. Thanks for your thoughtful critique.
Thoughtful critique is easier to bear than praise that juts out like a cuckoo even in hail. I like praise to be in the sun that also rises.
I betcha Dan's right about Gatsby. Hemingway seems to have valued short story less than Fitzgerald did. Yet Fitzgerald is less even, as critics say, and Hemingway's stride longer, as if he could gauge the road.
Thanks, Sam, Frankie, and Amanda. I'll continue to supply a food, Bill Yarrow.
I enjoyed the look into Hemingway and found the tone, the slant,and even the blockiness of type all to be positive contributions to the success of the work.
Excellent. *
There's an intriguing tension between that massive block of prose and the Hemingway-esque wanderings. The prose as a whole is rather un-Hemingway, but the journey through Hemingway's friendships & rivalries traces a Papa-esque pattern. Bar to bar in Paris to Pamplona to San Sebastian to Pamplona to Paris to...
Cuba, where Italo Calvino was born. This reminded me of the scene in "Memoirs of Underdevelopment" where Sergio visits Hemingway's house in Havana, looks at the artifacts on display and decides that Hemingway was a sort of Yanqui imperialist.
Maybe Hemingway looks worse from a distance.
Brenda, so many thanks!
Guy, you're right! I couldn't have seen that without your mentioning it--the way the prose I wrote goes bar to bar. I used to go Irish bar to Irish bar and one Spanish bar in N. America.
Memoirs of Underdevelopment must be a great film, never have seen it. I do not know what a Yanqui imperialist is. Pause to study it: Yanqui, yankee. Nice comment, Guy.
Minor cuts, August 23, 2013, 11:45 p.m.
Spot edits, August 26, 2013.
Separated as paragraphs, 11/12/2014, 7:49 p.m.
Revised 6:22 a.m. 11/14/2014.
Love this piece so much, yet feel incapable at the moment to even try discussing it in light of the erudite comments already posted. But time has gifted me with the delight of seeing how seriously you kept at it with the succession of editing you applied afterward, polishing it as a singular gem the likes of which I daresay Hemingway himself would have approved, and perhaps even offered an "Olé! Brava!"