HEMINGWAY LIFE STORY BEST OF ALL TIME

The Hemingway life story by Ken Burns is a sure sign, but of what?

That he grew up in what amounts to a fundamentalist family?

With a mother that logged all of her sacrifices for him? Then held it against him?

Add a father with well defined ideas on how to behave. And Ernest disappointed his daddy.

Why did Hemingway dedicate himself to travel? To get away, from the looks of Ma and Pa.

This was a seventeen year old kid. He asked his parents to sign for him to ship out for WWI. They refused.

At eighteen he didn’t need permission. And away he went to Italy. As an ambulance driver.

Due to the general ignorance of the time, it was a busy job.

But ambulance driver? For a manly man? He had to be a welcome sight to the wounded. You want some burly bastards carrying both ends of a stretcher. A little guy might drop you.

When the dying slowed down, Hemingway turned into a candy striper. He delivered goodies to the trenches.

During one run he got blown up by a mortar shell. The steel fragments pierced his leg in over two hundred spots.

It was bad timing for Hemingway, worse for those who died in the blast. But that didn’t prevent him from borrowing some valor.

Hemingway Life After War Wounds

Ernest came back home. He was discovered by a local Italian group. They celebrated his service in their cause. The wine they brought for celebration didn’t sit well. His non-drinking mom and dad disapproved.

Hemingway disagreed. Like so many thin-skinned parents, their boy was too much.

They cited his behavior and how his corrupt morals influenced his siblings.

Good-bye son. Come back after you see things our way.

Away he went, further and further.

Dedicated to travel, he made the rounds. New places refreshed normal life. New places, new sights, new smells, new food. He gave it a good shake and wanted more.

This is where the Hemingway life we understand took hold. He married an older woman and moved to Paris. She had a best friend along with her Hemingway husband and baby.

They traveled together, shared times good and bad. The women probably shared feelings of motherhood and loneliness. What’s a best friend for?

The best friend stole Mrs. Hemingway’s husband. Worst best friend ever.

Hemingway’s Life Work

Writers do one certain thing: they write, pound it out, day by day, word by word. Convinced that their work matters, they keep their feet in the fire.

Ernest said he read his works in progress every day before starting. He took up where he left off, and quit for the day when he knew what happened next.

Sound like good advice?

Currently I follow a writer on twitter. T.C. Boyle, @tcboyle, shares the same drive to move the work forward day by day. I feel like I’m on a trip reading his posts. Look him up. He’s endorsed by boomerpdx as well as lesser lights.

His list of favorite authors include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Conner, and Robert Coover? Maybe Hemingway?

The Ken Burns documentary works to show the Hemingway life in full. In contract to his spare writing style, life was messy.

Four wives can do that, or so I’ve heard. Living up to public expectations can do that. His was a celebrity life. Hemingway on the big game hunt. Hemingway on the big fish hunt. Hemingway in plane crashes.

How many animals or fish should one man kill? It’s not like he was on the early buffalo hunt trains.

Drunk Hemingway, Or Just Drinking

Write drunk, but edit sober.

That was purportedly Hemingway advice. If you’re a fan, you’ve heard about the booze.

Did the man write as much as he supposedly drank? If he did we’d have an overflowing Hemingway library.

But there is this: Hemingway Literary Center. In Boise, Idaho. At Boise State University. Why Idaho? I think you know why.

The dashing young man showed up in the 1920’s. A spent older man walked out forty years later. Was it a great life? His work endures. Was it a great life? His name resonates.

T.C. Boyle summed things up for me. He directed me to a post on his blog about writing.

Loosely remembered, a writer alienates his family and turns on his friends. Hemingway did it just fine. His early move to Scibner’s and Maxwell Perkins reminded me of Thomas Wolfe.

Wolfe wrote about family and friends. He wrote about his town. He was not a welcome visitor after ‘Look Homeware, Angel.’ They complained about being in the book. In his next, they complained about not being in the book.

Do long remembered writers make their mark by being sweet and nice?

It’s pretty to think so.