Hemingway's Life (Patrick Hemingway interview)

[bentley]

In conjunction with the Kennedy Library, WGBH has available the actual broadcast/interview on line which you can view.

It was great.

1. Some of the ideas that I came away with were that Hemingway was not much influenced by any of his colleagues (much more on folks who came before like W. H. Hudson and Maupassant)
2. Hemingway was very fond of Ezra Pound; they were tennis friends and when Ezra was in an asylum, it was he and Archibald MacLeish who got Ezra out.
3. Hemingway did not trust his publishers that much. He used to say according to Patrick, "Never trust a publisher or you will sleep on straw.
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway had a competitive relationship and at the beginning Fitzgerald gave advice to Hemingway but Hemingway did not value it. Hemingway thought that F. Scott was like a butterfly and didn't know how good he really was. He thought that F. Scott was patronizing of him.
5. H very much admired Faulkner and saw him as an equal.
6. John Dos Passos was a great friend and a very good eater. He and H were estranged for awhile and then became great friends again. H used to say that Dos Passos could eat the pants off a brass monkey.
7. Patrick felt that H was a very good parent and he did not feel at a loss because his parents were divorced. He had a very happy and satisfied life and got along with all of the wives and his mother. He said that H called him mouse and he was the second son described in Islands in the Stream. H also described himself as the wolf and Patrick as the coyote. He stated that he never knew his grandfather but that his grandfather was not only a doctor but a shotgun naturalist and that with hunting you get to see death as not that threatening. Patrick is a conservationist and is not too keen on golf courses. He said that his father's ancestry has always been associated with the sea and it played a big part in his father's life. His father was keen on hunting and safaris because of the mystique of Teddy Roosevelt. He had had harsh words for the Scribners who he felt looked down on the writers. He felt that a high point for his father was seeing how great the American soldier did and performed in the world war. He was very proud of that and them. Patrick especially liked the story "Canary for One" which he felt showed his father's sensitive side. He also thought that "Fathers and Sons" was an interesting short story about the things that self abuse would do to you. Patrick claimed that H felt that modern film was the enemy of literature and that whenever H went to the movies he automatically would fall asleep (almost in protest).
8. He wasn't sure what the effects of alcohol were on his father and felt that both parents only would have wanted that their children be admirable people. And Patrick agreed that alcohol for many is the beginning of the end. But he wasn't sure what part in played in his father's life or ending if any. He did say that H in many situations felt that he had to have a drink to get through some events.

It was the first time that I had seen Patrick Hemingway interviewed and had watched a taped broadcast where a Hemingway son was featured. There were quite a few questions from the audience and some comments from folks who had known his father from the 4th Infantry (if I remember correctly)

I would highly recommend a viewing of this broadcast if you haven't seen it.

[bentley]

Interesting "audio" interview with Jack Hemingway (1986)


http://wiredforbooks.org/jackhemingway/

[bentley]

http://www.svguide.com/hemingway.htm

[bentley]

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/books/1999/hemingway/

[bentley]

An interesting off beat url but has a great picture of Ernest and very young son Jack and one wonderful picture of EH and Hadley. He actually looks like he has feelings in this photo (some other photos of the Ketchum, Idaho home and photos of son Jack as well - varying ages)

http://www.usplanb.com/hemingway.cfm

[chadadanielleKR]

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bentley wrote:
Interesting "audio" interview with Jack Hemingway (1986)


http://wiredforbooks.org/jackhemingway/

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Yes indeed. He seems to be even more "in love" with fishing than
his father!

[fanuzzir]

I have to say that I'm positively fascinated that this lone wolf writer who never wrote a single family story or included his protagonist in a family had a family himself, the members of which were constellated around him in intense ways. Why do you think he never returned the favor and reflected about them? In print?

[HoldcroftA]

Hemingway's life experiences and theories on life show through many of his stories for example. Hemingway's experiences in the war contribute to "In Another Country" and "A Way You'll Never Be". These stories show how the war can change a man and make him go crazy. Hemingway's view about women shows through in "A Short and Happy Life of Francis McCumber" and "A Clean Well-Lighted Place". In Francis McCumber his wife goes around and sleeps with other men without a care about how she is cheating or if her husband will find out. Hemingway constanly shows how he loves to hunt in many of his stories. In "The Short and Happy Life of Francis McCumber" the whole story is about hunting and how that shows you are a man. Also, from that story we see how Hemingway views men especially Americans, and how they are just handed everything in life making them cowards. He defines what masculinity is like he does countless other times in his many other stories. Hemingway talks about hungting in "Fathers and Sons" and "A Way You'll Never Be". Here he shows how he loves hunting so much. In "A Clean Well Light Place" we see that Hemingway's view if how old people are useless. So we can basically know exactly what Hemingway's life was like and how he viewed that life from these stories.

[WestN]

Many of Hemingway's stories deal with men doing manly things. How does Hemingways own sense of being masculine play a role in his writing? What do you think motivated Hemingway through out his life?

[mikenasatt]

For those interested in trying to match Papa's life with his literature, Stephen Koch's "Breaking Point: Hemmingway, Dos Passon, and the Murder of Jose Robles" provides some interesting insight. I am not sure I necessarily buy into Koch's theories, but it does provide some thought-provoking aspects to consider.