by Ernest Hemingway
Cannibalizing one’s life for art
I just read this book. In it Hemingway abuses his friends for art. His friends didn’t like it. They’re all dead now, but the book lives on. Advantage Hemingway. Advantage art.
In Paris, they drink a lot at swell cafes with zinc bar tops. Then it’s off to Spain to drink a lot more. They drink while they fish. They drink at the big party in Pamplona. The bullfights sober them up somewhat. Bullfighting, we are told, is very serious stuff. Afterward, they get drunk some more and have a go at each other. Black eyes and wounded prides.
Why? Because the men all fall in love with the same woman. Why? Because every story needs an engine.
The partying masks the damage accrued during the First World War. Their interior lives are severely implied. The technique must have seemed revolutionary at the time. Also the narration. Snarky, simple, declarative sentences, like this. Every bit as mannered as something florid. After Joyce and James, Proust and Faulkner, though, it was a revelation. An enduring one. We all still write in Hemingway’s shadow, more or less.
The book sure casts a spell. Old Hem makes me want a bigger life. The bullfighting is a non-starter, but running off to live in Paris, yes. Even though I’d be late to the party a hundred years, I’m sure people there must still get themselves into a pretty mess.