We are searching data for your request:
Upon completion, a link will appear to access the found materials.
Op 8 Julie 1918 word Ernest Hemingway, 'n 18-jarige ambulansbestuurder van die Amerikaanse Rooi Kruis, in die Eerste Wêreldoorlog deur 'n mortier getref terwyl hy op die Italiaanse front langs die Piave-delta diens gedoen het.
Hemingway, 'n boorling van Oak Park, Illinois, werk as verslaggewer vir die Kansas City Star toe oorlog in Europa in 1914 uitbreek. Hy het as vrywilliger by die Rooi Kruis in Frankryk aangesluit voor die Amerikaanse toetrede tot die oorlog in April 1917 en is later na die Italiaanse front oorgeplaas, waar hy gereed was vir 'n rits Italiaanse suksesse langs die Piave delta in die eerste dae van Julie 1918, waartydens 3 000 Oostenrykers gevange geneem is.
Die nag van 8 Julie 1918 is Hemingway deur 'n Oostenrykse mortierskulp getref terwyl hy sjokolade aan Italiaanse soldate uitgedeel het. Die slag het hom bewusteloos gemaak en in die grond van die uitgrawing begrawe; stukke skulp het sy regtervoet en sy knie binnegedring en teen sy dye, kopvel en hand getref. Twee Italiaanse soldate wat tussen Hemingway en die trefpunt van die dop gestaan het, was egter nie so gelukkig nie: een is op slag dood en 'n ander het albei sy bene afgeblaas en kort daarna gesterf.
Hemingway se vriend, Ted Brumbach, wat hom in die hospitaal besoek het, het aan Hemingway se ouers geskryf: ''n Derde Italianer is ernstig gewond en Ernest, nadat hy weer by sy bewussyn gekom het, het op sy rug opgetel en na die noodhulp geneem. sê hy het nie onthou hoe hy daar gekom het nie, en ook nie dat hy die man gedra het tot die volgende dag toe 'n Italiaanse offisier hom alles daarvan vertel en sê dat daar gestem is om hom 'n dapper medalje vir die daad te gee. " Soos Brumbach berig het, is Hemingway bekroon met 'n Italiaanse dapper medalje, die Croce de Guerra, vir sy diens. Soos hy na sy voorval in sy eie brief aan die huis geskryf het: "Alles is goed en ek is baie gemaklik en een van die beste chirurge in Milaan kyk na my wonde."
Die ervarings van Hemingway in Italië tydens die Eerste Wêreldoorlog sou 'n integrale deel van sy groter persoonlikheid word, sowel as die materiaal vir een van sy gewildste romans, 'N Afskeid van die wapen, wat die liefde van 'n jong Amerikaanse ambulansbestuurder beskryf vir 'n pragtige Engelse verpleegster aan die Italiaanse front tydens die Groot Oorlog.
LEES MEER: Was Ernest Hemingway 'n spioen?
'N Natuurgeskiedenis van die dooies
By die aankoms van die ammunisie -aanleg was sommige van ons besig om te patrolleer oor die groot voorraad ammunisie wat om een of ander rede nie ontplof het nie, terwyl ander 'n brand blus wat in die gras van 'n aangrensende veld beland het. afgesluit, is ons beveel om in die onmiddellike omgewing en omliggende velde na lyke te soek. Ons het 'n groot aantal hiervan gevind en na 'n geïmproviseerde lykshuis gebring, en ek moet eerlik erken dat dit 'n skok was dat hierdie dooies eerder vroue as mans was. In daardie dae het vroue nog nie begin om hul hare te sny nie, soos hulle later vir 'n paar jaar in Europa en Amerika gedoen het, en die mees verontrustende ding, miskien omdat dit die ongewoonste was, was die teenwoordigheid en, nog meer ontstellend, af en toe afwesigheid van hierdie lang hare.
Ek onthou dat ons fragmente bymekaargemaak het nadat ons deeglik na die volledige dooies gesoek het. Baie hiervan is losgemaak van 'n swaar doringdraadheining wat die posisie van die fabriek omring het en van die dele wat nog bestaan, en ons het baie van hierdie losstaande stukke gepluk, wat die geweldige energie van hoë plofstof maar te goed illustreer. Baie fragmente het ons 'n aansienlike afstand in die veld gevind, hulle word verder deur hul eie gewig gedra.
'N Natuurkundige, om akkuraatheid van waarneming te verkry, kan hom in sy waarnemings tot 'n beperkte tydperk beperk, en ek neem eerstens aan dat na die Oostenrykse offensief van Junie 1918 die dooie in hul grootste getal was, 'n terugtrekking gedwing en later 'n vooruitgang gemaak om die verlore grond te herstel, sodat die posisies na die geveg dieselfde was as voorheen behalwe vir die aanwesigheid van die dooies.
Totdat die dooies begrawe word, verander hulle elke dag ietwat in voorkoms. Die kleurverandering in Kaukasiese rasse is van wit na geel, tot geelgroen, tot swart. As die vleis lank genoeg in die hitte gelaat word, lyk dit soos steenkoolteer, veral waar dit gebreek of geskeur is, en dit het 'n baie sigbare teeragtige glans. Die dooies word elke dag groter totdat hulle soms te groot word vir hul uniforms, en dit vul totdat hulle styf genoeg waai om te bars. Die individuele lede kan tot 'n ongelooflike omvang toeneem en die gesigte is so styf en bolvormig soos ballonne.
Die verrassende, naas hul progressiewe korpulensie, is die hoeveelheid papier wat oor die dooies gestrooi is. Hul uiteindelike posisie, voordat daar sprake is van begrafnis, hang af van die plek van die sakke in die uniform. In die Oostenrykse weermag was hierdie sakke agter in die broek en die dooies het almal na 'n kort rukkie op hul gesigte gelê, die twee heupsakke uitgetrek en al die papiere wat hulle in hul sak gehad het, om hulle gestrooi vervat. Die hitte, die vlieë, die aanduidende posisies van die liggame in die gras en die hoeveelheid papier wat gestrooi word, is die indrukke wat 'n mens behou. Die reuk van 'n slagveld in warm weer kan 'n mens nie onthou nie. U kan onthou dat daar so 'n reuk was, maar niks gebeur met u om dit terug te bring nie.
Die eerste ding wat u van die dooies gevind het, was dat hulle, soos hulle erg getref is, soos diere dood is. Sommige vinnig uit 'n klein wondjie wat jy nie sou dink 'n haas sou doodmaak nie. Hulle het gesterf as gevolg van klein wonde, aangesien konyne soms sterf as gevolg van drie van vier klein skootkorrels wat skynbaar nie die vel breek nie. Ander sou sterf soos katte, 'n skedel wat ingebreek is en yster in die brein, hulle lê twee dae lewendig soos katte wat met 'n koeël in die brein in die steenkoolbak kruip en nie sal sterf voordat jy hulle koppe afsny nie. Miskien sterf katte dan nie, hulle sê dat hulle nege lewens het, ek weet nie, maar die meeste mans sterf soos diere, nie mans nie.
Die enigste natuurlike dood wat ek nog ooit gesien het, behalwe bloedverlies, wat nie erg is nie, was die dood as gevolg van Spaanse griep. Hierdeur verdrink u in slym, verstik, en weet u hoe die pasiënt dood is: op die ou end word hy weer 'n klein kind, alhoewel met sy manlike krag, en vul die lakens so vol soos enige luier met 'n groot, finale , geel katarak wat vloei en dribbel nadat hy weg is.
Dit was nie altyd warm weer vir die dooies nie, maar die reën was die meeste reën wat hulle skoon gewas het toe hulle daarin gelê het en die aarde sag gemaak het toe hulle daarin begrawe was, en soms aangehou totdat die aarde modder was en was hulle uit en jy moes hulle weer begrawe. Of in die winter in die berge moes jy hulle in die sneeu sit en as die sneeu in die lente smelt, moes iemand anders dit begrawe.
Hulle het pragtige begraafplase in die berge gehad, oorlog in die berge is die mooiste van alle oorlog, en in een van hulle, op 'n plek genaamd Pocol, begrawe hulle 'n generaal wat deur 'n skerpskutter deur die kop geskiet is. Dit is die plek waar die skrywers verkeerd is wat boeke skryf Generaals sterf in die bedomdat hierdie generaal dood is in 'n sloot wat in die sneeu gegrawe is, hoog in die berge, met 'n alpiene hoed met 'n arendveer daarin en 'n gat voor, kan jy nie jou pinkie daarin steek nie en 'n gat agterin kan jy jou vuis in, as dit 'n klein vuis was en jy dit daar wou sit, en baie bloed in die sneeu.
Primêre bronne
(1) Ernest Hemingway skryf later oor sy ervarings tydens die Eerste Wêreldoorlog met die Rooi Kruis.
'N Mens raak so gewoond daaraan dat al die dooie mans is dat die gesig van 'n dooie vrou nogal skokkend is. Ek het die eerste keer omgekeer van die gewone geslag van die dooies na die ontploffing van 'n ammunisiefabriek wat op die platteland naby Milaan geleë was. Ons het met vragmotors langs die paaie in die skaduwee na die ongelukstoneel gery. By die aankoms van die ammunisie -aanleg was sommige van ons besig om te patrolleer oor die groot voorraad ammunisie wat om een of ander rede nie ontplof het nie, terwyl ander 'n brand blus wat in die gras van 'n aangrensende veld beland het. tot die gevolgtrekking gekom het, is ons beveel om lyke in die onmiddellike omgewing en omliggende velde te soek. Ons het 'n groot aantal hiervan gevind en na 'n geïmproviseerde lykshuis gebring, en ek moet eerlik erken dat die skok was dat die dooies eerder vroue as mans was.
(2) Ernest Hemingway is in Julie 1918 ernstig gewond terwyl hy op die voorste linie in Italië was.
Daar was 'n flits, soos wanneer 'n hoogoonddeur oopgeswaai word, en 'n brul wat wit begin word en rooi word. Ek het probeer asemhaal, maar my asem wou nie kom nie. Die grond is geskeur en voor my kop was daar 'n versplinterde houtstraal. In my kopstoot hoor ek iemand huil. Ek het die masjiengewere en gewere oor die rivier hoor skiet. Ek het probeer beweeg, maar ek kon nie beweeg nie.
(3) Ernest Hemingway is op 11 Mei 1937 ondervra deur 'n verteenwoordiger van die Spanish Press Agency.
Alle burgeroorloë is van nature lank. Dit neem maande, soms jare, om 'n oorlogsorganisasie van voor en agter te stig en duisende vurige burgerlikes in soldate te verander. En hierdie transformasie kan slegs plaasvind deur die lewenservaring van die geveg te beleef. As u hierdie fundamentele reël nalaat, loop u die risiko om 'n valse idee te kry van die karakter van die Spaanse burgeroorlog.
'N Groot aantal Amerikaanse koerante, weliswaar te goeder trou, het nie lank gelede aan hul lesers die indruk gewek dat die regering die oorlog verloor weens sy militêre minderwaardigheid by die uitbreek van die konflik nie. Die fout van hierdie Amerikaanse koerante was om die karakter van die burgeroorlog te verwar, en nie die logiese gevolgtrekkings uit die geskiedenis van die Amerikaanse burgeroorlog daaruit af te lei nie.
Die Spaanse militêre situasie, na die bemoedigende dae van Maart, het deurgaans verbeter. 'N Nuwe gereelde leër neem vorm aan, 'n model van dissipline en moed, en wat in die geheim nuwe kaders in die militêre akademie en skole ontwikkel. Ek glo opreg dat hierdie nuwe leër, gebore uit die stryd, binnekort die bewondering van die hele Europa sal wees, ondanks die feit dat die Spaanse weermag skaars twee jaar gelede as 'n groep mense beskou is wat soos akteurs in 'n komiese opera lyk.
As oorlogskorrespondent moet ek sê dat 'n joernalis in min lande sy taak in so 'n mate vind as in Republikeinse Spanje, waar 'n joernalis werklik die waarheid kan vertel en waar die sensuur hom in sy werk help, eerder as om hom te belemmer. Terwyl die owerhede in die rebellegebied nie toelaat dat joernaliste dae later in verowerde stede ingaan nie, word joernaliste in Republikeinse Spanje gevra om ooggetuies te wees van gebeure.
(4) Alvah Bessie, Mans in die stryd (1939)
By Ebro. die land was so bergagtig dat dit gelyk het asof 'n paar masjiengewere 'n miljoen mense kon afskrik. Ons kom terug, klim langs sypaaie, kruispad, deur klein dorpies, en op 'n heuwel naby Rasquera kry ons drie van ons manne: George Watt en John Gates (destyds adjudant brigade kommissaris), Joe Hecht. Hulle lê op die grond toegedraai in komberse onder die komberse, hulle was kaal. Hulle het ons vertel dat hulle die oggend vroeg die Ebro geswem het dat ander mans geswem en verdrink het dat hulle niks van Merriman of Doran weet nie, en gedink hulle is gevange geneem. Hulle was in Gandesa, was daar afgesny, het uitgeveg, in die nag gereis, deur artillerie geruk. U kon sien dat hulle huiwerig was om te praat, en daarom het ons net saam met hulle gaan sit. Joe lyk dood.
Onder ons was daar honderde manne van die Britte, die Kanadese bataljons wat 'n voedselvragmotor opgedaag het, en hulle is gevoed. 'N Nuwe Matford roadster het om die heuwel gery en naby ons stilgehou, en twee mans het uitgeklim wat ons herken het. Die een was lank, maer, geklee in bruin kordoen, met 'n horingvormige bril. Hy het 'n lang, asketiese gesig, ferm lippe, 'n somber blik op hom. Die ander een was langer, swaar, rooi van gesig, een van die grootste mans wat jy ooit sal sien, hy het 'n staalraambril en 'n bosagtige snor gedra. Dit was Herbert Matthews van Die New York Times en Ernest Hemingway, en hulle was net so verlig om ons te sien as om hulle te sien. Ons stel onsself voor en hulle vra vrae. Hulle het sigarette gehad wat hulle vir ons Lucky Strikes en Chesterfields gegee het. Dit blyk dat Matthews permanent bitter was.
Hemingway was gretig as kind, en ek glimlag toe ek die eerste keer wat ek hom gesien het, onthou tydens 'n Writers 'Congress in New York. Hy het sy eerste toespraak gehou, en toe dit nie reg gelees het nie, het hy kwaad geword daarvoor en herhaal die sinne wat hy vroetel het, met buitengewone heftigheid. Nou was hy soos 'n groot kind, en jy het van hom gehou. Hy vra vrae soos 'n kind: & quotWat dan? Wat het toe gebeur? En wat het jy gedoen? En wat het hy gesê? En wat het u dan gedoen? & Quot Matthews sê niks, maar hy neem aantekeninge op 'n gevoude vel papier. "Wat is jou naam?" sê Hemingway, ek het hom gesê. 'O,' het hy gesê, 'ek is vreeslik bly om jou te sien, ek het jou goed gelees. gehoop hy het hulle vergeet, of nooit gelees nie. '' Hier, '' het hy gesê en strek in sy sak. "Ek het meer." Hy het vir my 'n pak Lucky Strikes gegee.
(5) Ernest Hemingway, toespraak tydens 'n vergadering van die Writers 'Congress (4 Julie 1937)
'N Skrywer se probleem verander nie. Hy verander self, maar sy probleem bly dieselfde. Dit is altyd hoe om werklik te skryf en te vind wat waar is, om dit so te projekteer dat dit deel word van die ervaring van die persoon wat dit lees. Regtig goeie skrywers word altyd beloon onder bykans enige bestaande regeringstelsel wat hulle kan verdra. Daar is slegs een regeringsvorm wat nie goeie skrywers kan produseer nie, en die stelsel is fascisme. Want fascisme is 'n leuen wat deur boelies vertel word. 'N Skrywer wat nie lieg nie, kan nie onder fascisme leef en werk nie.
(6) Mary Rolfe was tydens die Spaanse Burgeroorlog in Spanje. Sy het 'n brief aan Leo Hurwitz geskryf oor haar ervarings op 25 November 1938.
Hemingway was 'n paar dae hier - maar as jy hom eers ontmoet het, sal jy hom waarskynlik nie vergeet nie. Die dag toe hy kom, was ek effens siek, maar Ed het opgestaan en my uit die bed opgestaan om hom te ontmoet. Toe ek in die kamer kom waar hy was, het hy aan 'n tafel gesit en ek was nie voorbereid op die groot reus wat hy is nie. Ek het amper op my tone gekom om sy uitgestrekte hand te bereik - ek het dit nie nodig gehad nie, maar dit was my eerste reaksie. Hy is fantasties - nie net lank nie, maar groot - in kop, lyf, hande. "Hallo", het hy gesê - na my gekyk en daarna na Ed en gesê: "Julle is seker dat julle nie broer en suster is nie?" wat beteken - "wat 'n paar ligharige, bleek, maer kinders!" toe ons terugry na die hotel van êrens van sy korrespondensie met Freddy Keller - hoe hy vir Freddy gesê het hy het goeie dinge, maar hy moet studeer - moet hy homself opvoed en boonop Marx studeer. Dit is wat hy die hele winter in Key West gedoen het, het hy ons vertel - anders het hy gesê, jy is 'n sukkelaar - jy weet niks voordat jy Marx bestudeer het nie. Dit alles in kort ruk sinne - sonder poging tot leestekens. Voordat hy vertrek, het hy die res van sy voorraad vir ons gegee - nie in 'n gebaar nie, maar net vir ons gegee omdat hy geweet het dat ons dit nodig het en omdat hy dit vir ons wou gee. Ek is nog steeds 'n bietjie ontsteld oor die grootte van hom - hy is regtig 'n vreeslike groot man!
(7) Na die Spaanse burgeroorlog skryf Ernest Hemingway oor die rol van die Internasionale Brigades.
Die dooies slaap vanaand koud in Spanje. Sneeu waai deur die olyfboorde en sif teen die boomwortels. Sneeu dryf oor die heuwels met klein kopstukke. Want ons dooies is nou 'n deel van die aarde van Spanje en die aarde van Spanje kan nooit sterf nie. Dit lyk asof dit elke winter doodgaan en elke lente weer lewendig word. Ons dooies sal vir ewig daarmee saamleef.
Meer as 40 000 vrywilligers uit 52 lande het tussen 1936 en 1939 na Spanje gestroom om deel te neem aan die historiese stryd tussen demokrasie en fascisme, bekend as die Spaanse Burgeroorlog.
Vyf brigades van internasionale vrywilligers het geveg namens die demokraties verkose Republikeinse (of lojalistiese) regering. Die meeste van die Noord-Amerikaanse vrywilligers dien in die eenheid wat bekend staan as die 15de brigade, wat die Abraham Lincoln-bataljon, die George Washington-bataljon en die (grotendeels Kanadese) Mackenzie-Papineau-bataljon insluit. In totaal het ongeveer 2800 Amerikaners, 1,250 Kanadese en 800 Kubane in die Internasionale Brigades gedien. Meer as 80 van die Amerikaanse vrywilligers was Afro-Amerikaners. Trouens, die Lincoln-bataljon was onder leiding van Oliver Law, 'n Afro-Amerikaner uit Chicago, totdat hy in die geveg gesterf het.
(8) Ernest Hemingway, Onder die rif (1938)
Dit was 'n helder April -dag en die wind waai woes sodat elke muil wat in die gaping kom, 'n stofwolk oplig, en die twee manne aan die punte van 'n draagbaar elkeen 'n stofwolk wat saam waai en een maak, en onder, oor die plat, trek lang strome stof uit die ambulanse en waai weg in die wind.
Ek was baie seker dat ek nie op daardie dag doodgemaak sou word nie, aangesien ons die oggend goed gedoen het, en twee keer gedurende die vroeë deel van die aanval moes ons doodgemaak gewees het, en dit het my vertroue gegee . Die eerste keer was toe ons met die tenks opgegaan het en 'n plek gekies het om die aanval te verfilm. Later het ek skielik wantroue vir die plek gehad en ons het die kameras ongeveer tweehonderd meter na links geskuif. Net voordat ek vertrek het, het ek die plek op die oudste manier gemerk om 'n plek te merk, en binne tien minute het 'n dop van ses duim aangesteek op die presiese plek waar ek was, en daar was geen spoor van 'n mens ooit nie daar gewees het. In plaas daarvan was daar 'n groot en duidelik geblaasde gat in die aarde.
Twee uur later het 'n Poolse offisier, onlangs losgemaak van die bataljon en verbonde aan die personeel, aangebied om ons die posisies te wys wat die Pole pas ingeneem het, en onder die lee van 'n heuwelvlug gekom, het ons ingestap masjiengeweervuur wat ons van onder af moes uitkruip met ons kane styf teen die grond en stof in ons neuse, en terselfdertyd die hartseer ontdekking gemaak dat die Pole daardie dag glad nie posisies ingeneem het nie, maar 'n entjie verder was terug as die plek waarvandaan hulle begin het. En nou, in die skuiling van die loopgraaf, was ek nat van die sweet, honger en dors en hol van binne van die nou klaargemaakte gevaar van die aanval.
(9) Alvah Bessie, Mans in die stryd (1939)
Ernest Hemingway het op 2 Julie 1961 selfmoord gepleeg. Hy het blykbaar gevoel dat hy klaar is - as skrywer en as man. Sy toewyding aan die saak van die Spaanse Republiek is nooit bevraagteken nie, al val die VALB -manne sy roman, For Whom the Bell Toll, aan as 'n stukkie romantiese nonsens as dit nie lasterlik was van baie Spaanse leiers wat ons almal eerbiedig het nie, en skaars verteenwoordigend was. waaroor die oorlog gegaan het.
& kopieer John Simkin, April 2013
Vandag in die geskiedenis: Ernest Hemingway word gebore
Ernest Hemingway (21 Julie 1899, 2 Julie 1961) was een van Amerika se gewildste skrywers. Sy ekonomiese styl het 'n sterk invloed op die 20ste-eeuse fiksie gehad. Hemingway het die meeste van sy werk tussen die middel van die 1920's en die middel van die 1950's vervaardig en die Nobelprys vir letterkunde in 1954 gewen. Hy het sewe romans, ses kortverhaalbundels en twee nie-fiksie-werke gepubliseer. Nog drie romans, vier kortverhaalbundels en drie nie-fiksie-werke is postuum gepubliseer. Baie van sy werke word as Amerikaanse klassieke beskou.
Alhoewel hy gereeld gekritiseer word vir sy sterk hypermasculinisme, met stamme van homofobie en antisemitisme in sy skryfwerk, identifiseer hy hom in die algemeen met die progressiewe politieke neigings van sy tyd en reken hy baie skrywers en intellektuele links as kollegas en vriende.
Toe 'n 18-jarige Hemingway na die Italiaanse front vertrek om by die Eerste Wêreldoorlog ambulansbestuurders aan te meld. In 1918 is hy ernstig gewond en terug huis toe. Sy oorlogservarings vorm die basis vir sy roman uit 1929 'N Afskeid van die wapen. As u as seun oorlog toe gaan, het u 'n groot illusie van onsterflikheid, het Hemingway van die voorval gesê. Ander mense word vermoor, nie jy nie … As jy dan die eerste keer erg gewond raak, verloor jy die illusie en jy weet dat dit met jou kan gebeur. ”
In 1921, nou getroud met die eerste van sy uiteindelike vier vroue, verhuis hy na Parys, waar hy as korrespondent werk en by die modernistiese skrywers en kunstenaars van die 1920's “Lost Generation ” uitgeweke gemeenskap aangesluit het. Hy publiseer sy eerste roman, Die son kom ook op, in 1926, wat deur baie kritici as sy beste werk beskou word. Die fokus is die Spaanse stiergevegskultuur.
Tydens die Spaanse burgeroorlog (1936-39) reis Hemingway as joernalis na Spanje. Laat in 1937, terwyl hy in Madrid was, skryf Hemingway sy enigste toneelstuk, Die vyfde kolom, terwyl die stad gebombardeer word. Hy werk saam met die komponiste Marc Blitzstein en Virgil Thomson en filmmaker Joris Ivens aan 'n geldinsamelingsfilm vir die Spaanse lojaliste genaamd Die Spaanse aarde. Terug in Spanje in 1938 was hy teenwoordig by die Slag van die Ebro, die laaste republikeinse stand, en was hy een van die laaste joernaliste wat die geveg verlaat het toe hulle die rivier oorgesteek het. In Augustus 1939 was Hemingway een van 400 Amerikaanse intellektuele wat 'n ope brief onderteken het vir alle aktiewe ondersteuners van demokrasie en vrede, wat verklaar dat die reaksionêre die fantastiese leuen wat die USSR en die totalitêre state aangemoedig het is in wese dieselfde
Nadat die Spaanse oorlog geëindig het, het hy geskryf Vir wie die klok lui (1940), wat 'n Book-of-the-Month Club-keuse geword het, het binne maande 'n halfmiljoen eksemplare verkoop en gehelp om die literêre reputasie van die skrywer te laat herleef.
In 1939 kruis Hemingway in sy boot van sy huis in Key West na Kuba. Met sy binnekort nuwe vrou, Martha Gellhorn, huur hy “Finca Vigia ” (Lookout Farm), 'n eiendom van 15 hektaar, 15 myl van Havana af. Hy het dit later vir sy winterkoshuis gekoop. Dit het berug geraak vir die tientalle katte wat hy toegelaat het om daar rond te loop en te teel.
Hemingway was tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog in Londen, teenwoordig by die landings in Normandië en die bevryding van Parys in 1944.
Kort na die publikasie van Die ou man en die see (1952), in Kuba, wat hom die Pulitzer -prys besorg het, is Hemingway op safari na Afrika, waar hy byna dood is in twee opeenvolgende vliegtuigongelukke wat hom die grootste deel van sy oorblywende lewe in pyn of swak gesondheid gelaat het.
Na die rewolusie het Hemingway op maklike voet met die regering gebly en aan die New York Times gesê dat hy baie bly was met die omverwerping van Castro van die diktator Fulgencio Batista. Hy het beroemd saam met Fidel Castro op visvanguitstappies gegaan. In Julie 1960 verlaat die Hemingways vir die laaste keer Kuba en laat kuns en manuskripte in 'n bankkluis in Havana. Na die 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, in ooreenstemming met die beleid om die Amerikaanse eiendom in Kuba te nasionaliseer, is die Finca Vigia deur die Kubaanse regering onteien, kompleet met 'n versameling van 'n paar duisend boeke deur Hemingway. Die Finca is vandag 'n gewilde toeristebestemming. Die Kubaanse regering het die afgelope jaar reëlings getref met Amerikaanse akademiese instellings om die Kubaanse papiere van Hemingway te fotokopieer en aan geleerdes beskikbaar te stel.
In 1959 het hy 'n huis in Ketchum, Idaho, gekoop, waar hy in 1961 nog steeds met pyn en depressie gepleeg het.
Aangepas uit Wikipedia en ander bronne.
Foto: Hemingway (middel) met die Nederlandse filmmaker Joris Ivens en die Duitse skrywer Ludwig Renn (dien as 'n Internasionale Brigades -offisier) in Spanje tydens die Spaanse Burgeroorlog, 1937. | Wikimedia (CC)
The Old Man and the Sea (en sy Tommy Gun)
Hemingway & ldquofishing & rdquo met sy Thompson -masjiengeweer.
Ernest Hemingway en lsquos beroemde werk, die Ou man en die see, is moontlik lewensliker as wat u weet. Dit lyk asof die sportman/skrywer sy eie inloop gehad het met 'n pak haaie oor 'n ontsaglike halfton marlyn. Min het hulle geweet van die Heming-manier sluit in die verpakking van 'n Thompson -masjiengeweer in die boks.
Die oorspronklike & lsquo Mees interessante mens ter wêreld & rsquo
Ernest Miller Hemingway, gebore in die laaste ses maande van 1899, was blykbaar in 'n lewenslange kompetisie om elke plek op sy manskaart af te druk. Op 18 -jarige ouderdom is hy tydens die Eerste Wêreldoorlog aan die Italiaanse front gewond terwyl hy as ambulansbestuurder gedien het. Hy dien later as oorlogskorrespondent in nie minder nie as drie werklike lewendige skietoorloë, selfs in 1944 'n blaaskans om 'n aanval op 'n Duitse posisie te organiseer deur
Ten spyte daarvan dat Drunken spog, was die bekendste visverhale van Hemingway en rsquos gebaseer op ervarings uit die werklike lewe.
Franse verset in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog 2. Hy was 'n amateur -bokser en borg sy eie weergawe van moeilike manskompetisies, en bied $ 50 aan almal wat die afstand in die ring met hom kon doen. Hy en Orson Welles het selfs 'n geïmproviseerde stryd om die baard gehad oor 'n meningsverskil wat gelei het tot supermanstampe en gebreekte stoele in WWE-styl, wat later oor whisky gelap is.
Pappa het weggekom van kwasvure, sinkende skepe, vyf motorongelukke en nie minder nie as twee afsonderlike vliegtuigongelukke in Afrika, waarvan een met 'n verlamde sfinkter en lekkende serebrale vloeistof gelaat het. Hy was 'n jagter en hengelaar en het die planeet verken deur pelagiese vis van groot wild te vang, sowel as die moeilikste diere op verskeie kontinente.
Hemingway met leeu op safari.
As hy andersins nie oorloë behandel, vis vang of vier keer trou nie, skryf hy ook in (sewe romans, ses kortverhaalbundels en twee nie-fiksiewerk) wat hom in 1954 die Nobelprys vir letterkunde besorg.
Hemingway en bekroonde marlyn.
Die vis
Bo en behalwe al hierdie legendariese avonture, gebeur een van die interessantste gebeurtenisse wat met Hem gebeur het, in 1935. Destyds was hy besig om rond te ry in Key West, Kuba en die Bimini-eilande in sy trots en vreugde, die kajuitvaartuig van 38 voet. Pilar, vernoem na een van sy vroue. Hy jaag die grootste monsters onder die see in hierdie boot en wen diepseeviskompetisies regoor die Karibiese Eilande. Net 'n paar jaar tevore het hy nie minder nie as 52 marlyn alleen gevang. In die warm lente en somer van & rsquo35 het Hemingway en 'n vriend, skilder Henry (& ldquoMike & rdquo) Strater 86 dae agtereenvolgens op see deurgebring, en hulle het niks daarvoor te wys nie. Toe het hulle gebyt.
Ernest Hemingway en aan boord van die Pilar in 1935.
Hemingway en sy M1921 Tommy Gun (verlaat nooit die wal sonder een nie).
Op die Strater & rsquos -lyn het hulle 'n leviathan -vis, meer as 14 voet lank, na die oppervlak gebring. Dit was 'n reuse marlyn. Nietemin, voor die twee die vis kon inbring, lyk dit asof haaie die moeë snawelvis aanval. Hemingway, in 'n poging om die haaie weg te slaan, gryp sy sy betroubare Thompson -masjiengeweer (wat hy altyd saamgeneem het see toe) en begin deurdring na die seewolwe met koeëls. Met die skeuring van .45 ACP-ronde in die water met 'n maksimum van 850 rondes per minuut, het Hem die see opgestoot, 'n aantal haaie getref en hul bloed by die vinnig groeiende tjommedammetjie gevoeg. Dit het weer meer haaie ingebring, net so seker as om 'n aandete te lui.
Toe die vis uiteindelik in die boot gebring word, was dit 'n appelkern en die hele helfte van die wesens is van elke stukkie vleis tot by die ruggraat gestroop. Toe dit land, was dit 14 voet, 6 duim lank en weeg dit nog steeds ongeveer 560 pond. Daar word beraam dat as die agterste helfte nie verbruik is nie, dit amper 'n halwe ton of meer sou wees, wat 'n plaaslike rekord vir Bimini sou gewees het.
Die marlyn van 1000 pond, wat 'n moderne klassieke in Amerikaanse letters geïnspireer het.
Pa & rsquos Tommy Gun
Hemingway & rsquos Thompson Model 1921A, met die afneembare boude, voorste pistoolgreep, is gemaak deur die Auto-Ordnance Corporation. In die dae voor die NFA van 1934 was dit heeltemal wettig vir enige burger om een van hierdie gewere posbestelling te koop sonder belastingstempels, vingerafdrukke, CLEO -handtekeninge of dies meer.
Die Thompson -subgeweer, Hemingway, was die model van 1921 soos hierdie. U kan dit aan die vatvinne, die agterste blik en die gebrek aan Cutts -kompensator op die snuit sien.
Hemingway poseer saam met kolonel.
Volgens die legende het die skrywer dit in 'n kansspel van die multi-miljoenêr William B. Leeds gekry. Die spesifieke geweer van Hem & rsquos het die vroeë styl van lsquopre-1926 en rsquo met sy radiale koelvinne, op 'n vat van 10,5 duim sonder Cutts Compensator. Hierdie vroeë modelle het 'n baie hoër vuurtempo as die Tommy Guns van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog, sowel as 'n pragtige pasvorm en afwerking. Dit lyk asof Hemingway die tydskrif van 20 ronde verkies het vir sy akkuraatheid eerder as die tromme van 50 en 100 ronde wat beskikbaar was en meer ikonies. Baie Tommy -geweergebruikers het opgemerk dat die trommeltuie die wapen ongebalanseerd gemaak het en dat die skouer akkuraat skiet as gevolg van die vreemde hoek waarin dit die ondersteuningshand gedwing het. Hemingway het blykbaar ingestem.
Hemingway en seun Jack wag vir 'n peusel aan die Pilar. Let op die groot grootte van die spoel (en Tommy -geweer).
Die Verhaal
Die skrywer het die ervaring van hierdie epiese visvangreis in verskeie fiksiewerke verdeel. Die roman Eilande in die Stroom, sowel as sy latere werk, Die ou man en die see, het grootliks put uit die lewe van Papa Hemingway en rsquos op die water, insluitend hierdie voorval. Soos u kan onthou uit hoërskoolklasse, in Die ou man en die see, die held, Santiago, vang 'n enorme marlyn, die grootste wat hy nog ooit gesien het, net om dit deur 'n pak haaie te laat appelkern terwyl hy dit hopeloos probeer wegslaan.
Hemingway self het eenkeer oor die skryf gesê: 'Alle goeie boeke is dieselfde omdat hulle meer waar is as dat hulle werklik gebeur het, en nadat jy een gelees het, sal jy voel dat alles wat met jou gebeur het en daarna alles aan jou behoort: die goeie en die slegte, die ekstase, die berou en die smart, die mense en die plekke en hoe die weer was. As u dit kan kry sodat u dit aan mense kan gee, dan is u 'n skrywer. & Rdquo
Ons hier by Guns.com kon nie meer saamstem nie.
Epiloog
Pappa het nooit die u-boot gevang nie.
Strater en Hemingway het op slegte voet geskei, met albei hul eie harde gevoelens oor die verlies van (die helfte) van so 'n pragtige vis. Hemingway het die res van sy lewe in Kuba gebly, behalwe die Tweede Wêreldoorlog en 'n safari van 10 weke na Afrika. Van WO II gepraat, die sportman het aangebied om die Pilar op patrollies tydens die oorlog in die Straat van Florida op soek na Duitse U-Boats wat in 1942 byna elke dag besig was om skepe te sink. daarvoor en helliphis hierdie tommy gun.
Young Mr. Hemingway in Italy
In the winter and spring of 1918, Ernest Hemingway churned out several feature stories for The Kansas City Star about military recruiting campaigns. The Navy, the Tank Corps, and even the British had set up local offices to seek troops after the United States joined its allies in Europe.
Hemingway at the time was a recent high school graduate who had landed a reporting job in Kansas City in lieu of going to college or enlisting. At 18, he was too young to join without parental permission, but he talked a lot about getting into the war, a desire he expressed in several letters to his sister Marcelline. After arriving in Kansas City in mid-October 1917, he joined the Missouri Guard and even trained at Swope Park. Further military service was not in the cards, but a Kansas City friendship led him down another path toward serving in the war. In February 1918, the American Red Cross announced it was seeking volunteers to join the ambulance service in Italy. Hemingway most likely heard about this directly from Dell D. Dutton, who ran the Red Cross office in Kansas City.
Hemingway had learned much about the wartime ambulance corps from Theodore Brumback. The son of a prominent judge, Brumback had spent five months as an ambulance driver in the war-ravaged countryside of northern France. Hemingway met Brumback on the latter’s return to Kansas City in November 1917 and interviewed him in The Star’s newsroom. Brumback eventually wrote a lengthy, action-filled account of his dangerous posting in France, which appeared in the newspaper in February 1918, about the time the young men volunteered. Hemingway finished his reporting job at the end of April, returned home to Oak Park briefly and corresponded with Brumback about their forthcoming mission to Italy.
Hemingway, Brumback and their fellow volunteers spent two weeks training and sightseeing in New York. After an Atlantic crossing aboard a grimy French steamship and fleeting stops in Bordeaux and Paris, Hemingway arrived in Milan in early June 1918. An unexpected assignment turned up immediately. Hemingway and others were sent to the gruesome site of a munitions plant explosion a dozen miles outside Milan. Bodies and body parts were strewn everywhere. “We carried them in like at the General Hospital, Kansas City,” the young man reported on a postcard he sent back to his former colleagues at The Star. Despite the horrific detail of his “baptism of fire,” which Hemingway detailed years later (“A Natural History of the Dead”), he couldn’t hide his enthusiasm over arriving in Italy: “Having a wonderful time. ”
The next day Hemingway and Brumback were split up and sent to different sections of the Red Cross service. Hemingway landed in Schio, 150 miles northeast of Milan in a valley below the Dolomite Mountains. There is little evidence to suggest that Hemingway actually drove an ambulance during his stint there. Hemingway, in fact, expressed a sense of boredom, because there wasn’t enough to do. In mid-June, hostilities resumed as Austro-German forces began an offensive along a wide stretch of the Piave River. Italian defenses stiffened and casualties mounted throughout the rain-drenched countryside. When an opportunity to get closer to the action arose later in June, Hemingway eagerly signed on. He left the relative quiet of his ambulance unit and took over a rolling canteen operation near the villages of Fornaci and Fossalta. As he reported to his mother in a letter that year, the change gave him yet more wartime experience: “I have glimpsed the making of large gobs of history during the Great Battle of the Piave and have been all along the Front From the mountains to the Sea.”
Hemingway’s daily routine at Fossalta involved handing out coffee, chocolate, cigarettes and postcards to Italian soldiers in the trench, about 20 yards off the Piave. Rather than a motorized vehicle, Hemingway traveled by bicycle. Hemingway observed snipers in action. He saw and felt artillery blasts in the night. Then, on the night of July 8, 1918, an Austrian Minenwerfer mortar shell screamed through the darkness and exploded just feet away from Hemingway. It killed an Italian soldier, wounded others and blasted Hemingway unconscious. Two hundred twenty-seven shards of metal pierced his flesh, and Hemingway ended up spending most of the rest of the war in the American Red Cross hospital in Milan.
Hemingway’s hospital experience is a thing of legend. There was booze and there was an epic love affair that lasted weeks beyond the Armistice. Hemingway immortalized his relationship with the Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky years later in A Farewell to Arms. About 10 years his senior, she wrote it off as innocent puppy love, and when she finally broke it off, after Hemingway returned to the states, he was devastated.
By the end of 1918 Hemingway received an Italian medal of valor for having served in his supporting role with honor. He also earned an Italian war cross, apparently in recognition that Hemingway served during an Italian campaign in the mountains in late October. That appearance ended quickly when Hemingway came down with a case of jaundice and returned to the hospital.
Hemingway’s experiences in Italy, including the physical therapy that continued into December 1918, contributed to at least two of his future novels and several pieces of short fiction. Most notable are the novel A Farewell to Arms and three short stories set in Italy and featuring Nick Adams, who is often read as Hemingway’s alter-ego – “Now I Lay Me,” “In Another Country” and “A Way You’ll Never Be.”
Debates continue among scholars about the aura of heroism that accrued around Hemingway following his wounding. Did the teen-ager, still only eighteen years old, really carry a wounded Italian on his shoulders to safety through a hail of machine-gun bullets? Very unlikely. But as with much of the Hemingway legend, in Italy and beyond, it makes for a compelling tale.
First Person: The Hemingway I Remember
By Bill Horne 1913, as told to Virginia Kleitz Moseley
(From the Nov. 11, 1979, issue of PAW)
In May 1918, I went to New York City to report as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy. The U.S. had entered the war in Europe but would have no troops ready for another month, so the Red Cross was sending ambulance sections, with huge American flags painted on the sides, as a way of telling the Allies, “Boys, we’re with you!” Among the 120 drivers recruited from all over the country—mostly the halt, the half-blind like me, the too young and too old—was a handsome, 18-year-old giant named Ernest Hemingway. He had signed up in Kansas City, where he was a cub reporter for the Ster.
We sailed on the French Line ship Chicago, said to be U-boat proof because the spies went back and forth on it. During the ten-day crossing, Ernie and I became good friends. We landed at Bordeaux the day the enemy was stopped at Belleau Wood, and all of us got high on the native product. Though honorary second lieutenants in the Italian Army, we were just kids, and getting half a bottle of wine into you was pretty serious business. We took the nighttrain to Paris and were received as persona grata. We were even saluted by French generals!
From Paris we proceeded to the American Red Cross headquarters in Milan. After a few days, we were sent to five stations, or sections, about 20 miles behind the mountain front. Our ambulances would fan out from the town of Schio at the west end of the Italian-Austrian line, and we’d cover our sectors a little east of Lake Garda, bringing in the wounded. By great good fortune I was assigned with Hemingway, Fred Spiegel, Larry Barnett, Jerry Flaherty, and “Little Fever” Jenkins to Section IV, which we came to call the “Schio Country Club.” For nearly 60 years they were my dearest friends but now all are gone except me.
In early June, during a lull on our end of the front, an officer came through, recruiting men to go to the Piave River. There the offensive was hot, and men were needed to run the canteens. Everyone from Section IV volunteered, and eight were chosen, including Ernie and me. I was dropped at the 68th Brigata Fanleria, San Pedro Novello, one of the little villages, and Ernie went to Fossalta.
We lived in a half-blown-apart house and no one brought us supplies to dole out. Ernie grew restless, so he borrowed a bike and pedaled to the front. He was at an advanced listening post—a hole in the ground—when the Austrians discovered it and sent over a Minenwerfer. It landed right smack on target. One man was killed, another badly hurt, and Ernie was hit by shell fragments. He dragged out his wounded companion, hoisted him on his back, and headed for the trenches 100 yards away. The Austrians turned their machine guns on him and he took a slug under one knee and another in the ankle, but he made it.
Ernie lay in a surgical post until another ambulance driver came along and identified him. They took him to the front-line dressing station, then to the Red Cross hospital in Milan. That’s where he met Agnes von Kurowsky, an American volunteer nurse. They fell in love and planned to be married.
After the Piave line became stable, I returned to Schio and relative calm until late fall, when the Allies started the Vittorio Veneto offensive at the Adriatic mountain end of the line. One night I drove our N.8 Fiat to Bassano to see Ernie, and we had a jolly time together. Later, he got jaundice and was returned to Milan. Meanwhile, I went to the front line atop Mt. Grappa and had a steady week of carrying wounded until the battle was over. In November, the war in Italy ended.
It took only a few days for the Red Cross to say, “Break ’em up and send ’em home.” The difference between war and peace was like night and day, with no dawn in between. After a short leave, I picked up my footlocker at Section IV and six of us left for the U.S. on the French liner Lorraine. Ernie remained behind in the Milan hospital. They had taken out 250 pieces of metal and were giving him muscular therapy.
He sailed on the Guiseppe Verdi shortly after New Year’s 1919, wiring me the time of arrival. I met the boat, and he was a darn dramatic sight: over six feet tall, wearing a Bersagliere hat with great cock feathers, enormous officer’s cape lined with red satin, a British-style tunic with ribbons of the Valor Medal and Italian War Cross, and a limp! Die New York Times carried a front-page story and a picture headlined, “Most Wounded Hero Returns Today.” Heads turned as we walked uptown to the Plaza to meet my best girl for tea. When she saw Ernie, she hardly even said hello to me.
Ernie stayed with me a few days in Yonkers before returning home to Oak Park and a hero’s welcome. That spring while he was adjusting to being back and trying to write at his parents’ summer place in Michigan, he received a letter from Agnes, who was still in Italy. She wasn’t going to marry him. Ernie was heartbroken.
It was two years before Ernie and I got together again. I was in Chicago, terribly miscast selling axles, but I was making $200 a month. So I wrote Ernie, suggesting he let me grubstake him while he became a writer. I thought he had talent, though I had no idea how much. He was a dear friend, still sad about Ag, wanted to come to the city and write, but needed money to live on. With my fabulous salary and $900 savings, I was feeling rich—we could live on that a long time.
He wired that he was coming, and a week later we had a happy reunion. We rented a fourth-floor room in a house at 1230 N. State Street. It was the kind with a washstand in the corner and a bath down the hall. Meals weren’t included, so we usually ate at Kitso’s, a Greek restaurant on Division Street. It was a quick lunch place with tables, a counter, and a hole in the wall for shouting orders into the kitchen. They served pretty good dinners for 65 or 70 cents, and I think Kitso’s was the scene of Ernie’s story, “The Killers.”
We often got together with our war buddies, feeling like kids who had been in the same high school class, then separated for a few years and reunited. We would eat at one of the Italian restaurants on the near North Side, and turn up our noses just a little at guys who hadn’t been in Section IV and shared our great experience.
After some months at the roominghouse, Kenley Smith—brother of Ernie’s oldest friend, Bill—invited us to move into his apartment around the corner on Division Street. He and his wife had plenty of space and liked to have a lot of people around. It was an exciting atmosphere. Kenley was an erudite advertising man, with lots of intellectual friends like Sherwood Anderson, who had been a copywriter in his firm. On winter evenings, we’d sit around the fireplace and Ernie would read his stories with Sherwood commenting. Anderson recognized Ernie’s talent.
Of the many people who visited the Smiths, one particular girl, Hadley “Hash” Richardson, managed to cure Ernie of his broken heart. In fact, it was love at first sight. Soon after she returned home to St. Louis, Ernie and I went there to visit her for a long weekend. We had great fun making gin by boiling the ether out of sweet spirits of nitre over an open-topped burner. It was a silly thing to do, as it was very explosive and we got only about two teaspoonfuls of liquor. By the time we left, Ernie and “Hash” were certainly engaged.
I was an usher at their wedding the following summer. The newlyweds lived for a few months in Chicago but their hearts were set on going to Europe where so many aspiring writers were congregating. Ernie got letters of introduction from Sherwood Anderson, made a deal to report for The Toronto Star, and set off on his second voyage to Europe.
In August 1923, Ernie and “Hash” returned for “Bumby” to be born in America. We saw each other several times, and he gave me a copy of a little volume of his work which had been printed in Paris under the title, Three Stories and Ten Poems. He inscribed the book’s gray paper cover with a personal note beginning, “To Horney Bill . “ (Of all things, I lost it during the next few years of moving from one place to another. Last year I saw a copy offered by a London bookseller. The price was $3,500, without any personal inscription.)
Ernie’s next book of stories, ln Our Time, was published with the help of my classmate Harold Loeb ’13, one of the young American expatriates in Paris who became a tennis and drinking companion of Ernie’s. Loeb’s novel, Doodab, had been accepted by an American publisher and he had gone to bat for Ernie. When Ernie got up a party to see the bullfights in Spain, Loeb went along. But in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, Ernie cast Loeb as the heavy. Thirty years later, Harold wrote a book called Die manier waarop dit was, basically a rebuttal.
In the summer of 192 8, Ernie returned to the States again with his second wife, Pauline, so their baby could be born here. After Patrick’s arrival in Kansas City, Pauline was resting at her parents’ Arkansas home. Ernie wrote to me in Chicago, suggesting we go west and do some fishing while he finished his novel, A Farewell to Arms.
I took the train to Kansas City and Ernie met me in his Ford runabout. We drove across a corner of Nebraska, up the Platte into Wyoming, and bumped over rocks and ruts in the Red Grade road, climbing the Big Horn Mountains. As we snaked around hair-pin turns with steep drop-offs, I kept saying. “Look out, Ernie!” He endured it patiently and finally said, “Do me a favor, Horney, when you get out, just close the door.” I didn’t peep after that.
On a plateau 8,000 feet up, we reached our destination, the Folly Ranch, owned by Eleanor Donnelley. At least 16 lovely girls, mostly Eleanor’s Bryn Mawr classmates, were waiting to greet us—including my future wife, Frances “Bunny” Thorne. The place turned out to be heaven, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, with a swell cook, Folly the collie, and some active trout ponds.
Bunny’s log of that summer records some of the high spots: bridge, dancing, singing around the piano, and one night, “with his hands doing most of the talking, our author gave us the low-down on Dorothy Parker’s and Scott Fitzgerald’s burning inspirations. Then he was distracted by a bull-fight.” I think he was the matador en the bull.
Ernie loved ranch life, not to mention being admired by all the girls, but he had taken too much time off from his writing. After I left, he retreated to a quieter cabin to work on his book. He finished A Farewell to Arms that summer, and when Bunny and I were married the following year, he gave us a first-edition presentation copy.
While at Folly, Ernie and I had studied a map of Wyoming and Montana with an eye to future fishing. He pointed out a lonely looking stream that started in the north, went for miles along Yellowstone Park’s wild eastern edge, looped down south through wilderness, and finally swung north to the Yellowstone River, hundreds of miles and two mountain ranges away. “Horney,” he said, “that’s the place. Someday you and I will go there and slaughter ’em!”
Two years later we did. Ernie was always right about a map or trout, and the stream he picked was the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone. Bunny and I went to join him and Pauline at Lawrence Nordquist’s L Bar T ranch in the northeast corner of the Park. We spent a day or two getting to Yellowstone on the train, then a bus took us across the western half of the Park to old Cook City, Montana. There the group met us on horseback, with mounts for us, and I can still see Ernie on that big steed. He rode straight-legged, Indian fashion, because of his gimpy knee, and he looked like the man who invented Montana.
It was a nine-mile ride down the southerly valley, past Index and Pilot peaks. We arrived before dusk. The land rose above the Fork’s east bank into steep hills and hogbacks. There were narrow stretches of forest, green and yellow steps leading to the ridges of Beartooth Buttes, 15 miles away to the east. We had the happiest time imaginable, although for a while it rained and the trout hid behind rocks. Finally the rain stopped, and I’ve never seen anything like it in the way of stream fishing. We were using mostly wet flies, usually a McGinty at the end of the leader and two droppers along its length. The fish were so hungry and profuse that many times we had two on at once, occasionally three.
Ernie, who was then writing Death in the Afternoon, had brought along bushels of Spanish bull-fighting periodicals. We were at a spot where the river was about to dive down into a canyon, fast beautiful water full of trout, the kind of thing an avid fisherman would sell his soul for. Yet morning after morning, Ernie sat in the sun in an old rocker, reading the latest on corridas.
He was enjoying his fame then, and I remember him as dominant, exuberant, damned attractive, a stand-out in any group. But when he was with his friends, he was met them, not apart from them.
The last time I saw Ernie was in the spring of 1958, when Bunny and I visited·him and Mary, his fourth wife, at the Finca, their lovely country house in Cuba. He was the bearded “Papa” by that time. In the evening, they took us to dinner at Floridita, the restaurant Ernie had made famous. We were much impressed with Mary—she seemed a fine wife for Ernie.
Ernie died on July 2, 1961—the same weekend that we were having a Section IV reunion at Jerry Flaherty’s. I remember the headline: “Own Gun Kills Hemingway.” It was hard on all of us nobody had thought to invite him from Idaho, and maybe it would have helped his depression. Mary wired, asking me to be an honorary pallbearer, and everyone was giving me messages of condolence to carry. But because of the holiday the banks were closed and I didn’t have enough cash to make the trip. Fred Spiegel came to my rescue: “I’ve been to the Arlington track and did pretty well. How much do you need?” I told him about $300. He took out a roll of bills and peeled it off.
So with a little help from Section IV, Bunny and I flew out to the funeral. The graveside service was on a hill outside Ketchum, under a blue sky with the Sawtooth Mountains as backdrop. Everyone there had some bond with Ernie. Mine was having been an ambulance driver with him in Italy. Also, I was the first of a dozen or more Princetonians—including, most prominently, Scott Fitzgerald ’17, a classmate of my younger brother, Jimmy—who had played important roles in his life. Though there were long gaps when we didn’t see each other, we kept in touch for 43 years. Ernie and Bunny have been the two great things in my life.
A Farewell To Arms: Hemingway’s Italy
In the summer of 2012, American Publishing giants Scribner released a revised version of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel, A Farewell to Arms. The new edition includes not only the original artwork, but also 47 alternative endings that give new insight to this First World War masterpiece. On its original publication, in 1928, A Farewell to Arms reached the bestseller list and cemented Hemingway’s reputation as a literary heavyweight.
Although Hemingway is most commonly associated with Florida’s Key West, Spain and Cuba, the latter serving as inspiration for his Nobel Prize Winning novella The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway also had a long, and sometimes painful, relationship with Italy. In 1918, as war raged in Europe, an 18 year old Ernest Hemingway responded to a plea for ambulance drivers on the Italian front, and left for Europe. He arrived in Milan and immediately received a baptism of fire when he was sent to the scene of a bombed munitions factory to collect "the fragments" of female workers. A scene he vividly described years later in his book Death in the Afternoon.
Fossalta di Piave on the Italian Front
A few days later he was transferred to Fossalta di Piave on the Italian Front. The Italian Front stretched from more than 400 miles, with much of the fighting being conducted in or around the Alps, with the Italians on one side and the Austro-Hungarian armies on the other. The Italian Front could be every bit as deadly a killing field as the Somme or Passchendaele on the Western Front, with some 650,000 casualties inflicted on the Italian Army alone. Soldiers fought against the enemy but also against the hostile weather that could reach as low as -45c during the winter months. In those freezing conditions, a single mortar round could inflict casualties as far as one mile away, as the shards of ice cut through the air like daggers. Avalanches were also a constant fear and often intentionally caused by opposing Armies. One such avalanche in 1916 killed more than 10,000 Austrian troops near Cortina d’Ampezzo in Northern Italy. It would later become known as White Friday. The "war in the mountains" would rage for almost three and a half years until French, British and American soldiers could reinforce the Italians. After the decisive battle of Vittorio Veneto the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and an Armistice was signed.
Italian Silver Medal of Bravery
Several months earlier on 8th July 1918 Ernest Hemingway was seriously wounded,while delivering cigarettes and chocolates to front line troops, when a mortar exploded next to him. Despite the severity of his own wounds, Hemingway still managed to carry an Italian soldier to safety, for which he received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery. He spent the next six months recovering from the 227 shrapnel wounds to his legs in a Milan hospital. During this time Hemingway fell in love with Nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, who he fictionalised as Nurse Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms.
A Farewell to Arms
Although the novel is a work of fiction, the parallels between the young protagonist, Frederick Henry, and Hemingway's own life are clear. And this perhaps is what gives it such a quality of authenticity: from the description of the battle of Caporetto, to the relationship between Henry and Catherine, and the novels final heart-wrenching climax. Hemingway speaks to the reader with conviction and, sometimes, brutal honesty. His “to the point” style is as much about what is not written as what is, and this shift in style, away from the overly flowery language of his peers, allows the reader to “fill the gaps", and almost become part of the story.
Stresa, Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore, his “home from home"!
In September 1918, just two month after his injury, a 19 year old Ernest Hemingway was given 10 day Convalesce-Pass and headed for Stresa, just an hour drive from Milan on Lake Maggiore. He checked into room 106 (now the Hemingway Suite) at the Grand Hotel Des Iles Borromees, and headed straight for the bar. Unfortunately, for visitors looking for a "Hemingway experience" that bar has long since been closed the good news is that the new bar has not forgotten Him. Several photos of him adorn the wall, and a Hemingway Special cocktail can still be found on the drinks menu. But surely, it’s the framed page of the guest book he signed on a return visit in 1948 that is the most intriguing. It simply reads: "Ernest Hemingway (an old client)".
Hemingway spent 7 of his 10 day leave at the Grand Hotel Iles Borromées. While there he spent much of his time playing pool with a "99 year old count", talking with the barman over a dry martini (Hemingway's drink of choice back then) and taking boating trips to the small island of Pescatori on Lake Maggiore. All of which were fictionalised in A Farewell to Arms.
Grand Hotel Des Iles Borromees Stresa
It's a strange feeling to sit at the bar in the Hotel Borremées, looking out across the lake and knowing that somewhere in that still water, or in the mountains behind, Hemingway found his inspiration. In a letter to his parents in 1918, Hemingway wrote "I'm up here in Stresa, a little resort on Lake Maggiore. One of the most beautiful Italian lakes.".
So it seems not much has changed since Hemingway’s time, it is still just as beautiful and still remains a perfect location to relax and enjoy the fresh air of the lakes. The many tiny islands on Lake Maggiore offer some of the most beautiful gardens in Europe and can easily be reached in a matter of minutes by the excellent passenger boats that operate throughout the day.
Hemingway Suite - Grand Hotel Des Iles Borromees Stresa
Alternatively, the Lake Maggiore Express train takes you along a scenic coastal route that ventures right into the heart of the Swiss Alps and back in time for a Dry Martini. For a more sober experience, it is worth visiting the Stresa War Museum that has many artefacts relating to the "war in the mountains" and also a poem written by Hemingway to honour the fallen. Hemingway visited Stresa several times during his lifetime and often referred to it as his “home from home."
Hemingway's spares writing style and universal themes never failed to captivate the reader. He wrote with an honesty that was sometimes painful to read, but always impossible not to. He pulled no punches and made no apologies for it. Snippets of his own life were so delicately inserted into his novels that it is only in hindsight that we can fully understand what he meant when he described the process of writing as “bleeding into a typewriter.” Unfortunately, the legend that Hemingway himself had helped to create has often threatened to overshadow the great contribution he made to modern literature. By his final years his novels and real life had become so intertwined that even he couldn’t tell them apart.
The Italian Soldier Who Saved Hemingway’s Life
James McGrath Morris is the author of The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War (March 2017). He has started a project to identify the Italian soldier discussed in this article.
Hemingway in uniform in Milan, 1918.
Along the Piave River in northern Italy stands a memorial near where Ernest Hemingway almost lost his life in the closing months of World War I. “On this levee,” the inscription reads in Italian, “Ernest Hemingway, American Red Cross volunteer, was wounded the night of July 8, 1918.” The moment is so central to the author’s life that in 2014 the Ernest Hemingway Society brought a group of its members to the spot during its biennial international conference in Venice, Italy.
What is missing from the memorial, however, offers a lesson greater than that of an insight into Hemingway’s life. Absent from the marker is any mention of the Italian soldier whose death that night ensured the life of one of the twentieth century’s most important authors. In short, had the soldier not been where he was, there would be no Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tools, ook nie The Old Man and the Sea.
That this soldier is left off the monument and the pages of history is a cold reminder of history’s cruelty. The recording of deaths is hardly a democratic matter. The less accomplished lives are often forgotten even when they change history.
The unremembered soldier was one of many young Italian men conscripted and crammed into trenches along the banks of the Piave River in July 1918. Holding back Austrian forces had come at great price. The Italians suffered more than 600,000 casualties. They greatly welcomed the presence of Red Cross volunteers who brought cigarettes, chocolates, and coffee.
Hemingway, who had come to Italy as an eighteen-year-old Red Cross volunteer ambulance driver, requested that he be assigned to ride a bicycle to the front trenches with panniers full of chocolates and cigarettes. On the night of July 8, 1918 Hemingway took his supply from the bike’s basket and stepped down into a trench that ran in a serpentine path along the Piave. As he handed out his bounty to the soldiers, he could make out in the distance the sound of mortar fire coming from the enemy’s line. Filled with explosives and metal shards, mortars travel in a high arc and descend vertically into the trenches, whose walls channel the detonation into a deadly affair.
When one of the Austrian mortars fell into the trench, Hemingway saw the flash first and then heard the roar that followed. The heat was intense, the ground seethed upward, wood beams splintered, and the men were tossed about like rag dolls. The nameless Italian soldier who stood close to the detonation point was dead. His body had taken the brunt of the blast and shielded Hemingway, who now lay unconscious, covered in dirt and debris. He sustained hundreds of shrapnel wounds and spent six months recuperating in the Red Cross hospital in Milan.
When I researched the incident for my book The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War, I presumed that some scholar by now would have identified the dead soldier’s name. To my surprise no one seems to have been interested in pursuing this line of research. None of Hemingway’s biographers lament the absence of a name.
The records are certainly a challenge to anyone who might want to find the name of the soldier who took Hemingway’s mortar. None of the contemporaneous sources, such as the citation of the Italian Military Valor award given to Hemingway for courage and self-sacrifice, note the dead soldier’s name. Sometimes they don’t even mention his death. As a result this young man joined the many anonymous figures of history labeled as “an Irish maid,” or a “French soldier,” or “steelworker,” or in this case, an “Italian soldier.”
But not including a name in a combat story is like leaving a soldier behind. To be nameless is to be forgotten. The quest for naming dead soldiers was so strong after the Great War that worry over unidentified corpses prompted the U.S. Congress to create a tomb for an unknown soldier. The nation has kept entombing representative unknown soldiers up to the Vietnam War. That corpse, however, was later identified using DNA testing and now that crypt remains empty.
“Every man’s life ends the same way,” Hemingway once told his friend Aaron Hotchner, “and it is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguishes one man from another.”
When the name the name of the dead Italian soldier is added to the memorial along the Piave River, he too will have the distinction he deserves.
Ernest Hemingway – A Short Biography
Ernest Hemingway, famous author and journalist, was born in the affluent Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. His father was a doctor his mother, a musician. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Ernest Hall. As a young man, he was interested in writing he wrote for and edited his high school’s newspaper, as well as the high school yearbook. Upon graduating from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1917, he worked for the Kansas City Star newspaper briefly, but in that short time, he learned the writing style that would shape nearly all of his future work.
As an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I, Ernest Hemingway was wounded and spent several months in the hospital. While there, he met and fell in love with a Red Cross nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky. They planned to marry however, she became engaged to an Italian officer instead.
This experience devastated Hemingway, and Agnes became the basis for the female characters in his subsequent short stories “A Very Short Story” (1925) and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936), as well as the famous novel “A Farewell To Arms” (1929). This would also start a pattern Ernest would repeat for the rest of his life – leaving women before they had the chance to leave him first.
Ernest Hemingway began work as a journalist upon moving to Paris in the early 1920s, but he still found time to write. He was at his most prolific in the 20s and 30s. His first short story collection, aptly titled “Three Stories and Ten Poems,” was published in 1923. His next short story collection, “In Our Time,” published in 1925, was the formal introduction of the vaunted Hemingway style to the rest of the world, and considered one of the most important works of 20th century prose. He would then go on to write some of the most famous works of the 20th century, including “A Farewell to Arms,” “The Sun Also Rises,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and “The Old Man and the Sea.” He also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.
Ernest Hemingway lived most of his later years in Idaho. He began to suffer from paranoia, believing the FBI was aggressively monitoring him. In November of 1960 he began frequent trips to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for electroconvulsive therapy – colloquially known as “shock treatments.” He had his final treatment on June 30, 1961. Two days later, on July 2, 1961, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a twelve-gauge shotgun. He was a few weeks short of his 62nd birthday. This wound up being a recurring trend in his family his father, as well as his brother and sister, also died by committing suicide. The legend of Hemingway looms large, and his writing style is so unique that it left a legacy in literature that will endure forever.
Ernest Hemingway
This preeminent literary figure of the 20th century moved to Key West in 1928, living there periodically through 1940. Hemmingway wrote all or part of his most famous works including A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, To Have and Have Not and The Snows of Kilimanjaro in Key West. In 1954, he became only the fifth American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born Ernest Miller Hemingway in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway grew up in an affluent home (his father was a physician and his mother a professional opera singer) where he was exposed to art, literature, music and also the great outdoors. At the family's lake house in Michigan, the athletic, outdoorsy Hemingway developed a passion for hunting and fishing.
After graduation from high school in 1917, Hemingway decided to forego college and become a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star. He worked there for only six months, but the newspaper style of writing–concise and austere–heavily influenced all of his writings for the rest of his life.
Displaying a restlessness that would mark a seemingly larger-than-life career, in the waning months of World War I Hemingway volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Europe. Badly wounded on the Italian Front, he spent six months recuperating in a Milan hospital before returning, at age 19, to the U.S.
Hemingway's interest in journalism eventually carried him to Chicago in 1920, where he worked as an associate editor of the monthly journal Cooperative Commonwealth. There he befriended Sherwood Anderson, already a respected novelist. Shortly thereafter, Hemingway met and married his first (of four) wives, Elizabeth H. Richardson. In 1921, the couple left for Europe, Hemingway having accepted a post as foreign correspondent for The Toronto Star. Anderson persuaded Hemingway to set up shop in Paris, a decision that proved remarkably fortuitous for a young newspaperman who yearned to be a novelist.
In Paris, Hemingway met many of the leading figures of the so-called "Lost Generation," a term originated by Gertrude Stein, among the most notable European writers who took Hemingway under their wings. Other Parisian luminaries that Hemingway spent much time with included Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and F. Scott Fitzgerald. After a brief return to Toronto in 1924, Hemingway and his family (son Jack was born in Toronto) returned to Paris, where he finished his first novel (of seven). The Sun Also Rises (Scribner's, 1926), a story built around a group of expatriates living in Paris, made Hemingway famous.
In 1928, Hemingway was divorced, remarried (this time to Pauline Pfieffer, a fashion writer) and–at the suggestion of novelist and friend John Dos Passos–moving to Key West, where he fell in love with the island's lush tropical greenery and seclusion. He would spend an eventful and highly productive decade there before moving to Cuba (with his third wife Martha Gellhorn, a journalist and war correspondent) in 1940.
From 1941 through the mid-1950s, Hemingway led an astonishingly colorful and dramatic life. The period was punctuated by his frequent forays overseas as a war correspondent (he covered the Spanish Civil War as a champion of the losing rebel side) and World War II (where his extra-curricular exploits at the front almost got him court-martialed but later earned him a Bronze Star) a second African safari (where he and his last wife, Mary Welsh, narrowly escaped death in two plane crashes in two days) his winning the world's top literary prizes (the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for the novel The Old Man and the Sea) and the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature) and two more failed marriages.
In 1959, Hemingway and Welsh bought a home in Ketchum, Idaho. Suffering from depression and failing health–a casualty of his numerous serious injuries and a lifelong habit of hard drinking–in July 1961 Hemingway committed suicide.
Hemingway's legacy as a titan of modern American literature is immortalized by two nonprofit foundations (The Hemingway Oak Park Foundation and the Hemingway Society) a national literary prize in his name a number of formal memorials and other tributes more than a dozen biographies numerous Hemingway studies programs on campuses around the world and at least five museums.
Hemingway's Florida days are commemorated by the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, located at the home he owned on Whitehead Street in Key West. The attraction annually draws thousands of visitors from around the world, as does the annual Hemingway Days celebration, held in Key West during the week of his birthday in July.
