Reading Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn

I am currently reading the Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn (Henry Holt and Co. New York, 2006, 531 pgs.) written by Caroline Moorehead. I also read Moorehead’s first book, Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life which was excellent. Both books, as you may expect, give great insight into both of their lives and their relationship.

I found letters in Moorehead’s book that Martha Gellhorn had written about Hemingway before they even met in December 1936 in Key West, Florida (they were later married in 1940).

In a letter to Stanley Pennell in May 1931 – “Meanwhile, I take my code out of Hemingway. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Do you remember a Farewell to Arms. The hero talks to the women; she is worried about something; and he says: “You’re brave. Nothing ever happens to the brave”. Which is somehow enough…

Years later in a letter to Mrs. Roosevelt (January 8, 1937) and a month after she met Hemingway she writes: “I see Hemingway (37 years old at this time), who knows more about writing dialogue (I think) than anyone writing in English at this time. He’s an odd bird, very lovable and full of fire and a marvelous story-teller.”

Ever Wondered About Hemingway’s Longest Sentence?

From what I found (correct me if I’m wrong), the longest sentence Ernest Hemingway ever wrote consisted of 424 words in Green Hills of Africa (page 148):

“That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know truly, that it is as important and has always been as important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student’s exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing—the stream.”

Pour qui sonne le glas

Pour qui sonne le glas (For Whom the Bell Tolls) was the 1st edition, in French, of For Whom the Bell Tolls published 15 years after it first appeared in publication in the U.S.

London: Heinemann & Zsolnay, 1955.
Translated by Denise V. Ayme.

Source: University of Delaware, Special Collections Department

 

Linda Wagner and Decades of Criticism

4th book published in 2009

Linda W. Wagner has edited four books of criticism on Ernest Hemingway through Michigan State University Press. I have finally received my fourth book today – Six Decades of Criticism and read a brief review by William Faulkner (p. 273) on Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea.

His BEST. Time may show it to be the best single piece of copy of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries. This time he discovered God, a Creator.”

Other works by Linda Wagner on criticism of Hemingway include:

1. Ernest Hemingway. Five Decades of Criticism. Michigan State University Press. 1974.  328 pages.
2. Ernest Hemingway. Six Decades of Criticism. Michigan State University Press. 1978. 341 pages.
3. Hemingway. Seven Decades of Criticism. Michigan State University Press. 1998. 427 pages.
4. Hemingway. Eight Decades of Criticism. Michigan State University Press. 2009. 581 pages.

“LINDA WAGNER-MARTIN is Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She writes widely on twentieth-century American literature, biography, women’s writing and pedagogy. Her publications include A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway (2000), William Faulkner: Six Decades of Criticism (2002), Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life (1999/2003), Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (2004) and Hemingway: Eight Decades of Criticism (2009).”

Hemingway Poem: Captives

Captives

Some came in chains
Unrepentant but tired.
Too tired but to stumble.
Thinking and hating were finished
Thinking and fighting were finished
Retreating and hoping were finished.
Cures thus a long campaign,
Making death easy.

Chicago 1920-21   

Three Stories & Ten Poems (1923)                                                                                                                

The Paris Wife

“A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, THE PARIS WIFE captures a remarkable period of time—Paris in the twenties—and an extraordinary love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley…”

John Hemingway Lecture

View the John Hemingway lecture given during an English class at Ohio State University (February 17, 2009) here. John is the grandchild of Ernest Hemingway and the son of Gregory.

Hemingway Selected Photos

I am always interested in seeing “new” photos of Ernest Hemingway during various times throughout his life. If you come across any interesting photos please let me know. Here are few that I like.