Hemingway always embroidered the events of his life. His exaggerations, lies and heroic image were related to the traditions and myths of frontier humor that had inspired his youthful works. But he not only helped to create myths about himself, he also seemed to believe them. . . Given his predisposition to mythomania, his reluctance to disappoint either his own expectations or those of his audience, and the difficulty of refuting and verifying certain facts of his life, he felt virtually forced to invent an imaginative alternative to commonplace reality.
Jeffery Meyers, Hemingway: A Biography, 1985.
. . . a writer should be of as great probity and honesty as a priest of God. He is either honest or not, as a woman is either chaste or not, and after one piece of dishonest writing he is never the same again.
Ernest Hemingway, introduction to Men At War.
Good writing is true writing. If a man is making a story up it will be true in proportion to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up it is as it would truly be.
Ernest Hemingway, Monologue To
The Maestro, Esquire, October 1835.
The Maestro, Esquire, October 1835.
The manner in which a man lies, and what he lies about — these things and the form of his lies — are the main things to investigate in a poet's life and work.
Poet, essayist and author James Dickey.
ANYONE familiar with Hemingway will also be familiar with what seem to be his favourite words — ‘true’ and ‘truly’. Advising on writing, he insists that to get started on piece of fiction
But what at first blush seems to be a craftsman’s sage advice, becomes ever less clear and ever less useful when you drill down a little. What is ‘a true sentence’? And what might ‘the truest sentence you know’ be? You think you understand what is being said, but there again . . .
The words ‘true’ and ‘truly’ as well as ‘fine’ and ‘good’, crop up time and again in Hemingway’s writing and letters, and are intricate to the image of the honest craftsman, the no-nonsense and experienced man-of-the-world Hemingway wanted the world to see and as, no doubt, he saw himself. But anyone writing about him — quite apart from trying to evaluate his work — sooner or later faces the very real problem of just what to believe. Just how credible — just how ‘true’ — were many of the hitherto accepted ‘facts’ of his life for which he himself was often the sole source. And given that a great many were not and that most of the falsehoods were perpetuated by Hemingway himself, how did the man who insisted that
all you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
The words ‘true’ and ‘truly’ as well as ‘fine’ and ‘good’, crop up time and again in Hemingway’s writing and letters, and are intricate to the image of the honest craftsman, the no-nonsense and experienced man-of-the-world Hemingway wanted the world to see and as, no doubt, he saw himself. But anyone writing about him — quite apart from trying to evaluate his work — sooner or later faces the very real problem of just what to believe. Just how credible — just how ‘true’ — were many of the hitherto accepted ‘facts’ of his life for which he himself was often the sole source. And given that a great many were not and that most of the falsehoods were perpetuated by Hemingway himself, how did the man who insisted that
. . . a writer should be of as great probity and honesty as a priest of God. He is either honest or not, as a woman is either chaste or not, and after one piece of dishonest writing he is never the same againreconcile his ostensible beliefs with his lifelong habit of telling extremely tall stories about himself Hemingway champions might, of course, argue that we are dealing with different kinds of ‘truths’, and that the ‘truth’ Hemingway is describing in his dicta on writing is ‘artistic truth’.
That, of course, does little but divert the matter onto a different path: what is ‘artistic truth’ and can we be sure that what I understand by ‘artistic truth’ is what you understand? And, I suggest, once we start dealing in such arcania, the danger of tripping and falling into talking nothing but hi-falutin’ nonsense grows ever greater.
. . .
The degree of veracity of the facts of his life that Hemingway passed on might be gauged by his claim that he and his first wife Hadley lived in poverty in Paris and that once he had given up his freelance work for the Toronto Star to write full-time, he was often reduced to catching pigeons in a nearby park for their
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Harold Loeb |
supper. This might just be true, of course, but it is far more likely to be just another piece of Hemingway myth-making, another pillar to support the Hemingway legend. As Harold Loeb — Robert Cohn of The Sun Also Rises — points out in his essay Hemingway’s Bitterness (Connecticut Review, 1967):
Actually, Hemingway was not as poor, in my opinion, as he makes himself out to be in A Moveable Feast. . . For Hem in those days did not stint himself except in the matter of clothes. On one occasion he bought and paid for a Miro, and on many others we drank Pouilly Fuisse and ate oysters, Portugaises when we felt poor, Marennes when we were flush. Hem always paid for his share or tried to. Pouilly Fuisse is a costly wine and French oysters even then were more expensive than their American counterparts.In fairness it should be pointed out that Loeb, who was made to look very silly in The Sun Also Rises, was, 40 years on after the novel appeared, still bitter about its portrayal of him when he wrote his essay (which might well have been called Loeb’s Bitterness); and Hemingway paid for the Miro in instalments, though again the matter is not quite straightforward.
He ostensibly bought the painting, The Farm, as a birthday present for his wife Hadley, but when they split, he somehow managed to keep it in his possession. When many years later she eventually asked him to return it, he simply refused, and the painting remained prominently displayed at his Finca Vigia home on the outskirts of Havana in Cuba.
As for being Hemingway being reduced to catching pigeons for his and Hadley’s supper, Loeb observes
As for being Hemingway being reduced to catching pigeons for his and Hadley’s supper, Loeb observes
I do not know why Hemingway told [early biographer and friend A. E. Hotchner] he was so poor that he often fed the family on pigeons captured in the park. I don’t know why Hotchner relates the story as if it were true. With corn or bread for bait and tremendous patience, it might be possible now and again to grab and hold a city pigeon. But then to wring its neck and kill it in the Luxembourg Gardens with hundreds of people walking around, and to do this repeatedly without being noticed seems to me quite incredible.In fact, during his first stint in Paris, from December 1921 until September 1923, when he was still selling stories to the Star and being paid quite well for the freelance pieces he submitted (contrary to the assumption of many, he was not on staff in Paris), the bulk of the household income came from a trust fund Hadley benefited from that was worth around $3,500 to $4,000 a year.
Taking inflation into account, that sum would (in 2020) be roughly the equivalent of between $54,000 and $62,000 (£41,500 and £47,000), more than enough for a newly-married, childless couple to live on very comfortably. In fact, it is by no means unlikely that when Ernest, an ambitious would-be writer in his early 20s, and Hadley, almost nine years older, decided to marry and move to Europe, it was the prospect of having a reliable and regular income from her trust fund which will have made their plans feasible.
The young couple had initially intended to move to Naples and only changed their minds when the novelist Sherwood Anderson persuaded them that Paris was where artistically it was all happening. A considerable bonus was that the post-World War I exchange rate made the franc very cheap indeed for those with dollars to buy them, further boosting the purchasing power of Hadley’s trust fund income substantially.
The young couple had initially intended to move to Naples and only changed their minds when the novelist Sherwood Anderson persuaded them that Paris was where artistically it was all happening. A considerable bonus was that the post-World War I exchange rate made the franc very cheap indeed for those with dollars to buy them, further boosting the purchasing power of Hadley’s trust fund income substantially.
The dollar/franc exchange rate was so favourable for Americans (and British) that throughout the 1920s thousands increasingly went to live in Paris, their savings going a great deal further than they would back home. The richer expatriates lived in the more affluent Right Bank districts, but those with artistic pretensions opted for the ‘artistic’ Left Bank where they hung out in cafes and could pose as bohemians. So much for Hemingway ‘living in poverty’.
That the Hemingways — or rather Hemingway, as he called all the shots — chose to live in a rundown apartment with no indoor toilet when they first lived in Paris puzzled their friends, who knew they certainly had the resources to pay for better accommodation.
That the Hemingways — or rather Hemingway, as he called all the shots — chose to live in a rundown apartment with no indoor toilet when they first lived in Paris puzzled their friends, who knew they certainly had the resources to pay for better accommodation.
When they returned from Toronto in January 1924 for a second sojourn in Paris, they moved into a similarly down-at-heel apartment (above an active and noisy sawmill), and choosing to live in such near squalid conditions again was especially odd now that they had a three-month-old son, John (called Bumby). Yet money was tighter when they returned to Paris.
Hemingway had by then severed his ties with the Star, so their sole income was from Hadley’s trust fund, and money was occasionally short if her quarterly trust fund cheque was late; yet there was always someone from whom to cadge a few thousand francs.
Hemingway had by then severed his ties with the Star, so their sole income was from Hadley’s trust fund, and money was occasionally short if her quarterly trust fund cheque was late; yet there was always someone from whom to cadge a few thousand francs.
Notably, even after they returned from Toronto the Hemingways always had enough money to eat out regularly and to pay for extended trips away from Paris to Italy and Austria, although these trips were partly subsidised by sub-letting their apartment and, again because of the exchange rate, living in a small hotel in Schruns when off skiing in Austria, was even cheaper than in France. They were also able to afford a nanny for John, a Breton woman who was also their cook and housekeeper, and took care of the boy when they went on vacation.
Hemingway’s practice of inventing facts about his past made the task facing his biographers more difficult. At first, Philip Young and particularly A. E. Hotchner, who came to fulfil the role of Hemingway’s amanuensis and general dogsbody, accepted at face value what the writer told them, questioned none of it and repeated it all as fact.
. . .
Hemingway’s practice of inventing facts about his past made the task facing his biographers more difficult. At first, Philip Young and particularly A. E. Hotchner, who came to fulfil the role of Hemingway’s amanuensis and general dogsbody, accepted at face value what the writer told them, questioned none of it and repeated it all as fact.
In his somewhat adoring book The Art Of Ernest Hemingway, the British writer John Atkins even repeats the ‘facts’ that while living in Oak Park Hemingway twice ran away from home and that in World War II Hemingway had performed valuable war work for the US navy off the coast of Cuba hunting down German submarines. In fact, he never ran away from home.
Although he did somehow persuade the US ambassador in Havana, Spruille Braden, of the viability of his ‘submarine hunting’ scheme — luring German U-boots to the surface, then disabling and destroying them by lobbing hand grenades downs their conning towers, it is now accepted that Hemingway’s ‘submarine-hunting’ was partly just a ruse to obtain rationed diesel so that he could carry on fishing in the Gulf. Before publishing his book in 1952, Atkins submitted the manuscript to Hemingway and, unsurprisingly, it gained his imprimatur.
When Carlos Baker was hired as Hemingway’s ‘official’ biographer in 1962 and began investigating the writer’s life, he found many inconsistencies in Hemingway’s accounts, and Baker was certainly not as uncritical as Young, Hotchner and Atkins.
When Carlos Baker was hired as Hemingway’s ‘official’ biographer in 1962 and began investigating the writer’s life, he found many inconsistencies in Hemingway’s accounts, and Baker was certainly not as uncritical as Young, Hotchner and Atkins.
Baker was, though, keen to keep Hemingway’s widow Mary Welsh Hemingway onside as he needed her cooperation, and so he was obliged to tread cautiously. Welsh regarded herself as the keeper of the flame, and in 1966 she had even taken Hotchner to court after he had revealed in his book Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir that the writer’s death had been suicide and not, as Welsh insisted, an accident which occurred while her husband was cleaning a gun. (Welsh lost her suit, the judgment went to appeal and she lost again.)
Baker spent seven years researching and writing his biography, and finally published it in 1969. More biographies began to appear in the mid-1980s — Mary Welsh died in 1986 at the age of 78 — and their authors were far more sceptical.
Baker spent seven years researching and writing his biography, and finally published it in 1969. More biographies began to appear in the mid-1980s — Mary Welsh died in 1986 at the age of 78 — and their authors were far more sceptical.
Hemingway’s work was by now undergoing re-assessment, and in tone the more recent biographies were more critical than Baker could afford to be, both of the man and his work. Jeffrey Meyers published in 1985, the first volume of Michael Reynolds eventual five-volume work and Kenneth S Lynn’s take on Hemingway appeared in 1987, and in 1992 James Mellow published his biography of Hemingway. None chose to take on trust Hemingway’s many claims.
Michael Reynolds, for example, made a point (he informs us in his introduction to his second volume, Hemingway: The Paris Years) of not including any of the accepted ‘facts’ about Hemingway that he could not himself verify.
Michael Reynolds, for example, made a point (he informs us in his introduction to his second volume, Hemingway: The Paris Years) of not including any of the accepted ‘facts’ about Hemingway that he could not himself verify.
One example he gives is Hemingway’s oft-repeated claim that he had rented a garret room in which to write in a hotel in the rue Descartes (in which, Hemingway claimed, the poet Verlaine had died). Hemingway might well have rented the room, says Reynolds, but he could find not a single piece of independent verification for the claim and concludes it was possibly just another piece of Hemingway’s perpetual legend-building.
If Hemingway did rent that room, it would have been during his first Paris sojourn, because that claim is hard to reconcile with his own account that he stayed in bed to write or that he composed his stories in cafes where he had to nurse one cup of coffee for hours (and where he resented the attention of friends and acquaintances who approached him — ‘bitched’ his writing — while he was working).
If Hemingway did rent that room, it would have been during his first Paris sojourn, because that claim is hard to reconcile with his own account that he stayed in bed to write or that he composed his stories in cafes where he had to nurse one cup of coffee for hours (and where he resented the attention of friends and acquaintances who approached him — ‘bitched’ his writing — while he was working).
Whatever is true or not, all three accounts help burnish the image of Hemingway liked to promote of himself as the ‘dedicated young writer’ whose sole concern was the quality of his art and who ‘worked hard’ doing ‘difficult work’.
Another fact widely accepted about Hemingway’s life that is now also being questioned concerns two small trunks of his papers that were apparently discovered in the basement of the Ritz hotel in Paris in the mid-1950s and which, he says, provided him with material for his memoir A Moveable Feast. It seems Hemingway is the only source for that ‘fact’.
Another fact widely accepted about Hemingway’s life that is now also being questioned concerns two small trunks of his papers that were apparently discovered in the basement of the Ritz hotel in Paris in the mid-1950s and which, he says, provided him with material for his memoir A Moveable Feast. It seems Hemingway is the only source for that ‘fact’.
The French-Canadian scholar Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin undertook research into the matter for her book The Mystery Of The Ritz-Hotel Papers and concludes that, on balance, the trunks never existed and that Hemingway invented the story as a kind of preamble to publishing A Moveable Feast.
As for that myth-making, there is probably, and ironically, truth in the suggestion that as a teenager known for his outgoing and gregarious nature Hemingway was something of a joker and made up stories simply to entertain his friends.
As for that myth-making, there is probably, and ironically, truth in the suggestion that as a teenager known for his outgoing and gregarious nature Hemingway was something of a joker and made up stories simply to entertain his friends.
Yet from an early age he also seems to have fully intended his tales to be believed; and although the practice might be understandable in a young lad in his pre-pubescent and early teenage years, as he grew older Hemingway’s habit of making bizarre claims — that he had been part of a Loyalist murder squad which killed more than 100 Falangists in a mass execution and had flown a Hurricane fighter in missions for the British RAF — became ever more disconcerting for those who knew him and knew the stories to be wholly untrue.
Even as a very young man, he lied to Eric ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith, who was to become a lifelong friend and had been wounded in World War I. They met in Milan while Hemingway was recovering from being blown up by a mortar just before his 19th birthday in July 1918, and when Dorman-Smith, who had been
‘mentioned in dispatches’ three time and was awarded the Military Cross and Bar for bravery under fire, asked the young American how he had been wounded, Hemingway told him he had been fighting with the Italian ‘Arditi’ troops and had been the youngest officer to lead one if the regiment’s battalions into battle.
Even as a very young man, he lied to Eric ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith, who was to become a lifelong friend and had been wounded in World War I. They met in Milan while Hemingway was recovering from being blown up by a mortar just before his 19th birthday in July 1918, and when Dorman-Smith, who had been
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Eric ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith |
‘mentioned in dispatches’ three time and was awarded the Military Cross and Bar for bravery under fire, asked the young American how he had been wounded, Hemingway told him he had been fighting with the Italian ‘Arditi’ troops and had been the youngest officer to lead one if the regiment’s battalions into battle.
The wonder is not that Hemingway would dare tell such a blatant lie, but that Dorman-Smith, who was no fool, believed him, never seems to have questioned such an unlikely story and apparently carried on believing it until Hemingway’s death. Perhaps he simply liked Hemingway and his company so much that he chose not to confront him about the untruth.
From the end of World War II until his suicide in July 1961 Hemingway never stopped telling outright and outrageous lies about himself, his life and his experiences. This tendency was probably exacerbated by his poor mental health which deteriorated badly in his last 15 years; and what we now know about his mental disintegration — which might well have been underway by the beginning of World War II and had several other possible causes quite apart from his alcoholism — caution is not just advisable but necessary when asked to accept at face value any claims he made towards the end of his life.
But the important question is: does any of this matter? Who cares whether a writer, still regarded by many as a writer of genius, told lie upon lie about himself and his experiences? Of course it doesn’t. It might have some bearing upon Hemingway the man, but had and can have no bearing upon Hemingway the artist and Hemingway the writer. A rapist could be a composer, but his talent neither excuses his crime and nor do his crimes diminish the quality of his music: the two are separate and distinct.
Yet there is something disconcerting that a man who time and again insisted on truth in fiction played fast and loose with truth in real life. In her book Tavernier-Courbin quotes Hemingway as claiming that
. . .
From the end of World War II until his suicide in July 1961 Hemingway never stopped telling outright and outrageous lies about himself, his life and his experiences. This tendency was probably exacerbated by his poor mental health which deteriorated badly in his last 15 years; and what we now know about his mental disintegration — which might well have been underway by the beginning of World War II and had several other possible causes quite apart from his alcoholism — caution is not just advisable but necessary when asked to accept at face value any claims he made towards the end of his life.
But the important question is: does any of this matter? Who cares whether a writer, still regarded by many as a writer of genius, told lie upon lie about himself and his experiences? Of course it doesn’t. It might have some bearing upon Hemingway the man, but had and can have no bearing upon Hemingway the artist and Hemingway the writer. A rapist could be a composer, but his talent neither excuses his crime and nor do his crimes diminish the quality of his music: the two are separate and distinct.
Yet there is something disconcerting that a man who time and again insisted on truth in fiction played fast and loose with truth in real life. In her book Tavernier-Courbin quotes Hemingway as claiming that
It’s not unnatural that the best writers are liars. A major part of the trade is to lie or invent and they will lie when they are drunk, or to themselves, or to strangers. They often lie unconsciously and then remember their lies with deep remorse. If they knew all other writers were liars too, it would cheer them up . . . A liar in full flower . . . is as beautiful as cherry trees, or apple trees, when they are in blossom. Who should ever discourage a liar?In fact, her version might not be quite what Hemingway wrote; or perhaps he wrote two versions. Item 845 in the JFK Library Hemingway Collection in Boston is a scrap of paper in Hemingway’s writing (but which otherwise remains unidentified) in which the writer claims that
It’s not unnatural that the best writers are liars. A major part of the trade is to lie or invent and they will lie when they are drunk, or to themselves, or to strangers. They often lie unconsciously and then remember their lies with deep remorse. If they knew all other writers were liars too, it would cheer them up. . . Lying when drinking is a good exercise for their powers of invention and is very helpful in the making up of a story. It is no more wicked or reprehensible in a writer than it is to have strange and marvelous [sic] experiences in his dreams. Lying to themselves is harmful but this is cleansed away by the writing of a true book which in its invention is truer than any true thing that ever happened.The addition of this, that
Lying when drinking is a good exercise for their powers of invention and is very helpful in the making up of a story. It is no more wicked or reprehensible in a writer than it is to have strange and marvelous [sic] experiences in his dreams. Lying to themselves is harmful but this is cleansed away by the writing of a true book which in its invention is truer than any true thing that ever happeneddoes cast the what precedes it in a different light, and Hemingway makes fair point that alcohol (and presumably other drugs) can and do spark a writer’s imagination. But he is being wholly disingenuous by equating ‘having a strange or marvellous experiences in his dreams’ with ‘lying’.
Someone who lies does not just know she or he is telling an untruth, but fully intends it to be accepted as truth and fully intends to deceive. That is the essence of lying, and with the best will in the world Hemingway’s claim is not just distinctly tenuous but outright nonsense: although those telling lies are certainly ‘creating fiction’, ‘creating fiction’ is not the same as ‘lying’. ‘Creating fiction’ is something else entirely.
We don’t know the circumstances of when, where or why the excerpt above was written, but it does sound as though Hemingway, aware of his incessant fibbing and the danger that at any pointe each fib might be revealed for what it was, was attempting to get himself off the hook and trying to justify why he told such lies. But it will not wash: those telling lies are certainly creating fiction, but those creating fiction are not lying, and Hemingway was certainly bright enough to know the difference.
We don’t know the circumstances of when, where or why the excerpt above was written, but it does sound as though Hemingway, aware of his incessant fibbing and the danger that at any pointe each fib might be revealed for what it was, was attempting to get himself off the hook and trying to justify why he told such lies. But it will not wash: those telling lies are certainly creating fiction, but those creating fiction are not lying, and Hemingway was certainly bright enough to know the difference.
