Following in Papa’s footsteps
Two weeks ago we visited Key West, and we felt obligated to see the home of Ernest Hemingway, who lived in the Spanish Colonial-style structure at 907 Whitehead Street from 1931 to 1940. Built in 1851, the home was in disrepair when Hemingway purchased it, but the renovations made by him and his then-wife, Pauline, have weathered the decades well. I think I’d feel at home there today.
Yet, although we also ate at Sloppy Joe’s — a Hemingway haunt where he drank with his pals — I can’t say that I’d adopt his lifestyle. “Papa” was a bit too much of a man for me. His non-literary pastimes included hunting, boxing, drinking and fishing; more drinking and boxing; and even more hunting, boxing, drinking and fishing. He was a man who appeared to be fascinated with violence and death. But I can understand this when I remember that he was wounded while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I and that, as a correspondent, he visited multiple battlefronts in multiple wars. Hemingway seemed to believe that life is something to be grappled with and driven into submission … or perhaps left to limp away with a couple of black eyes and bloody nose.
I’ve reread many of Hemingway’s novels over the past several years. Reading Papa now seems less like digging ditches than it did when I first encountered him in junior high school, not long after he died by suicide in 1961. I’ve tried less successfully as an adult to appreciate his outdoorsy writing. Man against fish. Man against big game. Man against himself. I’ve never felt the need to fish, or to hunt, or to climb into a boxing ring. Nor did excessive drinking hold any particular attraction for me. But writing attracted me.
Despite this, I was not in the least tempted to buy into what they call “The Hemingway Home Evening Writing Experience.” And I do mean “buy in.” For a mere $1,500, you and a guest can take a guided tour of the house and grounds (normally $19 per person) then, after other visitors leave, spend 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Hemingway’s writing studio on the second floor of a former carriage house. Here, we were told, Hemingway spent most mornings writing — about 700 words a day. My columns run around 600 words, and I can honestly say that I sometimes struggle to get those into readable form every two weeks. So I admire his work ethic. And I understand why, after knocking out his daily quota, Hemingway might have felt like knocking back a few drinks or knocking out a sparring partner in the boxing ring he had in his back yard.
Who knows? Maybe spending 180 minutes on a quiet Florida evening sitting at Hemingway’s desk before a replica of his Royal manual typewriter would have inspired me to write, if not the Great American Novel, then at least the Mediocre American Short Story. Or maybe Hemingway’s ghost would have appeared, curious as to how a tourist got into his sanctum sanctorum.
“Where’d you come from? You’re looking for an autograph, right?” the spectral Papa might ask.
“I’m a writer! I paid $1,500 to … um … well … I suppose to wait for the Muse.”
“The Muse only works in the morning, kid! And she doesn’t work that cheap! But I like your spunk! What kind of stories do you write?”
“Humor, mostly.”
“Humor, eh? I once said, ‘A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book!’ You look too comfortable. But maybe I can help. Hmm … how about you write something manly? Tell me, what makes a man today?”
“Well, sir, no one is really sure anymore.”
“Ha! I knew it! You’ve all gone soft! Well, friend, let’s head to Sloppy Joe’s and get plastered. Then we’ll come back here and go a few rounds out back!
“And if you’re still standing after three, I’ll show you where I hid my outline for the sequel to ‘The Old Man and the Sea!’ It’s a real side-splitter!”