ERNEST HEMINGWAY, CUB REPORTER

Ernest Hemingway, cub reporter

Ernest, I am thrilled, as the copy of Ernest Hemingway, Cub Reporter arrived in the mail just yesterday! 

As I'm reading the first bits of the book I feel that I need to dialogue with you about the preface that you wrote in 1931 to A Bibliography of the Works of Ernest Hemingway (and which is quoted in this small volume), where you shared: 

" It is the height of silliness to go into newspaper stuff I have written, which has nothing to do with the other writing which is entirely apart and starts with the first In our Times. Have written thousands of columns in newspapers. Also sent much in condensed cable-ese to be rewritten in U.S. and Canada. This has nothing to do with signed and published writing in books or magazines and it is a hell of a trick on a man to dig it up and confuse the matter of judging the work he has published. If anyone wants to do that after a man is dead, he can't defend himself, but while he is alive, he can, at least, take no part in it and oppose it as far as possible. The first right that a man writing has is the choice of what he will publish. If you have made your living as a newspaperman, learning your trade, writing against deadlines, writing to make stuff timely rather than permanent, no one has the right to dig this stuff up and use it against the stuff you have written to write the best you can." Ernest Hemingway to Louis Henry Cohn

Of course, Ernest, I agree. However, I am not interested in your works as literary objects, although you have garnered a flood of recognition and acceptance in that world. In truth, who am I to comment on that? No, I would NEVER venture to be so presumptive as to step into that arena. It would be like a child stepping into the ring with one of your favorite fighters like Jack Dempsey - no that would certainly result in carnage. 

Our time together this summer is about you, and your life - your humanity. That's what I want to explore. Putting the writing aside, it's the stuff of your life as it played out in the world at large. As Shakespeare so aptly put it:

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts..."

It is the parts that you played and how they shaped who you were and what you became that I am interested in. 

"Damned invasive?"

Yes, I agree. When you have worked as hard as you have to create a series of vignettes around your life that build an image that is "bigger than life", I can understand that looking at the threads woven through that same life that may reveal the soft underbelly of humanity that we all posses can leave you feeling naked and exposed - vulnerable. 

I'm going to be honest with you Hem (if I may call you that?), I'm taking this journey with you because it allows me to explore that level of vulnerability in myself vicariously. If I were to write this of my own life - well, I couldn't write it. Like you, there are private, wounded, and scarred parts of my psyche that I just can't face head-on, so yeah, in shadowing you I have the opportunity to work through some of the things maybe you didn't. 

Hem, it's never to late to help yourself or help others, at least that's the way I see it. So I'm hoping you'll bear with me as we walk awhile together this summer, and allow me to befriend you for at least this brief period of time. There is so much of your story that resonates with me.

I love what you said of your time at the Star, "On the Star you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. That's useful to anyone." 

Yes, it is. So, it's time to explore your time at the Star and take a look at what you were focused on and what was going on in the world. It's fascinating to think that this single twelve month time period in your life was so densely packed with experiences and change. 

'Till next time!