Conversations with Hemingway (13)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Papa’s code 

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

7:45 AM. Papa, my friend Christel asks an interesting question. Did it occur to Jake (or to you) that a man might have ways to sexually satisfy a woman other than normal intercourse?

Think about it, and you will see that in this case he could satisfy her, but she couldn’t satisfy him, and over time it could only lead to humiliation and resentment, even though it was nobody’s fault. Jake wasn’t impotent, he was mutilated, and had no way to relieve the pressure — and so she couldn’t help him. If he had had his testicles removed or destroyed it would have made him less of a man sexually but it would have been easier to bear, in the way that a forgotten state of mind is easier to bear in memory from a different state of mind than from the same state of mind. In other words, he wouldn’t then have felt the urgency so much as remembered it, which is sort of abstract.

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Conversations with Hemingway (11)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Sunday, May 9, 2010

7:30 AM. A lot of communicating, yesterday — 23 pages of journal. I don’t really know where to go with this today, but I have the sense, still, that you do, Papa. I have the continuing sense  that you have your own point of view, of your life from the inside, that you want to get over.

That’s right. And it isn’t just vanity, or scratching an itch. Those things can motivate over here, don’t let anybody tell you they can’t, for people are people whether they have a body or not. But I am working with you on another level — as you would put it — to bring forward another project.

Continue reading Conversations with Hemingway (11)

Conversations with Hemingway (10)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Saturday, May 8, 2010

8:30 AM. Okay, Papa, here we go again if you’re so inclined.

Coffee in hand, eh? What would you have done if you’d lived before coffee?

I have never known the difference, I presume. Yesterday we set out to talk about your state after the war, but didn’t get that far. So —

Continue reading Conversations with Hemingway (10)

Conversations with Hemingway (9)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Friday, May 7, 2010

8:30 AM. Papa, do you have a selected topic this morning?

We could go wherever you wish, provided that we talk about my inner reality as I experienced it or you imagine it.

Yes, don’t think that isn’t always in my mind!

You are doing all right. Just continue as you’re going.

Continue reading Conversations with Hemingway (9)

Conversations with Hemingway (7)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

11 AM. So, Papa, more about Spain?

There is always more about Spain. I just wish you could see it for yourself — and I wish you could see it in the 1920s, as I saw it.

Nobody brought it closer than you did.

And I can be there now, if you help focus me, or someone else does — directs my attention there, you know. But the whole tragedy was lying there waiting. They’d missed the war, so they had to have one of their own, or continue dozing in the sun, and that wasn’t possible.

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Conversations with Hemingway (6)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

7 AM Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The 20th century could be called The War About God, and that would be as close a clue to it as any.

Started rereading For Whom The Bell Tolls last night. What an achievement.

Papa, what do you know of the war against God? You certainly left enough clues scattered about in your writings.

It was there to be seen, if you had eyes. But it was harder to see it impartially in those days.

Continue reading Conversations with Hemingway (6)