Speaking to “dead” people involves a lot of guesswork even after the fact. This morning I went fishing to see what Papa Hemingway thought about a book, and — more to the point, for me — how certain aspects of communication between this side and the other side work. Or, sometimes, don’t work.
Hemingway’s Service
I mentioned yesterday that I had discovered a book called The Hemingway Patrols: Ernest Hemingway And His Hunt For U-Boats, by Terry Mort. I highly recommend it. The author respects Hemingway without being blind to his failings. Indeed, he seems troubled by them, in the same way I am. That’s a long way from condemnation, and it’s an attitude we don’t see enough of. The book is copyrighted 2009, published by Scribner, of course, Hemingway’s long-time publisher.
This is from the epilogue, “The Meaning Of Nothing”:
Continue reading Hemingway’s Service
Hemingway’s not-so-unfinished Business
My column for the July, 2009, edition of the on-line magazine The Meta Arts was titled Hemingway’s Unfinished Business. It read as follows:
Who would have thought that the dead have unfinished business? But, if the model of our lives on the other side that the guys upstairs have provided is anything like correct, it would make sense. A chat I had with Hemingway a few months ago sheds light on the subject. Perhaps putting it on the record here will serve as the finger pointing to the moon.