Skip to main content

Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson: book review


Paul Hendrickson’s semi-biographical, Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 (2011) is a mixed bag: mostly engrossing, but often confusing.

Hendrickson’s manuscript is more of an expose of his notes than a formal biographical account as he interviews people in Ernest Hemingway’s life and analyses photographs and memorabilia. The greatest piece of “memorabilia” is Hemingway’s boat, “Pilar” – bought in 1934 after his best seller, “A Farewell to Arms” and achieving fame as “America’s greatest novelist.” It is at this time that Hemingway leaves America to live in Bimini near Havana, Cuba, until forced back to America when the future of Cuba nosedives after 1958 under Fidel Castro’s regime.

Hemingway describes the Cuban years as the happiest of his life, which he ended early on July 2, 1961 in his Ketchum, Idaho home, shortly before his sixty-second birthday and a year after he leaves Cuba. Not only was it his happiest period, it was also his most prolific as an author. He would spend much of the fishing season on his boat off the coast of Cuba, inspiration for his novel, “Old Man and the Sea” which resulted in the 1952 Pulitzer Prize. In 1954 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. However, he also continued spending time in Africa on safari, and in Spain to watch bull-fighting which inspired further novels, works of non-fiction, and short stories.

Hendrickson’s work comments on Hemingway’s relationship with his parents (particularly his father), his three sons and his four wives. He also comments on the influential personalities in Hemingway’s life, his publishers, and assistants. He comments too on the numerous biographies of Hemingway including that of his son, Gregory (Gigi) Hemingway (1976), his fourth wife Mary (1976), and his brother Leicester (1996). It is on these pages where Hendrickson departs from a chronological and linear account and the boat as the focal point for depicting Hemingway’s inspirations, loves, losses, challenges, thoughts, and feelings. His best and most interesting writing occurs when he focuses on Hemingway and his boat. The most poignant chapter is of the last years of Hemingway’s life as he battles suicidal tendencies, electric shock treatments, and depression. For Hemingway lovers Hendrickson’s work presents a different, unique approach to the narration of the author’s life.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Apes go to the movies - and remember the scenes

Apes remember major events in movies, even after a single viewing. That’s the findings of primate research in Japan (New Scientist, September 17, 2015). Researchers at the Kyoto University in Japan conducted experiments with two species of apes – chimpanzees and bonobo primates – to test their memory and recall. Instead of using food to test memory, they used films. The researchers made two short movies to show to the apes. Fumihiro Kano and his colleague, Satoshi Hirata, starred in the films with another person dressed as an ape. They wanted to have strong dramatic scenes to see if the apes remembered them. In the first 30-second movie the character ape bursts through a door on the right hand side (there is also a door on the left hand side) and attacks the two researchers (characters) 18 seconds after the start. After 24 seconds a human character choses one of two weapons next to each other and launched a revenge attack on the ape. In the second 30-second movie t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...
1 comment
Read more