Understanding the Author’s Life When Reading Fiction
Some literary critics believe that a work of fiction must be solely evaluated by using the text available to the reader. Those who are in that category declare that an author’s life should not be factored in when we attempt to interpret a book. Perhaps this idea holds up in many books. But I believe that certain novels can only be most clearly understood by also studying how the author’s experiences and values interact with his or her characters, themes, dialogue, and plots. As a prime example, I think it is virtually impossible to separate the life experiences of Ernest Hemingway with one of the greatest books that he published in his lifetime – The Old Man and the Sea. Here. Ernest Hemingway and his character, Santiago’s point of view are inextricably woven together.
Hemingway in Cuba
I start Hemingway’s story in 1952. The once-great author had not had a critically or popularly acclaimed book since 1940, when he published the Spanish War novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Fidel Castro, then a Cuban revolutionary leader, was one of its biggest fans. It gave Castro a viable model for guerilla warfare. After that book, Hemingway was welcomed and considered a hero in Cuba.
Despite a twelve-year artistic drought, he had not yet given up on the goal of writing The Great Novel. Even with his earlier successes of The Sun Also Rises(1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929), he never thought that he had achieved that goal. But, by the early 1950s, he realized that time was running out for him and wondered when he would be able to make his mark.
Hemingway’s Wives
In the 1940s, instead of focusing on writing novels, he was enjoying the good life, starting in Key West Florida and then in Havana, and Cojimar, Cuba. He was a big baseball fan, following the successes and challenges of the legend, Joe Dimaggio and the New York Yankees via newspaper and radio reports. Dimaggio had visited Cuba often, also loved fishing and drinking. He and baseball were considered very popular there. We later see Dimaggio appear in the Old Man and the Sea a the Great American Hero. Most classic readers know that Hemingway also enjoyed drinking and partying with the locals. The stories about his anecdotes are legendary. He was known as a womanizer who had numerous affairs, even while he was still married to his four wives. He left his first wife, Hedley Richardson in France in the 1920s, as he was having an affair with Hedley’s best friend, Pauline Pfeiffer. This liaison is the central topic of Paula McLain’s excellent 1991 novel, The Paris Wife, which tells the Hemingway story from the scorned wife’s point of view. Later he married Pauline and with her money, they moved to Key West and then Cuba. Hemmingway then briefly had an affair, married, and got divorced from journalist Martha Gelhorn. Eventually, he married his fourth wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway, and lived with her until his death by suicide in 1961. Pauline, Martha, and Mary all lived with Hemingway for periods of time in Cuba. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago reports that he has “taken down a faded picture of his former wife because it made him too sad to look at it.”
Hemingway & Fishing
Unbeknownst to many during the period he was living and partying in Cuba, he was also gathering some rich lore and deep-sea fishing experiences he would need one day to write his masterpiece. However, he didn’t stop writing short stories and journal pieces throughout the late 1930s and 1940s. As far back as the 1930s, he wrote articles for Esquire and several sporting magazines on deep-sea fishing. He also published some of his best short stories during the 1930s and 1940s. However, many readers only discovered them when they were fully republished in their entirety in 1987 in The Collected Stories of Ernest Hemingway – Finca Vagia Edition. Several of these were Nick Adams stories about his enjoyment of fishing and outdoor experiences as a boy and young man. He first learned about the outdoors and fishing from his real father. In his later adult life, he learned about the sea by becoming an apprentice and going out on sea adventures under Gregorio Fuentes and several other great fishermen from Cuba. He bought his famous fishing skiff, Pilar, in 1934, further enabling his new fishing hobby. Throughout the 1940s, he was quietly developing a plan was to write a trio of books about the air, land, and sea in the Caribbean. One of these books, Islands of the Stream, was never completed by him, but later edited and published posthumously in 1970 with the clean-up batting of his fourth wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway.
By 1950, he was considered by many to be one of the top deep-sea fishermen in the world. In that same year, he sponsored and won the first Ernest Hemingway fishing tournament. This is not terribly surprising. In 1960, Fidel Castro won the Hemingway Tournament! This is not very surprising either (see this article’s feature photo, from www.lithub.com).
Hemingway’s Impact in Cuba
Hemmingway was forced to leave his home in Cuba in 1960, not long after his fishing tournament with Castro) when the U.S. State Department advised him that they thought the instability caused by the Cuban Revolution made it too dangerous for Americans to remain there. But years later, Hemingway remains one of the only Americans still honored in Cuba. Despite the Cuban Revolution, Hemingway’s Finca Vagia house was left intact and eventually restored by Castro, where it stands today as a museum in honor of Papa Hemmingway.
Hemingway & and the Old Man, Santiago
In the one book of that trio that was published in his lifetime, The Old Man and the Sea’s protagonist, Santiago, believes that he needs to prove he can still catch a Great Fish, despite being unsuccessful in catching anything for over forty days. Similarly, in 1952, Hemingway still believed that he could regain his stance among the most respected writers. But with his great faith in himself, he also sometimes had significant doubt about his writing abilities. This is evident in his book when in the same thought, he expresses both doubt and confidence: “Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman. But that was the thing I was born for,” We can substitute a ” born to be a great writer” here and reach the same idea. Like Hemingway, Santiago was an old, experienced fisherman, in declining health who had many early successes, which were now just distant memories. Hemingway was in his fifties in 1952. Like Santiago, he had many rich experiences but was deeply scarred. He clearly understood that he needed a Heroic Effort to write a career-defining masterpiece. Fortunately for us readers, he found one final burst of high artistic energy, as he devoted all of his productive time and energy over six weeks writing The Old Man and the Sea.
The Heroic Journey Considered
As many now know, this classic book has achieved widespread acclaim and financial rewards and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and The Nobel Prizes for Literature in 1954. I have written about the cycle of The Heroic Journey in Litchatte before. In my next column, I will review the Heroic Journey, as defined by Joseph Campbell, and consider the ways that The Old Man and the Sea may and may not adhere to that model.
Write to Murray Ellison in the dialogue box below any Litchatte.com post, and I will certainly respond soon.
Selected Sources:
Hemingway, the Final Years by Michael Reynolds, 1999.
The Old Man and the Sea: Story of a Common Man by Gerry Brenner, 1991.
* Pauline Pfeiffer Photo from www.hemingway.estate.edu
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