Sunday, December 14, 2025
Hem's Way*
*Updated. First posted Dec. 12, 11:36 pm.
The last two novels of his that I read were The Garden of Eden* and A Farewell to Arms. Very similar size books, Eden 247 pages, Farewell 332. Compact like his signature style. I have only my second copy of Eden, I date my books, and I began re-reading Eden November 30, 2024; Farewell, also my second copy, October 14, 2025. Before starting this second copy of Eden I had been studying medicine with my daughter-in-law for about five months. The first note in my Moleskine, for USMLE, December 3, '24, was not on medicine. It reads "Garden of Eden" and the date--"mirrors". The second entry in Moleskine, Dec. 8, '24: "Haya: the modest one, the one who blushes. The third, Dec. 13 "Please let's be slow and slow and slow (169)", the page. Then my USMLE notes from then on.
Earnest was the son of a physician; he was then a reporter for the Toronto Star. Spare style, newspaper reporters; spare style (don't I know!) doctors. Both strive to be detached from the subjects they cover. Earnest clearly absorbed medicine, and the medical style of communication via osmosis from his father. Unemotional, doctors; newspaper reporters, too. Don't get involved emotionally with your patients or your subjects. There is a cruelty in emotional detachment, a lack of empathy, maybe a suppression of emotion and empathy.
Both medicine and news reporting are fact-based. Just the facts, related as unemotionally as possible, colorful modifying adjectives and adverbs "not professional". Fact-obsessed writing bowdlerizes horror. It's "realistic."
Hemingway was a brave man, a brave writer. His novels are based on his experience, so we know quite a bit about the scenes and the characters he writes, We know Catherine Barkley (Farewell) was based on Agnes von Kurowsky. I don't know who Catherine Bourne (Eden) (en passant: two women characters, the male protagonists' lovers, written sixteen years apart, both named Catherine, both with the same initials) was based on.
But there are limits to Hem's Way of realism. AvK was American, not English and the liberties taken in Farewell are extensive. AvK wrote Hem a Dear John letter, she did not die in child birth with their baby boy in Italy. Hem was not at Caporetto, He wrote about Caporetto and that writing is called "one of the greatest moments in literary history." I did not find it such. It was nothing like Tolstoy's description of the Battle of Borodino, which on my first reading I recognized as nonpareil. I would not term Farewell a "beautiful" book as the New York Times reviewer did in 1929. The ending is the most painful that I have ever read in any novel and it is not a beautiful pain. It was an empty pain without meaning. It also never happened, nothing close to the ending happened to Hemingway in Italy in World War I.
Farewell was written in the first person by Hemingway when he was thirty, based on his experiences when he was 19. Eden is written in the omniscient third person observer and was begun in 1946 when Hemingway was 47. Only "Book One" was complete when the manuscript was delivered to his editor by Mary in 1961 after Earnest's suicide. As I said, I don't know who Garden is based on.
The first sentence in Farewell: "In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village..." emphasis added. The first sentence in Eden: "They were living at the Grau du Roi then..."
There were limits to Hemingway's bravery. Eden is decadent, its sexual themes conflicted jarringly with Hemingway's reputation. Hemingway evidently wanted some distance from Eden's David Bourne. Bourne: Born? Born again as a man made a woman by his woman?
In these two books, started seventeen years apart, at least three that I recall of Hemingway's fetishes, or obsessions, or curious somethings, are repeated. One is drinking. Hem as Frederic Henry drank as much at 19 as Hem as David Bourne drank at 47. I am, therefore I drink. That was Hemingway. Another is hair. He loved women's hair; loved watching women brush their hair; often watched them surreptitiously when they were not aware, or in mirrors, the other recurrent curiosity (e.g. Eden 43); "She saw herself in one of the mirrors and put her hands to her hair. I saw her in three other mirrors." (Farewell 152) the other recurrent curiosity. "'You have beautiful hair,' I said"... "I was going to cut it all off when he died" (a previous lover). "No." (Hemingway/Frederic Henry (Fairwell p. 19.) In Eden, Catherine Bourne cuts her hair to look like a boy; dies her hair; takes Hemingway/David Bourne to the same hair artist (the only term for it so obsessed is she and Hemingway with hair) that she went to; insists the hair artist cut and die Hemingway/David Bourne's hair exactly the same way. In 26 years hair had become an obsession. The drinking is alcoholism, the hair was a bit fetishistic and became full-fledged, the mirrors are a bit voyeuristic.
Hemingway had already burst onto the literary scene in 1926 with The Sun Also Rises. Farewell just three years later reinforced both his standing and his writing style, stream of consciousness thought, carried off wonderfully in Farewell; the dialogue as people speak, not as auditors or fiction writers translate it sensibly into print. Speakers are often unidentified so readers who have to go back to see who spoke first in the communication pas de deux. That was Hemingway's style. Hemingway seems to express emotion in a unique (to me) repetition. "Please let's be slow and slow and slow" on page 169 of Eden; "I love you always always always--" (Eden, 55). "Couldn't you tell now and now and now..." (Eden 49). "I wouldn't mind him if he wasn't so conceited and didn't bore me, and bore me, and bore me." (Farewell, 125) It sounds biblical to me, maybe because of the threes, although I am not a bible student. "Don't talk" (Eden, also p 169), "You don't have to keep saying it" (Eden 55), and variations, "Let's not talk about it", are Hem's Way. It's post-literate literature.
There is more symmetry in Hemingway's writing in Farewell than I can remember in any of his other works, at least in Eden. Farewell, chapter one, first sentence:
"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village..."
I underlined and later, when I was near the end, went back and notated See p. 289:
"That fall the snow came very late. We lived in a brown wooden house in the pine trees..."
Catherine Bourne (Eden, 17) in 1946 penetrates her husband David and says, "Now you can't tell who is who can you?"
Catherine Barkley, 1929:
"I'll say just what you wish and I'll do what you wish...I'll do what you want and say what you want...I want what you want. There isn't any me any more. ..." I put an * and noted at the bottom of the page, the end of Chapter XVI, the first time I was sure:
Like Catherine (?) Bourne. It is [I underlined twice] Catherine! Catherine Barkley @ age 30 (Hemingway, Catherine Bourne, in his last years.
(more)
*Charles Scribner, Jr, Hemingway's editor, put Eden together as published according to his long work with Hemingway and his own literary tendencies. His efforts have been criticized.
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Public Occurrences December 13, 2025
The Dynasty 14 Tottenham 4, 8:08 1Q
"If" The Dynasty wins this one they will own the best record, 25-1, of any team in Association history through 26 games.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Rape* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
Woody Allen Is Not Sorry About His Friendship With Jeffrey Epstein
Arsenal (10-4(D)-2(L) 0 Wolves (0-3-13) 0, 68'π€¦
@RealGaryWebster
Biggest 30 mins in Arteta's @Arsenal managerial career coming up. Just hope team come through for the fansππ#COYG❤️
4:21 PM · Dec 13, 2025
·324 Views
Friday, December 12, 2025
Steven Smith said something interesting...
...regarding The Dynasty. "I'm worried about the NBA." I gasped a quarter breath. "Who's going to beat them? "Even if you had the chance with all the assets you had to get Giannis Antetokounmpo, why bother?"
Gulp. He's right. Put Giannis on any team you want, take away a reasonable package of assets from the Giannis-recipient and send them to Beer, is Giannis' new team better than Oklahoma City? No! Take Peaceniks. Who could they reasonably trade for Giannis. Jonathan Kuminga? Yeah, and. You hit a road block. A trade is not a free agency signing, there are comings and goings. There's not a team that you can say reasonably would be better than OKC after parting with highly valued parts and with Giannis. Ergo, Smith's question, "Why bother?"
I too am worried about the NBA.
Chris Fedor
@ChrisFedor
The Wizards entered tonight's game allowing the third-most points in the paint in the league. And, yet, of #Cavs 60 shot attempts midway through the third quarter, a whopping 39 have been 3s.
8:41 PM · Dec 12, 2025
·1,577 Views
No discipline. No direction. No responsibility. No accountability. (Fedor writes for sensitivecity.com)
Liz (3-19) 82-68 Sensitive City (14-11), 6:28 3rd, Sensitive Time Outie
John Ewing
@johnewing
Darius Garland is 0-10 from 3 tonight [That was at HALF-TIME]
...
8:34 PM · Dec 12, 2025
·1,668 Views
FROM 3?!? Why is he still shooting 3's? That is outrageous. The players do whatever they want, Kenny Atkinson imposes no discipline or responsibility on them.
Association
Lizards (3-19) 76 Sensitive City (14-11) 68, 7:45 3Q.
Sensitives led by 11 after 1, by 2 after 2, but have been outscored 16-6 in the 3rd.
