Everything I have written, everything I have thought, all has come true in the first nineteen pages of The Garden of Eden.
Last night after finishing and this morning I had Don McLean's "Starry Night," about Van Gogh, stuck in my head. I ran out and bought a copy of The Garden of Eden.
On the second page: "The room they lived in looked like the painting of Van Gogh's room at Arles..." On the ninth: "The girl's clothes were folded on one of the Van Gogh chairs..."
Chapter One is only sixteen pages long. It begins like an ending:
On the third fucking page:
"I'm the destructive type," Catherine, David Bourne's wife. "And I'm going to destroy you.."
He has been married to her three fucking weeks! Why is not that the end of the fucking marriage at least?
Chapter One ends on a note of seeming finality as well. After Catherine has buggered him the first time,
"He held her close and hard and inside himself he said goodbye and then goodbye and goodbye....and his heart said goodbye Catherine goodbye my lovely girl goodbye and good luck and goodbye."
Right? Outta here! But no. Does this marriage really last for 232 more pages? Is this really how Hemingway began this book?
Why did Hemingway make David and Catherine husband and wife? Ah, because in marriage two become one.
Yesterday I could not get Gregory-Gloria Hemingway's police photograph out of my mind.
Ernest and Marcelline, brother and sister, dressed as twin girls in real life.
People thought David and Catherine were brother and sister, rather than husband and wife.
Monday night: "I love you Papa. Whoever and whatever you are, I love you."
"And you love me just the way I am?" "Yes." "Because I'm going to be changed."
After the second time she buggers him, "...he leaned over and said to her but not aloud, 'I'm with you. No matter what else you have in your head I'm with you and I love you.'"
Catherine went to the same coiffeur as did David, "And I said exactly," cut my hair exactly as you did David's.
"I'm a girl. But now I'm a boy too and I can do anything and anything and anything." David refers to her as brother: "What do you want, brother?" (to drink).
"Dave (the nickname, as a brother would refer to his brother), you don't mind if we've gone to the devil, do you?" "No, girl." "Don't call me girl."
Her breasts are "just my dowry." "No leave them. They'll be there. Please love me David the way I am. Please understand and love me."
As she penetrates him for the first time: "Now you can't tell who is who can you?" "No." "You are changing," she said. "Oh you are. You are. Yes you are and you're my girl Catherine. Will you change and be my girl and let me take you?" "You're Catherine." "No. I'm Peter." Please understand. Please know and understand."
Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
...
They would not listen, they did not know how
Yesterday the word that kept coming to mind was "dark."
David Bourne refers to Catherine's buggery of him as "dark magic."
Last night: a thing is dark to us because we do not understand it.
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
The morning after the second, full, buggery, "Don't worry, David. I'm your good girl come back again." Oh yeah! Well, good luck with that! "But he was very worried now...you don't feel bad" (he said to himself). Not with the wine you don't feel bad, he told himself, and what will you drink when the wine won't cover for you?" Fucking hemlock!
Last night after finishing and this morning I had Don McLean's "Starry Night," about Van Gogh, stuck in my head. I ran out and bought a copy of The Garden of Eden.
On the second page: "The room they lived in looked like the painting of Van Gogh's room at Arles..." On the ninth: "The girl's clothes were folded on one of the Van Gogh chairs..."
Chapter One is only sixteen pages long. It begins like an ending:
On the third fucking page:
"I'm the destructive type," Catherine, David Bourne's wife. "And I'm going to destroy you.."
He has been married to her three fucking weeks! Why is not that the end of the fucking marriage at least?
Chapter One ends on a note of seeming finality as well. After Catherine has buggered him the first time,
"He held her close and hard and inside himself he said goodbye and then goodbye and goodbye....and his heart said goodbye Catherine goodbye my lovely girl goodbye and good luck and goodbye."
Right? Outta here! But no. Does this marriage really last for 232 more pages? Is this really how Hemingway began this book?
Why did Hemingway make David and Catherine husband and wife? Ah, because in marriage two become one.
Yesterday I could not get Gregory-Gloria Hemingway's police photograph out of my mind.
Ernest and Marcelline, brother and sister, dressed as twin girls in real life.
People thought David and Catherine were brother and sister, rather than husband and wife.
Monday night: "I love you Papa. Whoever and whatever you are, I love you."
"And you love me just the way I am?" "Yes." "Because I'm going to be changed."
After the second time she buggers him, "...he leaned over and said to her but not aloud, 'I'm with you. No matter what else you have in your head I'm with you and I love you.'"
Catherine went to the same coiffeur as did David, "And I said exactly," cut my hair exactly as you did David's.
"I'm a girl. But now I'm a boy too and I can do anything and anything and anything." David refers to her as brother: "What do you want, brother?" (to drink).
"Dave (the nickname, as a brother would refer to his brother), you don't mind if we've gone to the devil, do you?" "No, girl." "Don't call me girl."
Her breasts are "just my dowry." "No leave them. They'll be there. Please love me David the way I am. Please understand and love me."
As she penetrates him for the first time: "Now you can't tell who is who can you?" "No." "You are changing," she said. "Oh you are. You are. Yes you are and you're my girl Catherine. Will you change and be my girl and let me take you?" "You're Catherine." "No. I'm Peter." Please understand. Please know and understand."
Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
...
They would not listen, they did not know how
Yesterday the word that kept coming to mind was "dark."
David Bourne refers to Catherine's buggery of him as "dark magic."
Last night: a thing is dark to us because we do not understand it.
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
The morning after the second, full, buggery, "Don't worry, David. I'm your good girl come back again." Oh yeah! Well, good luck with that! "But he was very worried now...you don't feel bad" (he said to himself). Not with the wine you don't feel bad, he told himself, and what will you drink when the wine won't cover for you?" Fucking hemlock!
Hemingway, why "Catherine?" Catherine Barkley, Agnes von Kurowsky in real life, in A Farewell to Arms, now Catherine again.
Hemingway worked on this book, which was left unfinished from 1946 until his suicide.
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life, as lovers often do
Hemingway worked on this book, which was left unfinished from 1946 until his suicide.
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life, as lovers often do
Where can this book go for 230 more pages after that first nineteen? I don't know but nowhere good. Jesus Christ.
