01x01 - A Writer (1899-1929)

[bunniefuu]

Man: hemingway was a writer
who happened to be american,

But his palette
was incredibly wide

And delicious and violent
and brutal and ugly,

All of those things.

It's something every culture
can basically understand.

Every culture can understand
falling in love with someone,

The loss of that person,

Of how great a meal tastes,

How extraordinary
this journey is.

That is not nationalistic.

It's human,

And I think with all
of his flaws,

With all the difficulties,
his personal life, whatever,

He seemed to understand
human beings.

Man, as hemingway: you see,
I'm trying in all my stories

To get the feeling
of the actual life across--

Not just to depict life
or criticize it--

But to actually make it alive

So that when you've read
something by me

You actually experience
the thing.

You can't do this
without putting in

The bad and the ugly,
as well as what is beautiful,

Because if it is all beautiful
you can't believe in it.

Things aren't that way.

It is only by showing
both sides--

3 Dimensions and if possible 4--

That you can write
the way I want to.

[The benny goodman sextet's
"a smo-0-0-0th one" playing)

Narrator: ernest hemingway
remade american literature.

He pared story-telling
to its essentials,

Changed the way
characters speak,

Expanded the worlds a writer
could legitimately explore,

And left an indelible record
of how men and women lived

During his lifetime.

Generations of writers
would find their work

Measured against his.

Some followed
the path he'd blazed.

Others rebelled against it.

None could escape it.

He made himself the most
celebrated american writer

Since mark twain,

Read--and revered--
around the world.

Man: it's hard to imagine
a writer today

Who hasn't been in some way
influenced by him.

It's like he changed
all the furniture

In the room, right,
and we all have to sit in it

To some--you know,
we can kind of sit

On the edge of the armchair,
on the arm or do this,

But, you know he changed
the furniture in the room.

The value of the american
declarative sentence, right,

The way you build a house
brick by brick out of those.

Within a few sentences
of reading a hemingway story,

You were not in any confusion
as to who had written it.

Woman: I can't imagine
how it's possible

That any one writer could have
so changed the language.

People have been copying him
for nearly a hundred years,

And they haven't succeeded
in equaling what he did.

Man: if you're a writer,
you can't escape hemingway.

He's so damn popular that you
can't begin to write

Till you try and k*ll
his ghost in you

Or embrace it,

And I think I identify that
most about hemingway

Is that he was
always questing.

The perfect line
had not happened yet.

It is always a struggle
trying to get it right,

And you never will.

Narrator: for 3 decades,
people who had not read

A word he'd written thought
they knew him--

Wounded veteran
and b*ttlefield correspondent,

Big-game hunter
and deep-sea fisherman,

Bull-fight aficionado,
brawler, and lover

And man about town...

But behind the public figure was
a troubled and conflicted man,

Who belonged to a troubled
and conflicted family

With its own drama and darkness
and closely-held secrets.

The world saw him
as a man's man,

But all his life, he would
privately be intrigued

By the blurred lines
between male and female,

Men and women.

There were so many sides
to him,

The first of his
4 wives remembered,

That he defied geometry.

Woman: he was open to life.

He was open to tragedy.

He was open
to feeling.

I liked that he fell in love,

And he fell in love
quite a few times.

He always had the next woman

Before he left
the existing woman.

Narrator: he was often kind
and generous to those

In need of help
and sometimes just as cruel

And vengeful to those
who had helped him.

Man, as hemingway: I have always
had the illusion

It was more important,
or as important,

To be a good man
as to be a great writer.

I may turn out to be neither

But would like to be both.

Narrator: hemingway's story
is a tale older even

Than the written word--
of a young man

Whose ambition and imagination,

Energy and enormous gifts
bring him wealth and fame

Beyond imagining,

Who destroys himself trying
to remain true

To the character
he has invented.

O'brien:
one of his weaknesses--

I was going to say, "failings,"
and it was a great pity--

It's a great pity
for any writer--

He loved an audience.

He loved an audience,
and in front of an audience,

He lost the best part of himself

By trying to impress
the audience.

Katakis: I hate
the myth of hemingway,

And the reason I hate the myth
of hemingway,

It obscures the man,

And the man is much more
interesting than the myth.

I think he was
a terrific father sometimes.

I think that he was
a loving husband sometimes.

I think he was like
so many people

Except this enormous talent.

Hemingway is complicated.
He's very complicated.

Man, as hemingway:
the great thing is to last

And get your work done

And see and hear and learn
and understand;

And write when there is
something that you know;

And not before;

And not too damned much after.

[Scott joplin's "paragon rag"
playing]

Woman, as grace hemingway:
my boy delights in sh**ting

Imaginary wolves, bears, lions.

Also likes to pretend
he is a soldier.

He storms and kicks and dances
with rage when thwarted.

When asked what he is afraid of,

He shouts out
"afraid of nothing!"

Narrator:
ernest miller hemingway was born

July 21, 1899,
the second of 6 children

And enjoyed what seemed to be
an idyllic boyhood.

He had 4 adoring sisters

And a worshipful
younger brother.

They all lived
in a big, comfortable home

In the prosperous
chicago suburb of oak park,

A complacent,
well-mannered community

With no saloons
and so many churches

It liked to call itself
"saint's rest."

The hemingways spent
long summers at windemere,

Their cottage on walloon lake
in michigan.

[Fire crackling]

Ernest's father
clarence hemingway--

Known to everyone as ed--
was a family doctor.

He kept office hours
every day of the week

But was often forced
to make house calls

In the middle of the night,

Performing emergency
cesarean sections

By lantern light.

Sometimes, he failed to save
the mother or the baby or both.

"My father was very devoted
to my mother,"

Ernest's youngest sister
remembered,

"But she was devoted
to herself."

His mother grace hall hemingway

Had married after abandoning
her dream

Of being an opera singer,
but she gave

Voice and violin
and piano lessons,

Directed a choir,

And earned more
than her husband.

Grace exposed all
of her children to the arts,

But she never let them forget
that she had sacrificed

A concert career to raise them.

If they loved her,
she said, they would do

Whatever she told them to do.

It amused her for a time to
pretend that ernest

And his older sister
marcelline were somehow twins,

Sometimes two boys,
sometimes two girls.

Woman: she did this thing
of twinning him with his sister.

She dressed them alike.

She dressed them
in dresses often,

But then she'd put them
in overalls.

She didn't only dress him up
as a girl.

Sometimes, she'd dress
the girls up as boys,

And there's this--there is
this androgyny going on.

Woman, as marcelline: we wore
our hair exactly the same

In a square-cut dutch bob.

We played with small
china tea sets.

We had dolls alike,
and when ernest was given

A little air r*fle,
I had one, too.

Narrator: one of his teachers
thought grace too close

To her son, too controlling.

She remembered wondering if,
"given the lush motherhood he knew,

He would ever find wife."

[Birds chirping,
ducks quacking]

Man, as hemingway: his father
came back to him

In the fall of the year,

Or in the early spring
when there had been jacksnipe

On the prairie,

Or when he saw shocks of corn,

Or when he saw a lake,

Or if he ever saw
a horse and buggy,

Or when he saw, or heard,
wild geese,

Or in a duck blind.

His father was
with him, suddenly,

In deserted orchards
and in new-plowed fields,

In thickets, on small hills,

Or when going
through dead grass,

Whenever splitting wood
or hauling water,

By grist mills,
cider mills, and dams

And always with open fires.

Narrator: ernest worshipped
his father,

Who spent hours teaching him
how to hunt and fish and canoe,

Inculcating
a life-long fascination

With the outdoors
and with learning precisely

How things should be done.

Man: he instilled in this boy
before the boy

Almost could walk
this primal feeling

For the beauty of nature,

Just the organic love
for the woods, for water.

Narrator: but ed hemingway
was also severe, pious,

Opposed to drinking,
card-playing, and dancing

And, as ernest grew older,

Increasingly anxious,
moody, and unpredictable.

One minute he was laughing
with his children,

The next he was punishing them
with a leather strap.

Twice, hemingway's father was
so crippled by depression

That he had to leave town
for several weeks

In order to rest
what his wife called

"The worrying place
in your brain."

By the time ernest was
a teenager, he remembered,

His admiration for his father
had begun to turn to pity.

He came to see him
as weak and submissive

And blamed his mother for
his father's unhappiness.

Ernest dreamed of one day
becoming a naturalist

Or an explorer like his hero
theodore roosevelt.

He was also a good student
and a fervent reader,

Who loved o. Henry, jack london,
and rudyard kipling.

At his mother's urging,

He sang in her
congregational church choir

And played the cello.

He remembered that he especially
enjoyed the repetition

And counterpoint,
counterpoint and repetition

That ran through the works
of bach.

Woman: she also taught her kids
what every musician

Teaches their kids,
to practice.

"Don't come to me and say
that you love art

"If you don't practice your art
because practice is love.

Work is love."

And throughout his life,

He was a tremendously
disciplined writer.

Narrator: in his junior year,
he began to write,

Contributing sports stories
and tales of adventure

To the high school paper
and its literary magazine,

But he was remembered most
by his classmates

As a big, handsome,
slightly awkward boy

Fond of boxing but
too nearsighted and too clumsy

To excel at team sports,

Who was shy with girls
and preferred to hunt

And hike and fish
in the woods

Of northern michigan
whenever he got the chance.

His shyness with women
would eventually evaporate,

But he would remain eager
all his life

For the company of men
who shared his love

Of good times
and the great outdoors.

[Explosions]

Narrator: on april 6, 1917,
the united states

Entered the great w*r that
had been underway

In europe for nearly 3 years.

Millions of young men had
already been slaughtered.

The world ernest hemingway's
parents had prepared him for

Had disappeared.

Several of his high school
classmates

Had already volunteered
to go to w*r.

He hoped to go, too,
but he was too young at 17,

And his parents would not
sign the papers

That would have waived
that requirement.

They wanted him to go
to college.

He refused.

A compromise
was eventually reached.

An uncle got the boy a job
at a newspaper in kansas city.

Kansas city was a tough,
wide-open town,

And the "kansas city star"
was one of the best papers

In the country,

A pioneer in crisp, clear,
immediate reporting.

Its style-sheet set the tone.

Man: use short sentences.

Use short first paragraphs.

Use vigorous english.

Be positive, not negative.

Avoid the use of adjectives.

Narrator: hemingway covered
shootings, stabbings,

Labor troubles,
a smallpox scare.

He was fascinated by all of it,

And echoes of what he had heard
and seen in kansas city

Would appear again and again
in his later writing.

Man, as hemingway: dear dad,
we are having

A laundry strike here,

And I am handling
the police end.

The violence stories.

Wrecking trucks,
running them over cliffs,

And yesterday, they m*rder*d
a non-union guard.

For over a month
I have averaged

Over a column a day.

Narrator: after hemingway
turned 18,

He no longer needed his parents'
permission to join the army,

But he was convinced
he would be rejected

Because he was near-sighted
and joined

The red cross
ambulance service instead.

Nothing could have prepared him
for what he was about to see.

Hemingway was sent to italy,

Where he was immediately
dispatched to the scene

Of a horrific disaster.

A munitions factory
had exploded.

35 Workers
were blown to pieces.

He helped gather up the dead,
including the corpse

Of a headless, legless woman.

"Hemmie and I nearly
passed out cold,"

A friend remembered,
"but gritted our teeth

And laid the thing
on the stretcher."

Hemingway's red cross unit was
assigned to the italian army,

Fighting the austrians
in the foothills

Of the italian alps.

He drove an ambulance
for almost two weeks,

Bringing wounded italian
soldiers down

From the mountains.

"There's nothing here
but scenery

And too damn much of that,"
he told a friend.

"I'm going to get out
of this ambulance section

And see if I can't find out
where the w*r is."

Ernest volunteered to bicycle up
to the frontline trenches

Near the town of fossalta
and distribute

Candy and cigarettes
to the men.

Less than a week later,
on july 8, 1918,

He was passing out
chocolate bars

In a forward listening post
on the west bank

Of the piave river

When an enemy mortar shell
exploded just 3 feet away.

One soldier was k*lled.

Another had his legs blown off.

More than 220 shards of shrapnel
ripped into hemingway's legs

And lacerated his scalp,
and the blast caused

The first of many serious
concussions

He would endure
during his lifetime.

Man, as hemingway: I died then.

I felt my soul or something
coming right out of my body,

Like you'd pull
a silk handkerchief

Out of a pocket by one corner.

It flew around
and then came back

And went in again,
and I wasn't dead anymore.

Narrator: as stretcher-bearers
struggled to get hemingway

To an aid station,

An enemy machine gunner
opened up.

b*ll*ts lodged
in his right knee and foot.

He refused to be treated
for a time because he said

There were other men
more seriously wounded than he.

He then endured the removal
of the largest pieces

Of shrapnel without anesthetic.

Because his wounds
seemed so severe,

A catholic priest administered
extreme unction.

Italy would eventually
award him its silver medal

For what the citation called

His "admirable spirit
of fraternity."

Hemingway finally reached
the american red cross hospital

In milan and underwent
a further series of surgeries

To remove the remaining shrapnel
and the machine g*n b*ll*ts.

Man, as hemingway: dear folks,
this is a peach of a hospital.

There are about 18
american nurses

To take care of 4 patients.

I'm enclosing a picture
of me in bed.

It looks like my left leg
was a stump,

But it really isn't,

Just bent so it looks that way.

There is nothing for you
to worry about

Because it has been fairly
conclusively proved

That I can't be bumped off,

And wounds don't matter.

I wouldn't mind being wounded
again so much

Because I know
just what it is like,

And you can only suffer
so much, you know,

And it does give you an awfully
satisfactory feeling

To be wounded.

It's getting beaten up
in a good cause.

There are no heroes in this w*r.

All the heroes are dead,

And the real heroes
are the parents.

Dying is avery simple thing.

I've looked at death,
and really I know.

If 1 should have died,
it would have been

Very easy for me,

And how much better to die
in all the happy period

Of undisillusioned youth,

To go out in ablaze of light,

Than to have your body
worn out and old

And illusions shattered.

So, dear old family,
don't ever worry about me!

It isn't bad to be wounded:

I know because
I've experienced it,

And if I die, I'm lucky.

Woman: august 26.

Ernest hemingway
is getting earnest.

He was talking last night
of what might be

If he was 26 or 28.

In some ways--at some times--
I wish very much that he was.

He is adorable,
and we are very congenial

In every way.

Narrator: as he was recovering,
hemingway fell in love

With his night nurse,

An american named
agnes von kurowsky.

She was auburn-haired and 26,

7 1/2 Years older
than her patient,

Engaged to a doctor back home,
and flirtatious.

He began calling her "ag."

She called him "kid,"
and over the weeks

That followed, she gave him
a ring to wear,

Enjoyed with him the wine
and cognac

He bribed the porter
to smuggle in,

Took walks
and carriage rides with him

As soon as he was able
to leave his room,

And she was once reprimanded
by her superior

For having left a gold hair-pin
beneath his pillow.

When agnes was transferred
to an army hospital

In florence, ernest wrote her
so many letters,

She urged him to slow down,

But she also told him
she was lost without him,

Wished she could put
her arms around him,

Dreamed of him every night.

"1 Sometimes wish we could
marry over here," she wrote,

And she signed some
of her letters "mrs. Kid,"

But she signed others simply,
"yours till the w*r is over."

To fill the hours
while she was away,

Ernest began to write
a short story

About a hideously wounded
american soldier,

Who muses over the medals
he'd been given for his heroism

And the meaningless citation
that accompanied them

And then decides
to k*ll himself.

By the time hemingway was
finally well enough to sail

For home in early 1919,
the w*r had ended,

And he was determined, he said,
to "make the world safe

For ernest hemingway."

As soon as his writing provided
him with a living,

He and agnes would marry.

Narrator: as hemingway limped
down the gangplank in new york,

A reporter from
the "new york sun"

Was there to meet him.

He made the first
of the hundreds

Of national headlines he would
make during his lifetime.

He returned to oak park
to a hero's welcome.

He loved the adulation,
was delighted

When an italian-american
delegation came out

From chicago
to his mother's music room

To honor him for his courage
until his teetotaling parents--

Appalled
by the free-flowing wine--

Put a stop to such visits.

Whenever he left
his parents' house,

He wore his uniform,

Complete with
a black velvet italian cape,

And he appeared
before local groups,

Retelling and embellishing
his w*r stories for a fee,

Though he said he had
nothing but contempt

For those who wanted to be
"vicariously horrified."

But now he claimed,
despite his wounds,

He'd managed to carry
an injured man to safety

Before collapsing,
and he let his audiences believe

That, although he still
could not walk without a cane,

He'd somehow been able
to return to the front

And fight alongside an elite
unit of the italian army

Before the sh**ting stopped.

Man, as hemingway: to be
listened to at all he

Had to lie,

And after he had
done this twice,

He, too, had a reaction
against the w*r

And against talking about it.

A distaste for everything that
had happened to him

In the w*r set in

Because of the lies
he had told.

Narrator: when ernest was not
making public appearances,

He was in his third-floor
bedroom under the eaves,

Hunched over an old typewriter,
writing w*r stories

And sending them off to
the "saturday evening post"

And "redbook," trying to
show agnes and his parents

That he could
make it as a writer.

All the stories were rejected.

Despite the bravado
with which

He faced his neighbors,
he had been deeply affected

By the w*r and by his wounding.

An old friend who visited him
that winter remembered

That "he came back figuratively
as well as literally

Shot to pieces."

He could not sleep
without alight

Because he had been wounded
at night

And had come to believe,
he would write,

"That if I ever shut my eyes
in the dark and let myself go,

My soul would go
out of my body."

His sister ursula sometimes
slept in his room

To soothe his fears.

All his life, he would be
frightened of sleeping alone.

His great consolation was
that agnes would soon

Be coming home to marry him.

Woman, as agnes: march 7, 1919.

Ernie, dear boy,
I am writing this

Late at night after
along think by myself,

And I am afraid it is
going to hurt you,

But I'm sure it won't
harm you permanently.

For quite awhile
before you left,

I was trying to convince myself
it was a real love-affair,

But now, after a couple
of months away from you,

I know that I am still
very fond of you,

But it is more as a mother
than as a sweetheart,

And I can't get away
from the fact

That you're just a boy, a kid.

I expect to be married soon.

And I hope and pray that
after you have thought

Things out, you'll be able to
forgive me and start

A wonderful career and show
what a man you really are.

Ever admiringly and fondly,
your friend, aggie.

Narrator: ernest immediately
wrote to bill horne,

A friend from
the ambulance service.

Man, as hemingway:
it has hit me so sudden.

She doesn't love me, bill.

She takes it all back.

A"mistake," one of those
little mistakes, you know.

Oh, bill,
I can't kid about it

Because I'm just
smashed by it,

But she doesn't
love me now, bill,

And she is going to
marry someone else,

And she hopes that
after I have forgiven her

I will have a wonderful career
and everything,

But, bill, I don't want
a wonderful career.

All I wanted was ag
and happiness,

And now the bottom has dropped
out of the whole world.

Narrator: he developed a fever,
refused to see anyone,

Began drinking secretly
from bottles of liqueur

He hid in his bookcase,
stopped writing for a time.

There seemed to be no point.

I don't know how much
he trusted women after that.

I just don't,

But I do know he loved
being in love.

Narrator: he'd been
a big-city newspaperman,

Had experienced w*r
and nearly been k*lled,

Had been disappointed in love

And somehow now found
himself back home,

Still being treated
as if he were a boy,

As if none of it had happened.

Katakis:
things were out there.

He seems to have been hungry
from an early age,

And he could never have been
in my opinion,

Especially after
the first world w*r,

Contained by oak park's
quiet sundays and perfect lawns.

I think that was
impossible then.

So that, of course, led
to a conflict with his family,

Who felt after w*r
you should be

What they perceived you
to be before you left,

But you're
no longer the same person.

He was no longer
the same person.

Narrator: the pain of losing
agnes eventually eased.

That summer,
ernest told a friend,

He underwent what he called
a"process of cauterization

"In which cognac and 2 or 3
girls I cared nothing about

But violently rushed
took the place of the red iron."

Hemingway eventually returned
to his typewriter that fall,

First writing more stories
in a rented room

In petoskey, michigan,
then in toronto,

Writing freelance pieces
for the "daily star"

And "star weekly" about fishing
and chicago gangsters

And the dangers
of accepting a free shave

At a barber's college.

But when he returned
to his family at walloon lake

In the summer of 1920,
things went from bad to worse.

He seemed uninterested
in looking for a steady job,

Spoke vaguely
of boarding a freighter

And sailing around the world

As one of his favorite writers
jack london had done.

When his mother objected,
he snapped at her.

His father exhorted him to
"soften your temper

And fear god
and respect woman."

Things came to ahead 6 days
after his 21st birthday.

He and two of his younger
sisters joined friends,

Including their neighbor's
teenage daughters,

At a secret moonlight party
across the lake.

When his mother found out
about it, she was furious.

He was old enough to know
better, she told him.

He was corrupting
the morals of minors,

He was a disgrace to his family.

She handed him
a letter addressed

To "my dear son ernest."

It began with a catalogue
of the sacrifices

She said she had made
for his benefit.

"A mother's love," she told him,
was "like a bank."

She had made all
the early deposits--

The pain of childbirth,
the sleepless nights,

The years of patient
understanding

And encouragement,

But now that "full manhood"
was here,

It was his turn to make
"deposits" of his own, she said.

Woman, as grace: unless you,
my son, ernest,

Come to yourself,
cease your lazy loafing

And pleasure seeking--
borrowing with no thought

Of returning--

Stop trying to graft
a living off anybody,

And everybody, spending
all your earnings

Lavishly and wastefully
on luxuries for yourself--

Stop trading
on your handsome face

To fool little gullible girls,

And neglecting your duties
to god

And your savior jesus christ,

Unless, in other words,
you come into your manhood,

There is nothing before you,
but bankruptcy.

You have overdrawn.

Narrator: ernest was to leave
home, she said,

And not "come back
until your tongue has learned

Not to insult
and shame your mother."

"Makes a guy feel
kind of rotten,"

Ernest told a friend,
"to know that

He hasn't any home,
even if he doesn't use it."

He and his mother would
eventually reconcile,

But hemingway's antipathy

Toward her
would never dissipate,

Yet of all her children,
he would become

The most like her--
opinionated, judgmental,

Controlling, self-dramatizing.

Ernest moved to chicago,
roomed with old friends,

And got to know the celebrated
writer sherwood anderson,

Who became something
of a mentor.

Hemingway supported himself
writing ad copy

And worked away
at short stories at night.

No one seemed interested
in them.

Woman: all writers
are narcissistic.

That's not the same
as being a narcissist,

As being a sociopath,

But no one can sit
in a room by themselves

12 Hours a day, thinking
about what they're thinking

And not be a little more
self-focused

Than the normal person.

You're definitely on the far end
of the bell curve.

Woman: oh, mr. Hemingway,
how I love you.

How exciting you are.

How a lot of things happen
around you,

And besides all that,
I love you anyway.

How I love
the way you love me,

And your flannel shirt seems
a strangely beautiful thing,

And it smells so good besides.

Some day, if 1 don't watch out,
there'll be a poem

On the smell
of a clean white shirt

That'll raise up the hair
on the dead.

Hadley richardson.

Narrator: one october evening
in 1920,

Hemingway attended a party
at a friend's apartment

And was introduced
to a visitor from st. Louis.

"The moment she entered
the room,

An intense feeling
came over me,"

Hemingway remembered
many years later.

"I knew she was the girl
I was going to marry."

Elizabeth hadley richardson
was 28,

The shy product
of a well-to-do family

Far more tense and troubled
even than his.

Her alcoholic father had shot
himself when she was 13.

A beloved sister
had burned to death.

She herself had suffered
a nervous breakdown

At bryn mawr and been forced
to spend the last 8 years

At home, caring for her erratic
and domineering mother,

Sometimes driven to such despair

That hadley considered suicide.

Her mother had died just weeks
before she met hemingway.

She was eager, she recalled,
to find someone

With whom she could begin
to build a life of her own.

Woman, as richardson: I need you
in every part of my life.

I want to be kissed.

I want to pull your head down
on my heart

And hold it very close
and cradle you there

For hours,
you blessed thing.

Love you, love you,
your ownest in the world.

Narrator: falling in love
with hemingway, hadley said,

Was a "great expl*si*n
into life."

Within 6 weeks,
he was calling her "hash,"

And they were talking
of marriage.

They would not actually wed
for nearly a year

And were apart
most of that time,

But they wrote one another
almost daily.

Man, as hemingway:
'course I love you.

I love you all the time.

When I wake up in the morning
and have to climb out of bed

And splash around and shave,
I look at your picture

And think about you,

And in the evening,
it's too much to stand.

'Night, my dearest hash.

I'd like to hold you so
and kiss you so

That you wouldn't doubt
whether I wanted to or not.

Love you--ernesto

Narrator: his love restored
her self-confidence

After years of self-doubt.

"We're the same firm,"
she told him.

"The world's a jail,

And we're gonna
break it together."

Her confidence in him would
help him realize his talent.

When ernest told hadley he now
felt ready to start a novel

Based upon his own boyhood
with "real people,

Talking and saying
what they think,"

She sent him
a new corona typewriter.

From the first,
she seemed to understand

What he was trying to do.

She loved it that his style
"eliminated everything

Except what is necessary
and strengthening"...

But as their wedding day
approached,

Anxiety and depression
again enveloped him.

He lost weight, worried
that married life

Might not be for him after all

Or that hadley would
betray him the way agnes had.

He grew darker and darker.

He hinted to hadley that
he was considering suicide.

Woman, as richardson: I know how
it feels 'cause I have

So very many times
wanted to go and couldn't

On account of the mess I'd
leave some other people in,

But remember it would k*ll me
to all intents and purposes.

Don't ever get confused
when such a moment comes.

You gotta live--

First for you and then
for my happiness.

You mustn't feel so horribly,
unworthy dear ern.

I'm arriving saturday
to love you closer.

Narrator: on saturday afternoon,
september 3, 1921,

Ina methodist church not far
from the family cottage

On walloon lake,
hadley richardson

Became mrs. Ernest hemingway.

Man, as hemingway: january 1922.

Dear family,
hash just came in

And says to send lots
of love to you

And tell you
about our apartment.

It is at 74 rue
du cardinal lemoine

And is the jolliest place
you ever saw.

We rented it furnished
for 250 francs a month,

About $18.

Ts the most comfortable
and cheapest way to live,

And hash has a piano,
and we have all our pictures

Up on the walls
and an open fireplace.

It is on top of a high hill

In the very oldest part
of paris.

Narrator: the newly-wed
hemingways' first real home

Was a fourth-floor walkup
in the latin quarter.

Each evening,
accordion music drifted up

From the working-man's
dance-hall next door.

His friend and mentor
sherwood anderson

Had persuaded ernest that
for a young writer

Paris was the place to be.

One could live cheaply there,
and the left bank teemed

With revolutionary artists
and writers from everywhere--

Pablo picasso and joan miro;

Igor stravinsky and erik satie;

James joyce and gertrude stein,
who remembered paris

As "the place where
the 20th century was."

Ernest was just 22 years old,
working as a correspondent

For the "toronto star,"

Otherwise unpublished
and unknown,

But sherwood anderson had
written letters of introduction

To 3 influential friends,
generously describing him

As a"quite wonderful
newspaperman"

Whose "extraordinary talent"
was sure to take him

Far beyond journalism.

Vaill: he's tall.

He is as handsome
as a movie star.

He has dimples.

He has a swashbuckling
quality to him,

But he has this kind of
midwestern sweetness

At the same time.

The fact is that
if he would walk into a room

People loved him
the minute they saw him,

And that gives you a kind
of confidence

That you can do anything.

Narrator: sherwood anderson's
friends did

What they could
for the newcomer.

The first was the american
expatriate poet ezra pound.

He was well-connected
in avant-garde literary circles

And talked ernest up to
every magazine editor he knew.

Gertrude stein presided
over a salon at the home

She shared with her partner
alice b. Toklas.

Art collector,
avant-garde writer,

Champion of modernism
in all its forms,

She took a liking
to the handsome,

Eager young visitor
with what she remembered

As "dark luminous eyes"
and "a flashing smile."

She liked his terse,
declarative style, too,

And offered encouragement
and useful advice.

"Miss stein had discovered
many truths about rhythms

And the uses of words
in repetition,"

Hemingway remembered,
that echoed the counterpoint

He'd first encountered
in the music of bach.

Stein also introduced him
to the world of modern art.

He was especially drawn
to the work of paul cezanne,

Who painted the same subjects
over and over again,

Building up each image
from thousands

Of repetitive brush strokes.

Man: cezanne--he's trying
to break down

Normal habits of seeing,

And I think that's
what hemingway liked.

The great enemy for hemingway
is boredom and routine

And anything accustomed,

And I think he saw in cezanne
a model for taking

The same thing over and over,

Landscape, landscape,
landscape,

The same mountain,
the same mountain,

And rendering it new

By looking at it
in different ways,

And I think that's
the model for him.

Narrator: sylvia beach became
hemingway's friend, too.

She ran shakespeare and company,

A bookstore and lending library,
at 12 rue de l'odeon.

Sylvia beach: he came
into my shop,

And he had an introduction
from sherwood anderson,

But he didn't give that.

He'd forgotten to bring it,
and he didn't need it

Because I thought
he was so interesting,

And he said, "would you
like to see my wounds?"

And I said, "yes, indeed,"

And he took off his shoe
and his sock

And showed me
all these dreadful scars

On his leg and foot,

And then we became
great friends.

Narrator: shakespeare
and company was

A gathering place for
expatriate artists and writers.

Hemingway charmed them all,

Including the irish writer
james joyce,

Whose daringly explicit novel
"ulysses"

Sylvia beach had just published,

And he set out
to educate himself,

Borrowing books from her shop
by d.h. Lawrence, turgenev,

Dostoevsky, tolstoy.

Man, as hemingway:
february 14, 1922.

We know a good batch
of people now in paris

And if we allowed it would
have all our time

Taken up socially,
but I am working very hard,

And we keep plenty of time
to ourselves.

Paris is so very beautiful
that it satisfies something

In you that is
always hungry in america.

Narrator: for the rest
of his life,

Hemingway would insist
that he and hadley

Had been virtually penniless
when they lived in paris.

They were not.

Besides his salary,
she had an inheritance.

"We always had money
for anything

We really wanted to do,"
hadley remembered,

"And we always had money
for whiskey."

The first year
of their marriage constituted

A sort of extended honeymoon--
exploring paris, trekking,

Fishing, skiing,
bobsledding in the alps.

Cushman: one of the things
about him is that

He's committed to travel.

He likes, I think,
more than anything,

To be a foreigner,
a stranger in a strange land.

Everything is heightened,
and taste is heightened,

Vision is heightened,
smells are heightened.

Narrator: hemingway wrote
about everything--

Paris nightlife
and german manners,

Fascism and communism
and women's hats--

Always with a weary,
insider's tone remarkable

For a young man
in his early twenties,

And whenever he could find
the time,

He worked on short stories
and the novel

He had begun in chicago.

Sometimes, he took hadley along
on assignment for the "star"--

To italy, where he showed
her the place

Where he'd been wounded,

To the black forest
for trout fishing,

Aboard a pioneering
passenger flight

From paris to strasbourg--

But more often,
he traveled alone,

Getting to know
his fellow reporters,

Covering an international
economic conference at genoa,

Riots in cologne,

And in the autumn of 1922,
open warfare

Between greece and turkey
that seemed for a time

To threaten anew world w*r.

He stood and watched
as a 20-mile column

Of greek refugees passed
slowly by

In flight from the turkish army.

Man, as hemingway:
it is a silent procession.

Nobody even grunts.

It is all they can do
to keep moving.

Their brilliant peasant costumes
are soaked and draggled.

Chickens dangle by their feet
from the carts.

An old man marches
under a young pig,

A scythe and a g*n,
with a chicken tied

To his scythe.

A husband spreads a blanket
over a woman in labor

In one of the carts to
keep off the driving rain.

She is the only person
making a sound.

Her little daughter looks
at her in horror

And begins to cry.

And the procession keeps moving.

Narrator: later, hemingway
joined other reporters

At lausanne, switzerland,
where european statesmen

Were trying to stop
the fighting.

One of the reporters
with whom hemingway drank

Each evening was the veteran
correspondent lincoln steffens.

Steffens was impressed
by the piece ernest had written

About the greek refugees
and asked if he could see

More of the young man's writing.

So when ernest asked hadley
to join him in switzerland,

She decided to bring
along his work.

On december 2, 1922,
she packed into a valise

All the manuscripts
she could find and took

A taxi to the gare de lyon.

A porter carried the valise
onto a train.

When she got to her compartment,
it wasn't there.

The first chapters
of his novel were lost.

So were several short stories.

Hadley wept all the way
to lausanne

And when she got there
could barely bring herself

To tell her husband
what had happened.

Man, as hemingway:
she had cried and cried

And could not tell me.

1 Told her that no matter what
the dreadful thing was

That had happened
nothing could be that bad,

And whatever it was,
it was all right

And not to worry.

We would work it out.

Narrator: but they did not
really work it out.

Hemingway was angry.

He'd lost, he claimed
to a friend,

"Everything I've done
for two years."

He would have to start
all over again,

Though in fact,
some writing survived.

He was further shaken
several weeks later

When hadley told him
she was pregnant.

He was just 23.

"I am too young to be a father,"
he told gertrude stein,

And he said it, she remembered
"with real bitterness."

Man, as hemingway:
I was trying to learn to write,

Commencing
with the simplest things,

And one
of the simplest things of all

And the most fundamental
is violent death,

So I went to spain
to see bullfights

And to try to write
about them for myself.

[Crowd cheering, hoofbeats]

I thought they would be simple
and barbarous and cruel

And that I would not like them,

But that I would see
certain definite action

Which would give me
the feeling of life and death

That I was working for.

Woman: he talked
about seeing his first bull.

He had a front-row seat.

He could see
the bull very well,

And he said he was struck
by the power of it

And the size of it,

This natural strength of it.

I think maybe some of that
spoke to him because

He had power
and natural strength,

And he was a force
of nature, too,

And that's what an artist does
with his subject matter.

With your strength,
with your will,

With your skills,
you go in,

And you control
the subject matter,

And you make something
beautiful from it.

[Crowd cheering]

Narrator: hemingway fell
in love with spain.

He was sure, he wrote,
that bullfighting

"Will make fine stories someday.

"It's just like having
a ringside seat at the w*r

With nothing going to
happen to you."

Hadley remembered sitting
in the stands,

Stitching baby clothes,

"Embroidering in the presence
of all that brutality."

Man, as hemingway:
toronto, canada,

November 7, 1923.

The baby has taken to squalling
and is a fine nuisance.

I suppose he will yell
his head off

For the next 2 or 3 years.

It seems his only form
of entertainment.

No one gets as much pleasure
out of it as he does.

Narrator: john hadley
nicanor hemingway was born

In toronto
on october 10, 1923.

"Nicanor" was in honor
of a spanish bullfighter

Hemingway especially admired.

Hadley nicknamed
the baby "bumby"

Because, she said,
"of the round, solid feel

Of him," in her arms.

The hemingways had come back
to north america

Earlier that year.

Ernest thought he should have
a steady job

At least for the baby's
first year,

And the "toronto star" was
eager to have

Their talented correspondent
back in the home office,

But he came to hate his editor,

Loathed the cub reporter
assignments he was given,

Could find no time
to write for himself,

And longed for paris, where,
he told his sister,

"There are few bath tubs,
no electric fixtures,

"But very nearly all the charm,
all the good food,

And most of the good people
in the world."

In february, 1924,
after less than 4 months,

They returned to paris and moved
into a second-floor apartment

Above a noisy sawmill at
113 rue notre-dame-des-champs.

"We lived as savages and kept
our own tribal rules,"

Hemingway wrote,
"and had our own customs

And our own standards, secrets,
taboos, and delights."

Hadley cut her hair short,
and he grew his long

Until they matched.

Ernest had also decided to
abandon journalism

In order to do the kind
of writing he wanted to do.

"In newspaper work," he would
eventually explain,

"You have to learn to forget
every day what happened

"The day before.

"Newspaper work is valuable up
until the point

That it forcibly begins
to destroy your memory."

Wolff: what did he say once?

A writer must come to his work
like a priest to the altar,

And he had that sense
of the sacred

About his vocation.

He really did.
He went to work,

And I would say the courage
that he showed in the w*r

Doesn't compare to me
to the courage

He showed in his writing life.

Narrator: with the help of
sympathetic friends,

Hemingway would publish
two slender books,

"Three stories & ten poems"
and "in our time".

They meant the world
to hemingway,

But only avery few copies
were printed.

Hemingway's parents ordered
6 copies of "in our time."

His sister remembered that
when his father read a story

About a w*r veteran,
who has been jilted

By a nurse named ag
and contracts gonorrhea

From a salesgirl,
he wrote to his son

That the book was filth.

No gentleman ever mentioned
a venereal disease

Outside a doctor's office.

His mother had hoped
he might become an artist

But not this kind.

Another story was so daring,
that even gertrude stein

Had told hemingway it was
too obscene to be published.

It was called "up in michigan."

Katakis: I think
"up in michigan"

Is very important because,
first of all,

He is saying
there are no boundaries.

"I'm going to write with
no boundaries, no restrictions.

"I'm not going to listen
to you, polite world.

"I'm going to what
ll think is true,

"But I'm going to see it
from the point of view

Of the woman.."

Narrator: liz coates is
a teen-aged girl working

In a boarding house
in the tiny town

Of hortons bay.

Among the boarders is
a handsome young blacksmith

Named jim gilmore.

One evening, they go down
to the dock.

Man, as hemingway:
"don't, jim," liz said.

Jim slid the hand further up.

"You mustn't, jim.

You mustn't."

Neither jim nor jim's
big hand paid

Any attention to her.

The boards were hard.

Jim had her dress up
and was trying to do

Something to her.

She was frightened,
but she wanted it.

She had to have it,
but it frightened her.

"You mustn't do it, jim.
You mustn't."

"I got to.
I'm going to.

You know we got to."

"No we haven't, jim.
We ain't got to.

"Oh, it isn't right.

"Oh, it's so big,
and it hurts so.

"You can't.

"Oh, jim.

Jim. Oh."

O'brien: I think many women
feel, and, indeed,

Um, broadcast the idea
that hemingway hated women

And wrote adversely
always about them.

This isn't true.

"The hemlock planks of the dock
were hard

"And splintery and cold,

"And jim was heavy on her,
and he had hurt her.

"Liz pushed him.

"She was so uncomfortable
and cramped.

"Jim was asleep.
He wouldn't move.

"She worked out from under him

"And sat up and straightened
her skirt and coat

"And tried to do something
with her hair.

"Jim was sleeping
with his mouth a little open.

"Liz leaned over
and kissed him on the cheek.

"He was still asleep.

"She lifted his head
a little and shook it.

"He rolled his head over
and swallowed.

"Liz started to cry.

"She walked over
to the edge of the dock

"And looked down to the water.

"There was a mist coming up
from the bay.

She was cold and miserable
and everything felt gone."

Now, I would ask,
um, his detractors,

Female or male,
just to read that story,

And could you in all honor
say that this was a writer

Who didn't understand
women's emotions

And who hated women?

You couldn't.
Nobody could.

Katakis:
this is about date r*pe.

He was drilling down deeper
into those dark sides of us,

And many people didn't
want to see that,

Like his parents,
like ms. Stein,

Like so many other people.

He was unconcerned with that,

And I think at the end that's
what makes him an artist.

Narrator: the critic
edmund wilson

Praised hemingway
for writing prose

Of "the first distinction"
and for providing

"A harrowing record
of the barbarities

Of the period
in which we live."

Full-time writing wasn't easy.

The baby cried.

Friends dropped in,
day and night.

Man, as hemingway: sometimes
when I was starting anew story

And I could not get it going,
I would stand and look out

Over the roofs of paris
and think, "do not worry.

"You have always written before,
and you will write now.

"All you have to do is write
one true sentence.

Write the truest sentence
that you know."

So finally I would write
one true sentence

And then go on from there.

It was easy then because there
was always one true sentence

That you knew or had seen
or heard someone say.

If 1 started to
write elaborately

Or like someone introducing
or presenting something,

I found that I could cut that
scrollwork or ornament out

And throw it away and start
with the first true,

Simple declarative sentence
I had written

And then go on from there.

Katakis: the short stories
mean more to me now

Because it is a young man

At the beginning
of his adventure.

He's hungry, he's excited,
his observations

Are like a hawk.

He's feeling everything.

He's anticipating everything.

He's trying to make
everything go his way.

It's terribly exciting.

Vaill: if he were a camera,
he would be coming in

For extreme closeup
all the time.

He's coming in, in, in at it,

And every little detail
suddenly is very, very big.

It's not like the way
19th century writers

Would write, which was
very panoramic,

Where the camera is set
way, way back,

And you see a giant expanse
of experience,

And yet he's really
up close at it.

You can see every pore
in everybody's skin

When he's writing,
and this is extremely exciting.

Narrator: during the first
6 months of 1924,

Hemingway wrote more stories,
hoping to include them

In anew and expanded collection
of "in our time."

Cushman: "in our time" just
rearranged the geography

Of what was possible for a lot
of people writing in english.

When I go back to that book
and try to forget about

Who he became,
I'm just blown away.

That book, it takes
the top of your head off.

Narrator: the book would
eventually include

15 Stories separated
by brief, italicized vignettes

Based on things hemingway
had seen or been told about--

Refugees, a dying bullfighter,
a hanging,

And the w*r he had
experienced in italy.

O'brien: there's something
about these short pieces

That are immortal
in my opinion.

I think they're
absolute miracles of prose,

Of description, of evocation,

And of, the most important thing
of all, being there.

They take you there.

Man, as hemingway:
while the bombardment

Was knocking the trench
to pieces at fossalta,

He lay very flat and sweated
and prayed,

"0 Jesus christ
get me out of here.

"Dear jesus, please get me out.

"Christ please please please
christ.

"If you'll only keep me
from getting k*lled,

"I'll do anything you say.

"I believe in you,
and I'll tell everyone

"In the world that you are
the only one that matters.

Please please dear jesus."

The shelling moved
further up the line.

We went to work on the trench,

And in the morning,
the sun came up,

And the day was hot and muggy
and cheerful and quiet.

The next night back at mestre,
he did not tell the girl

He went upstairs with
at the villa rossa about jesus.

And he never told anybody.

Man: it's the betrayal
of a promise that appeals to me.

I think we all do it in
petty ways throughout our lives.

"Get me through the crisis,
and I'll change my ways,"

And it doesn't happen
in this story.

Narrator: half the stories
in "in our time" feature

Nick adams, a character who is
very like the young hemingway.

In "indian camp," he is
a little boy who accompanies

His physician father
across a lake

To an encampment,
where a woman

Has been in labor
for two days.

Pure horror follows.

As the boy looks on,
his father performs

An emergency caesarian section
by lamp light,

Using a jackknife
and suturing the wound

With fishing line,
all without anesthetic.

When nick asks his father
if he can't do something

About her screams, he answers
"they are not important."

Afterwards, the father
of the child,

Apparently unable to endure
his helplessness

During his wife's ordeal,
is found

To have slit his own throat.

Man, as hemingway:
"do ladies always have

Such a hard time having babies?"
Nick asked.

"No, that was very,
very exceptional."

"Why did he k*ll himself,
daddy?"

"I don't know, nick.

He couldn't stand things,
I guess."

"Do many men
k*ll themselves, daddy?"

"Not very many, nick."

"Do many women?"

"Hardly ever."

"Don't they ever?"

"Oh, yes.
They do sometimes."

"Is dying hard, daddy?"

"No, I think it's
pretty easy, nick.

It all depends."

They were seated in the boat,
nick in the stern,

His father rowing.

The sun was coming up
over the hills.

A bass jumped, making
a circle in the water.

Nick trailed his hand
in the water.

It felt warm in the sharp chill
of the morning.

In the early morning
on the lake,

Sitting in the stern of the boat
with his father rowing,

He felt quite sure
that he would never die.

Wolff: "indian camp," that's one

Of my favorite stories
in the world,

And he was a baby
when he wrote it,

But it is compl--it is a work
of great sophistication,

And it handles
very sensational material

In an absolutely
unsensational way.

And what it all comes down to is
"you're going to die."

He knows he's going to die.
He's seen it,

But there's this feeling,
being with his father,

Being outdoors in the dawn,

That it's possible to hope
or deny or evade that truth

For a little while.

Narrator: the last stories
in the collection

Are "big two-hearted river,
parts I and ii."

They are about a now older
nick adams,

A writer who had been wounded
and traumatized

From the great w*r.

"It was about the w*r,"
hemingway later recalled,

"But there was no mention
of the w*r in it."

Nick journeys alone

To the upper peninsula
of michigan,

Where he had frequently fished
for trout before the w*r.

A forest fire has destroyed
the town he had known.

He fears the river
and the life he knew

Before the w*r
had been ruined, too.

Man, as hemingway:
the river was there.

It swirled against the log piles
of the bridge.

Nick looked down
into the clear, brown water,

Colored from the pebbly bottom,
and watched the trout

Keeping themselves steady
in the current

With wavering fins.

As he watched them,
they changed their positions

By quick angles,
only to hold steady

In the fast water again.

Nick watched them along time.

It was a hot day.

A king fisher flew up the stream.

It was along time since nick
had looked into a stream

And seen trout.

They were very satisfactory.

Woman: 1 loved it.

I loved the description
of the scenery

Without saying anything
about his inner situation.

He had some hurt,
or something bad,

It was inside of himself.

By following his description
of the landscape

And what he does, we feel
he is cured, healed.

Narrator: in 1925, the new york
publisher horace liveright

Brought out the expanded edition
of "in our time,"

But he refused to include
"up in michigan,"

The story gertrude stein
had said was unpublishable.

Hemingway was disappointed
but said he hoped the book

Would be "praised by highbrows
and can be read by lowbrows.

"There is no writing in it
that anybody

With a high school education
cannot read."

Cushman: one of the things
to think about,

When you think about modernism,

At least anglo-irish,
american, high modernism,

Is there was a cult
of difficulty:

Joyce, difficult;
gertrude stein, difficult;

Faulkner, difficult;
e.e. Cummings, difficult.

And hemingway just went
against the grain on that.

He dared to be straightforward

Or apparently straightforward.

He dared to
impersonate simplicity.

He hooks you
with the lowbrow appearance.

Then, he plays you,
and then, you're his trophy.

Narrator: the book was
a critical sensation.

The "new york times" said
that hemingway packed

"A whole character
into a phrase,

An entire situation
into a sentence or two"

And made "each word count
3 or 4 ways."

"Ernest hemingway is somebody,"
said "time,"

"Anew, honest, unliterary
transcriber of life, a writer."

Cushman: he was
very restless and ambitious,

Very competitive,

And faulkner's getting going,
fitzgerald's getting going,

Joyce is king of the mountain,

And he knew that a novel
had to happen.

How does one go
from the microstitching

Of sentence to sentence
to sentence and,

"Oh, my goodness, a paragraph!

It only took me a morning"--

How do you go from that
to a longer form?

I started in valencia
on my 26th birthday,

July 21st.

Everybody my age had
written a novel,

And I was still having
a difficult time

Writing a paragraph,

So I started the book
on my birthday,

Wrote all through the feria,
in bed in the morning,

Went on to madrid
and wrote there.

We had a room with a table,
and I wrote in great luxury

On the table
and around the corner

From the hotel in a beer place,
where it was cool.

Narrator: in the summer of 1925,
leaving bumby with a nanny,

The hemingways returned
to pamplona

For the annual running
of the bulls.

With them went a group of 5
american and british friends,

Including the seductive
lady duff twysden.

"Everybody was drinking
all the time,

And everybody was having
affairs all the time,"

Hadley remembered.

"I found it sort of upsetting."

Afterwards, ernest and hadley
continued to follow

The bullfights across spain--
valencia, madrid, san sebastian,

And as they traveled
aboard trains and buses,

On restaurant tables
and in hotel rooms at night,

He worked feverishly on a novel,

Inspired by
the turbulent time they'd had

With their friends
in pamplona.

It would be called
"the sun also rises."

The first draft was finished
in just 8 weeks.

It would be a clear-eyed
and sardonic portrait

Of what gertrude stein called,
"the lost generation,"

Men and women scarred
by the great w*r,

Who did their best
to erase its memory.

The narrator, a newspaperman
from kansas city,

Was first named "hem"
before he became jake barnes.

Barnes is a w*r veteran
with a mysterious

And unexplained wound that
has made him impotent.

[Man speaking spanish]

Man, as hemingway:
outside a night train,

Running on the streetcar tracks,

Went by carrying vegetables
to the markets.

They were noisy at night
when you could not sleep.

Undressing, I looked
at myself in the mirror

Of the big armoire
beside the bed.

Of all the ways to be wounded.

[Vargas llosa speaking spanish]

Narrator: in the early drafts,
hemingway had used

The real names of his friends

From their reckless,
drunken time in pamplona.

For fear of being sued,
he later changed them.

Lady duff twysden,
who had captivated hemingway

And had worried hadley,

Would eventually become
the thinly disguised

Lady brett ashley,
the promiscuous woman

Jake barnes longs for
but can never have.

Man, as hemingway:
brett was damned good-looking.

She wore a slipover
jersey sweater

And a tweed skirt,

And her hair was brushed back
like a boy's.

She started all that.

She was built with curves like
the hull of a racing yacht,

And you missed none of it
with that wool jersey.

Man: somebody like lady brett
is effectively

Avery strong character.

She actively goes out of her way
to dress like a man,

Dress like a boy.

She wears a rugby sweater,
cuts her hair short,

And chooses to live her life
as a man would in that moment.

That's highly provocative
for a 1926 text.

Narrator: another member
of the party harold loeb,

Handsome, athletic, and jewish,
became robert cohn,

Weak and obnoxious,

Scorned by some in the group
because he was a jew.

Man, as hemingway:
bill looked around, half-shaved,

And then went on talking
into the mirror

While he lathered his face.

"Haven't you got
some more jewish friends

You could bring along?"

He rubbed his chin with his
thumb, looked at it,

And then started scraping again.

"You've got some
fine ones yourself."

"Oh, yes.
I've got some darbs.

"But not alongside
of this robert cohn.

"The funny thing is
he's nice, too.

"I like him.

But he's just so awful."

"He can be damned nice."

" Know it.

That's the terrible part."

Dearborn: I love
"the sun also rises"

But it's tragic
that he makes harold loeb

Into this despicable jew.

It's just, um, stunning.

It's just stunning,

And harold loeb
could not believe it.

You know, he thought
they were so close.

They were close,

And he just said, "I still
don't understand him.

He was my friend."

Narrator: hemingway's
protagonist jake barnes

Is a jaded insider at pamplona.

He seems to know
everything there is to know

About bullfighting.

The star of the fiesta is
a matador named pedro romero,

Just 19, innocent,
and unspoiled.

The bullfighting world hopes
to keep him that way,

But jake breaks the rules

And introduces him
to brett ashley,

The woman he can never
be with himself.

Mandel: jake barnes
shouldn't have done that.

She's not a serious,
committed person.

She's a free woman.
She's a free woman.

She indulges herself,

And she wants to indulge herself
with the bullfighter.

Jake barnes
should have protected

This young, vulnerable,
ethical figure,

And after that, the people
in the know in pamplona

Turn against jake.

They barely talk to him.
They avoid him,

And that's a big turning point
in this character.

Of course,
he knows what he did.

Narrator: at the end
of the novel,

Jake and brett share
a taxi in madrid.

Man, as hemingway: the driver
started up the street.

I settled back.

Brett moved close to me.

We sat close against each other.

I put my arm around her,

And she rested
against me comfortably.

It was very hot and bright,

And the houses looked
sharply white.

We turned out
onto the gran via.

"Oh, jake," brett said,

"We could have had such
a damned good time together."

Ahead was a mounted policeman
in khaki directing traffic.

He raised his baton.

The car slowed, suddenly
pressing brett against me.

"Yes," I said.

Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Tim o'brien: "isn't it pretty
to think so?"

It's the wistfulness
of what we both lose

And never had,
a wistfulness.

"Isn't it pretty to think
that my dad and I

"Could have talked
about virtually anything?

It's pretty to think so,"

But it didn't happen,
and it won't happen,

And so there's a sadness to it
that feels to me fully human.

"All that will not be,"
which is going to be true

For every human being
in some way or another

On this planet,
"all that will never be."

It has a universality to it.

"Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Narrator: the w*r had
obliterated any illusions

About the future,
but hemingway seemed

To be suggesting that even
in the most damaged lives,

Despite the indignities
men and women inflict

Upon each other, some hope,
some sweetness could be found.

Edna o'brien: I love
"the sun also rises."

The pith of it, for me.

There's all the hotels
and the drink

And the bullfighting
and the fishing

And the mountains
and their knapsacks,

"That's a damn fine wine,"

And there's all that bluster,

And there's impotence.

What it did for me,
when I read it,

Was to introduce me
to an exotica, a glamour,

A life that, coming
from county clare in ireland,

I couldn't believe it.

I was seduced by it.

That is the word
I'm looking for.

Man, as hemingway:
august 23, 1925.

It is a hell of a fine novel.

Written very simply and full
of things happening

And people and places
and exciting as hell

And no autobiographical
first novel stuff.

I think it will be a knockout

And will let these b*stards
who say,

"Yes, he can write very
beautiful little paragraphs know

Where they get off at."

I've tried to write a hell
of a good story

About people without faking,
preciosity, or horseshit.

Everybody knows life is
a tragic show,

I.e. Born here, die there.

Everybody dies,
everybody gets bitched.

Narrator: ernest was happy
with his manuscript

But unhappy with his publisher
horace liveright.

His last book "in our time"
had been a critical success,

But it hadn't sold.

By contract, liveright had
the right to publish

His next two books provided
he accepted the first one

Within 60 days
of its submission.

By this time, the celebrated
novelist f. Scott fitzgerald

Had become a good friend
and had alerted his own editor

Maxwell perkins of scribner's,
to hemingway's great promise.

Man as fitzgerald:
dear max, this is to tell you

About a young man named
ernest hemingway,

Who lives in paris,

An american, writes for
the "transatlantic review,"

And has a brilliant future.

Ezra pound published
a collection

Of his short pieces.

I haven't it here now,
but it's remarkable,

And I'd look him up right away.

He's the real thing.

Scott.

Narrator: fitzgerald would
eventually persuade ernest

To jettison
the first two clumsy chapters

Of "the sun also rises,"
though hemingway

Would later claim it
had been his idea all along.

Now, fitzgerald suggested away
hemingway could get

Out of his contract--
write something

Horace liveright
would have to reject.

In just 10 days, ernest banged
out "the torrents of spring,"

A cruel lampoon of his friend

Sherwood anderson,

Who had been especially kind

To hemingway

And was one of liveright's

Best-selling authors.

Hadley thought the parody
of anderson "detestable,"

But another woman's opinion
had begun to matter

More to him than hadley's.

Pauline pfeiffer thought
the manuscript was hilarious,

Further evidence
of ernest's genius.

She was witty, wealthy,
well-read,

A reporter covering
paris fashion for "vogue,"

And a practicing catholic.

She had become
hadley's friend first,

A frequent visitor
at the apartment

Above the sawmill.

Ernest invited pauline to join
him and hadley

For christmas in austria.

"Pauline was nice to me,"
hadley recalled.

"She wanted to be friends."

They took turns playing
with bumby,

Skied and drank and played
bridge together every evening,

But in the afternoons,
it was pauline, not hadley,

Whom ernest took for long walks
through the snow.

"She didn't go straight
for my husband,"

Hadley recalled years later,

"But once she made up her mind
that he was what she wanted,

"She was very aggressive.

He couldn't help himself."

Man, as hemingway: to really
love two women at the same time,

Truly love them, is the most
destructive and terrible thing

That can happen to a man.

You do things that
are impossible,

And when you are with one,
you love her,

And with the other,
you love her,

And together,
you love them both.

You break all promises,
and you do everything you knew

That you could never do
nor would want to do.

You lie and hate it,
and it destroys you,

And every day is more dangerous.

Everything is split
inside of you,

And you love two people now
instead of one,

And the strange part is
that you are happy.

Narrator: when hemingway
submitted

"The torrents of spring"
to horace liveright,

The publisher rejected it right
away just as ernest had hoped.

He was now free to bring it
and "the sun also rises"

To scribner's.

In january 1926, ernest made
a 3-week trip to new york

To meet with his new editor
max perkins.

Hadley and bumby stayed on
in austria.

As soon as her husband
returned to france,

Hadley expected him
to board the train

And come to her in the alps.

Instead, he went to paris,
to pauline's apartment,

A decision that would
one day come to haunt him.

Man, as hemingway:
the girl 1 was in love with

Was in paris now,
and I did not take

The first train
or the second or the third,

And where we went
and what we did

And the unbelievable wrenching,
kicking happiness,

The selfishness and treachery
of everything we did,

Gave me such happiness

And unkillable dreadful
happiness

So that the black remorse came

And hatred of the sin
and no contrition,

Only a terrible remorse.

Narrator: he did not get to
hadley for 3 days.

Man, as hemingway:
when I saw my wife again

Standing by the tracks
as the train came in

By the piled logs
at the station,

I wished I had died
before I ever loved

Anyone but her.

She was smiling,
the sun on her lovely face

Tanned by the snow and sun,
beautifully built,

Her hair red gold in the sun

And mr. Bumby standing with her,
blonde and chunky

And with winter cheeks.

I loved her,
and I loved no one else,

And we had a lovely magic time
while we were alone.

I worked well,
and we made great trips,

And it wasn't until we were out
of the mountains in late spring,

And back in paris that
the other thing started again.

Narrator: ernest hoped
that things could somehow

Go on that way,
still married to hadley

But with his mistress
conveniently at hand,

But pauline was not content
to remain his mistress.

She was determined
to become his wife.

Hadley confronted her husband.

"We had a terrific scene,"
she recalled.

Ernest lashed out at her.

If only she hadn't brought up
his infidelity, he said,

Things could have continued
as they were,

But now that she had broken
the spell

Their love was no longer safe.

"If I'd had any sense at all,"
hadley remembered years later,

"I'd have let him go
with pauline

"And burn himself out,

And then we could have
begun again."

Instead, in september,
she scribbled out

A sort of contract in pencil.

Ernest and pauline would
have to spend 100 days apart,

And afterwards if they still
wanted one another,

She would grant him a divorce.

Ernest and pauline agreed
to abide by her terms.

He moved
to a friend's apartment.

Pauline sailed for home.

Her mother was
initially appalled.

Her daughter had broken up
hemingway's marriage.

Ernest was not a catholic.

A child was involved.

Alone in paris, depression
again gripped hemingway,

This time tinged with guilt

About what he was doing
to hadley.

He drank too much,
picked fights, couldn't sleep,

Somehow convinced himself
that he was the victim.

Only two months later,
on november 16, 1926,

Hadley wrote ernest that
if he and pauline

Really wanted to be together

She would no longer
stand in the way.

They were free to marry.

Woman, as richardson:
the entire problem belongs

To you two.

I am not responsible
for your future welfare.

I took you originally
for better, for worse

And meant it!

But in the case of your
marrying someone else,

I can stand by my vow only
as an outside friend.

Come to see bumby
as much as you want--

He is yours as much as mine--

And take him out sometimes
if you feel like

That kind of thing--

So that he will know
you are his real papa.

Narrator: hadley and bumby soon
sailed for the united states.

Ernest stayed in paris.
Pauline joined him.

Meanwhile, scribner's had
finally published

"The sun also rises."

Edmund wilson declared it
the best novel written

By anyone
of hemingway's generation.

A reviewer for "the atlantic"
said that hemingway

"Writes as if he had never
read anybody's writing,

As if he had fashioned
the art of writing himself."

The book sold well.

Its author insisted that all
the royalties go to hadley.

On may 10, 1927,
ernest hemingway

And pauline pfeiffer
were married in paris.

There were two ceremonies,
one at the mayor's office

And a second
at a catholic church.

The pfeiffer family had come
around to approving pauline's

Decision to marry hemingway.

He now claimed he'd secretly
always been a catholic

Because a priest had given him
extreme unction

After he was wounded.

Since his first marriage had
taken place outside the church,

The church did not recognize it.

Hadley had never really
been his wife,

And, by extension,
bumby was illegitimate.

Narrator: hemingway hoped to
live the same kind of life

With pauline that
he had led with hadley--

Paris cafes,
bullfights, skiing--

And dreamed of having one
literary success after another,

But things didn't go
quite as planned.

He started a novel
about a father and son,

Only to abandon it.

Anew book of 14 short stories,
"men without women,"

Did not sell
as well as he liked,

And there were mixed reviews.

Some readers were put off
by its themes,

Including h*m*,
infidelity, and divorce.

As always, hemingway tried to
make his characters

Speak precisely
as his contemporaries spoke,

Including their use of racial
epithets.

Dudley: why use
the *-word multiple times?

Hemingway knows that
it's probably one

Of the most offensive words
he could have used,

Even at this time.

Could you make a case
for hemingway

Being prejudicial in his life,
in his writing?

Absolutely, you could,
but, at the same time,

You could peel back the layers,
and you can get a sense

Of a man trying to convey
a sense of his time.

Cushman: that's not
an excuse for him.

I don't think you can
dry clean hemingway

Into somebody who fits
into what we now consider

Socially and politically
acceptable much of the time.

Narrator: "men without women"
also included a story

That is among his masterpieces
"hills like white elephants."

In it, a couple waiting in
a small spanish train station

Discuss whether or not the woman
will have an ab*rtion

Without ever mentioning
the word.

Edna o'brien: what's not said
is so wonderful.

Somehow, the whole relationship,
which will be forever shadowed,

If not to say destroyed,
by this,

You get a picture of it

Without him spelling out
the words.

You see, that's what he did.

That evasion that he mastered

And that control that he
mastered

Is one of his
signature strokes of genius.

Man, as hemingway:
"it's really an awfully

Simple operation, jig,"
the man said.

"It's not really
an operation at all."

The girl looked at the ground
the table legs rested on.

" Know you wouldn't
mind it, jig.

"It's really not anything.

It's just to let the air in."

The girl did not say anything.

"I'll go with you,
and I'll stay with you

"All the time.

"They just let the air in,

And then it's all
perfectly natural."

"Then what will we do
afterward?"

"We'll be fine afterward.

Just like we were before."

"What makes you think so?"

"That's the only thing
that bothers us.

It's the only thing that's
made us unhappy."

Mandel: he knows what he wants.

He wants one thing,
it's "get rid of this thing,"

But he can't tell her that.

So he says, "I only want
what you want."

He says, "I'll do
whatever you say.

Don't do anything that
you don't want to do,"

But he's pushing and pushing
and pushing and pushing.

It is painful to watch
this going on.

It is recognizable
for most women

To--even if it's not
the situation--

The pushing, the insistence,
the masculine assertion,

And then, she finally says--
and this is, I think,

One of great
understated sentences--

She says to him, "would you
please please please please

Please please please
stop talking?"

We don't know what
she's going to decide.

She's--maybe to keep
the relationship,

She will do what he says,

But if she does that,
the relationship is over.

Maybe she will keep it and just
be with herself and the baby.

Maybe she will get rid
of the baby

And carry on her life.

Whatever she does,
her life will be different.

Man, as hemingway:
he drank an anis at the bar

And looked at the people.

They were all waiting
reasonably for the train.

He went out
through the bead curtain.

She was sitting at the table
and smiled at him.

"Do you feel better?" He asked.

"I feel fine," she said.

"There's nothing wrong with me.

I feel fine."

Narrator: in march of 1928,

Hemingway and pauline
left france.

She was pregnant now,
and they wanted to have

Their baby in the united states.

Hemingway was recovering

From a second serious
head injury caused

When he accidentally pulled
a skylight down on his head,

Leaving a permanent scar,

But he had begun anew novel,

A story about a wounded soldier
who falls in love

With the nurse
who cares for him.

The hemingways rented a house
in key west, florida,

Where ernest enjoyed
ocean fishing

For the first time.

They then moved
to pauline's parents' home

In piggott, arkansas,
as the baby's arrival neared,

And spent a month in kansas city
where, on june 28, 1928,

Patrick hemingway was born
by caesarian section

After a difficult labor.

They returned
to arkansas together,

But then hemingway
headed west alone,

Writing as he went,
working and reworking

The book that now consumed him.

It would be called
"a farewell to arms."

Man, as hemingway:
I remember living in the book

And making up what happened
in it every day.

Making the country
and the people

And the things that happened,

I was happier
than I had ever been.

Each day I read the book through
from the beginning

To the point
where I went on writing,

And each day I stopped
when I was still going good

And when I knew
what would happen next.

In the late summer of that year,
we lived in a house

In a village that looked
across the river

And the plain to the mountains.

In the bed of the river,
there were pebbles and boulders,

Dry and white in the sun,

And the water was clear
and swiftly moving

And blue in the channels.

Troops went by the house
and down the road...

Man and edna o'brien:
and the dust they raised

Powdered the leaves
of the trees.

The trunks of the trees, too...

Edna o'brien: "were dusty,

"And the leaves fell early
that year,

"And we saw the troops marching
along the road

"And the dust rising
and leaves,

"Stirred by the breeze, falling

"And the soldiers marching

"And afterwards the road bare

And white except
for the leaves."

Cushman: I read that paragraph,
and I want to cry.

It's incredibly beautiful.

He broke every rule,
all the repetition.

In 4 sentences,
the word "and" 15 times.

What's going on is just
an unforgettable display

Of rhythmic mastery.

There's a kind--almost a kind
of hypnosis, an incantation

That I think is
about the frame of mind

That you're going
into the w*r with.

[Bach's "cello suite no. 4,
Prelude" playing]

Edna o'brien:
by relistening to bach

And by recognizing
the repetition

Of particular notes in bach,

That that was inspiration for
writing "a farewell to arms."

Narrator: unlike
"the sun also rises,"

"A farewell to arms" was
explicitly about the great w*r.

Its protagonist
lieutenant frederic henry

Is an american ambulance driver
attached to the italian army,

Who is wounded and falls
in love with a nurse

Named catherine barkley,
who is mourning a lover

k*lled in the w*r.

Drawn from his own experiences,
the stories he heard,

And his own dogged research,
the book's disillusionment

With the w*r would speak to--
and for--

Those who had lived through it.

Man, as hemingway:
I was always embarrassed

By the words sacred, glorious,
and sacrifice

And the expression "in vain."

We had heard them,
sometimes standing

In the rain almost
out of earshot,

So that only the shouted words
came through,

And had read them
on proclamations

That were slapped up
by billposters

Over other proclamations,
now for along time...

And I had seen nothing sacred,

And the things that were
glorious had no glory,

And the sacrifices
were like the stockyards

At chicago
if nothing was done

With the meat
except to bury it.

There were many words that
you could not stand to hear,

And finally only the names
of places had dignity.

Certain numbers were
the same way and certain dates,

And these with the names
of the places were

All you could say
and have them mean anything.

Wolff: 1 don't know of anyone
up to that point

Who had said that that well

Because we can't seem to stop
using that kind of language

About w*r,

And it is our duty
always to puncture it,

But no one has ever done it
this eloquently.

The accumulating weight
of those sentences

And the emotion, the disgust,

And also the reverence for
what has been, in fact, done,

The dignity of those places

That gather in those sentences
as they go on,

It's just beautiful.

Narrator: in the novel,
lieutenant henry deserts

And flees to neutral switzerland
with catherine barkley.

They hope to marry and build
a life together

Once the w*r is over.

She is pregnant,
but something goes

Terribly wrong
in the delivery room.

Doctors perform a caesarian.

The baby is stillborn.

Catherine's life ebbs away.

Hemingway agonized
over the ending,

Writing 47 versions
of the final pages

Before he was satisfied.

Man, as hemingway:
I went to the door of the room.

"You can't come in now," one
of the nurses said.

"Yes I can," I said.

"You can't come in yet."

"You get out," I said.

"The other one too."

But after I had got them out
and shut the door

And turned off the light,
it wasn't any good.

It was like saying goodbye
to a statue.

[Rain falling, thunder]

After awhile, I went out
and left the hospital

And walked back
to the hotel in the rain.

Edna o'brien: parts
of "a farewell to arms"

Could have been written
by a woman.

Now, I regard that
as a compliment.

Hemingway might regard it
as an insult,

But I don't because it is
the androgyny

In a man or a woman that allows
them, even if briefly,

Not utterly, to be able
to put themselves

Inside the skin
of the opposite thing.

In many ways, I think it's
his greatest novel.

I do.
It's the truest.

It's also heartbreaking.

I remember crying
and crying and crying.

He gets the--all
the--the "boy" stuff,

The "man" stuff.

He gets the horror of the w*r,

But when people
put that book down,

What do they remember?

They remember a woman dying
in childbirth.

Man, as hemingway:
if people bring so much courage

To this world,
the world has to k*ll them

To break them,

So of course it kills them.

The world breaks everyone,
and afterward,

Many are strong
at the broken places,

But those that will not break
it kills.

It kills the very good
and the very gentle

And the very brave impartially.

If you are none of these,
you can be sure

It will k*ll you, too,

But there will be
no special hurry.

Narrator: in the late fall
of 1928,

Hemingway's father's life was
spiraling slowly downward.

The anxiety that had always
haunted him intensified.

His periods
of depression lengthened.

He seemed suspicious
of everyone around him

And unable to shake
a sense of dread.

On december 6, ed hemingway
came home at noon,

Burned some personal papers
in the basement,

Told his wife he thought he'd
lie down before lunch,

And climbed the stairs
to his bedroom.

Then he shot himself with his
father's civil w*r revolver.

Man, as hemingway:
my father was a coward.

He shot himself
without necessity.

At least I thought so.

I had gone through it myself
until I figured it in my head.

I knew what it was to be
a coward

And what it was to cease
being a coward.

Narrator: ernest promised to pay
his mother a monthly stipend,

But he would privately blame her

For driving his father
to suicide.

Man, as hemingway:
I hated my mother

As soon as I knew the score

And loved my father
until he embarrassed me

With his cowardice.

My mother is an all-time,
all-american b*tch,

And she would make
a pack mule sh**t himself,

Let alone poor bloody father.

Hendrickson: I think hemingway,
among his many, many fears,

Was terrified
"will that happen to me?

Will I become my father?"

In this christian, midwestern,
suburban illinois family

Of a unit of 8,
of 2 parents

And 6 children--

4, At least 4 destroyed
themselves by their own hand,

4 Out of the 8.

Narrator: in september of 1929,
"a farewell to arms"

Was published.

The reaction was everything
hemingway had hoped for.

"Scribner's" magazine had paid
$16,000 to serialize it--

More than it had ever paid
anyone before--

And when the june issue was
banned in boston

Because some passages were
thought too "salacious,"

It only boosted sales.

"A farewell to arms" climbed
onto the best-seller lists

And stayed there
week after week.

Paramount pictures paid another
$24,000 for the movie rights.

By the age of 30,
ernest hemingway

Had survived his w*r wounds,
had married two women,

And fathered two sons,

Had buried his father,
published 5 books

And was now the most famous
writer in the united states.

His friend, the novelist
john dos passos,

Wrote to congratulate him.

"Dear hem," he said,
"do you realize that

You're now the king
of the fiction racket?"

Man, as hemingway: I am very
prejudiced against suicide

Because somehow I would not like
to even run a chance

Of having to spend the rest
of the time

With a lot of the sort
of people who commit suicide.

Although of course
that doesn't hold true

Because there are
some swell ones.

The real reason for not
committing suicide

Is because you always know
how swell life gets again

After the hell is over.

So you have to resolve
in advance to last out the time

When you don't believe that.