for whom the porcu pines
for whom the porcu pines
Or, 10 things about Ernest Hemingway your English teacher probably didn't tell you.
Hello friends!
Thank you so much to everyone who has come out and said hi during my Let the Dead Bury the Dead book tour. It’s been a joy and a delight to meet members of Dirtbag Nation in real life. My last stop for now is Kenosha, Wisconsin on November 16, so mark your calendars if that’s nearby.
(Aside: I also published a short list of my Top Three favorite books of the year with the book review site Shepherd, which you can check out if you’re curious how I’ve been answering the inevitable “what are you reading” question.)
And if you wanna buy my book now! You sure still can! Pub week is over but the inexorable march of time rolls on!
The only downside to Promo Month is that all this joy and delight and travel left me with one (1) day off between October 17 and November 19, and I meant to spend it drafting this newsletter but instead I spent it eating tortilla chips and watching The Fall of the House of Usher because my brain said “no more work, only Bisexual Rahul Kohli Fighting a Cat.”
So I’ve shown up today with a format I haven’t used in a bit, but is an ol’ reliable one when my brain is mashed potatoes and I have the space of a lunch break to write a newsletter: a grab bag of weird anecdotes about a random man I’m indifferent-to-anti about.
This time, it’s…
10 Weird Things Ernest Hemingway Did One Time That Your High School English Teacher Didn’t Tell You About
I do not consider myself a Hemingway fan, by the way, as will become obvious through this list. But I do consider myself the holder of an undergraduate English degree, so I know things about him despite myself. At least some of them are good dirtbag content.
1 - He Committed War Crimes
Hemingway was a civilian during WWII, but he went undercover as a soldier and led a literal faction of troops on the French town of Rambouillet. When asked why he did this, which by the way breaks a little thing called the Geneva Convention, his response was basically “I happened to know a lot about military maneuvers and killing people and thought I could be helpful.”
Sir. You cannot mansplain your way into a military command.
Also the fuck you know about military maneuvers, Ernest. You were turned away from the army recruiting station because of your bad eyesight. You were a Red Cross volunteer and a journalist.
Yeah, that’s right—did you know Hemingway was never a soldier? Know who doesn’t want you to know that? Hemingway.
2 - He Engaged F. Scott Fitzgerald in a Literal Dick-Measuring Contest
One time, famous author F. Scott Fitzgerald was anxious because his wife Zelda made fun of his dick, a normal thing that happens in every healthy marriage. So he did what any of us would do: he walked up to Ernest Hemingway and asked him to pass judgment on his penis.
By all accounts, Hemingway led him into a bathroom stall, took a peek, said “nice,” and then sent Scott on his way. One assumes he muttered “not as nice as mine, though” as Scott closed the stall door.
3 - He Got a Bar Urinal Installed in His House
This is his Key West house, which also is famously filled with oodles of six-toed cats. I will not make fun of Hemingway for the cat thing. If I could have a vacation house full of polydactyl cats, I would do it in a heartbeat. I mean, look at these babies. They are perfect. I want dozens.
4 - He Got Into a Fistfight with Orson Welles
The story goes that Hemingway had made a documentary about the Spanish Civil War that he wanted Orson Welles to narrate. That much at least makes sense, because if you know two things about Orson Welles they are as follows:
a) he has a spectacular voice, and
b) he should not be allowed to sell champagne, but war documentaries are probably safe.
However, Welles had some notes about the finer points of documentary narration. And Hemingway did not like to receive notes. So he punched Welles in the face about it.
Of course, Welles punched back, and the fight was on. Because men are rational and logical beings who should be in charge of all forms of government.
5 - He Killed and Ate a Porcupine at Age Three (Allegedly)
Is this true? I don’t know. The sites I read about it on don’t look terribly reputable. But if you thought I was gonna read the sentence “three-year-old Ernest Hemingway ate a porcupine” and not share it with you, you clearly do not know to which newsletter you are subscribed.
6 - He Was a Weird-Ass Fisherman
Now, I’m no expert. But I do feel like The Old Man and the Sea would have been a better, less-boring book if the old man had shot at sharks with a machine gun, the way Hemingway allegedly did.
7 - He Hated His Mother
It’s none of my business whether Mrs. Hemingway was a good mother or not. All I’m saying is that I’ve been reading classic literature for near on 30 years and I’ve never come across a novelist who more obviously hated his mother than Ernest Hemingway.
Get another personality trait, my good sir.
8 - He Was a Big Game Hunter
I don’t care how sparse and haunting your sentences are. If your idea of fun is killing an elephant, I hope you are having a bad time in hell. There are no exceptions to this rule. Fuck off with your elephant hunting.
9 - I Had to Read Him in High School but I Never Got Assigned Virginia Woolf Until College and as a Book Person I Am Mad About It
If you’re going to assign a modernist who died by suicide and got traumatized by war, who would you rather read: the heartbreaking To the Lighthouse, which explores motherhood and selfhood and art and creation and self-sacrifice and death? Or a book about a man fishing?
Justice for Virginia Woolf. That is all.
10 - This Photograph of Him in Paris Exists:
Literally only a dickbag would take a photo like that. The defense rests.
Anyway, that’s all. Share your favorite Hemingway anecdotes in the comments if you have any I missed. I’ll be back in two weeks.
Until then, be well, and stay AWAY from PORCUPINES for the love of GOD don’t make me come OVER THERE,
-Allison
I was at the Hemingway Home (not "house" like normal people, but "home") a few months ago and I don't recall seeing a urinal or there being a mention of one. Some rooms were not available to visitors so who knows. Another tidbit is he took (or bought, not clear) bricks from an old site and built a brick fence surrounding his Key West property and now people take the bricks as souvenirs. The cat situation is interesting. They are all named and genetically go back to the first cat Hemingway had: snowball or snowflake or something with the word snow. The females are allowed to breed once and they are fixed. They have full access to the house and grounds. Some are assholes, which is to be expected.
At the end of the tour, they gloss very quickly about his suicide. Now personally, as a morbid person, I would have liked more information on his suicide and its hereditary feature through his family but the Home has to make a buck and drawn out stories of guns shots to the head probably won't do it.
I was working on opening a men's store and I was trying to think of a good, manly name for it. I thought I'd call it "Hemingway's" - a name that evoked rugged, adventuresome, manliness - but I thought I should become more knowledgeable about Mr. Hemingway before branding anything. Good thing. He was douchey.