Michael Palin's Hemingway's Adventure (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Basil Pao (Author, Photographer) "WHEN I FIRST HEARD OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY I was a teenager living in Sheffield, an uncompromising industrial city without a hint of glamour, until recently,..." (more)
Key Phrases: opposite above, Key West, Ernest Hemingway, Oak Park (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Written while filming his TV series retracing the travels of America's literary titan, Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure is a masterpiece in its own right. And it's just as eye-delighting in book form, thanks to Basil Pao's wanderlust-arousing photography and vibrant design. The witty, literary Palin, a Monty Python alumnus-turned-professional adventurer, takes us on the journey of a lifetime--Papa's and his own. "Hemingway's world was close and uncomfortable and itchy and sweaty and frequently exhausting," writes Palin. "It was, I felt, the real thing. To experience it would require the ability to absorb a little punishment, it would demand an open mind and a degree of recklessness. But it could and should be done."

Palin visits the restless Hemingway's many residencies, drinks (less excessively) in the same charming Parisian bars, tries boxing and Cuban marlin fishing, but he's really trying to discover what made Hemingway tick--what inspired him to write. In Spain, Palin examines Hemingway's passion for the country and the character of the matador in Hemingway's work while studying with young matador apprentices in a dusty Madrid bullfighting school. In Africa, which inspired and almost killed Hemingway, Palin learns spear throwing from Masai warriors, flies in a small plane around Mount Kilimanjaro, and searches for the site where Hemingway's own plane crash-landed. At the end of the day, drinking Hemingway's preferred beer, brewed still in Nairobi, Palin muses, "Mortality, of one kind or another, always feels close at hand in Africa. Maybe that's why Hemingway liked it, student of death that he was."

Palin begins in Hemingway's Illinois birthplace and ends his journey standing on the spot in Papa's Idaho kitchen where he shot himself, having recently broken down in tears, unable to complete JFK's request for a few simple words commemorating his inauguration. This isn't just a lively travel or TV tie-in book; it's a thoughtful, emotional biography. --Michele Norton

From Library Journal

Reading up on his favorite author to write his debut novel, Hemingway's Chair, Palin became intrigued by Hemingway's many travels. Here he takes readers along as he visits top Hemingway sites in Italy, France, Spain, Cuba, and more. There's also a three-part PBS series.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312243995
• ISBN-13: 978-0312243999
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #885,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Michael Palin made me love Hemingway! (Well, LIKE him.), February 11, 2000

By	John DiBello (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I didn't care much for Hemingway (yes, yes, I know he's the greatest writer of the twentieth century, or so everyone tells me)--so why would I pick up this book, you might ask? The man and his work never interested me much--UNTIL I read Michael Palin's new travel adventure! It took the ex-Monty Pythoner's love of Hemingway to get me interested in him. I picked this book up because I'd loved Palin's previous travel books, especially 'Around the World in Eighty Days.' Palin's off again on a journey with a specific theme--to follow in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway on his world travels throughout his life, from Oak Park in Illinois, to Spain and France and Africa, to Key West, Florida, with dozens of stops and Hemingway anecdotes, history, and literary appreciation along the way. Palin's a HUGE Hemingway fan (if you like this, check out Palin's novel 'Hemingway's Chair') and his love for the man and his work are absolutely infectious. Gorgeous colour photos by Palin's usual colleague Basil Pao make this an attractive gift book. In short, while I shrugged at Hemingway the writer in college lit classes, it took Palin to introduce me to Hemingway the MAN...and my appreciation for him has grown considerably. Sometimes it just takes a great literature teacher to awaken your interest in a writer...but I never thought one of my teachers would be a Python!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a strange, attractive and useful travel book!, May 12, 2000

By	www.delalonde.com (Chateau-Bois-Briand, Nantes,Loire-Valley,France) - See all my reviews

Yes, this is a travel guide book. You should buy it if you are lucky enough to retire with some money. Enough to stay at the Ritz of Paris (this Palace Hotel bar was "liberated" by Hemingway and the US army), to go big-fishing at Key-West, starting from the suburbs of Chicago where Hemingway was born. Anecdots about Shakespeare & Company bookshop on the Seine river bank were quite instructive about Hemingway bad temper. It was a pleasure to read Whitman's point of view about Hemingway vanity. This book is the kind of book you would love to write. It's a pilgrimage's diary. Something annoyed me, however. Why Michael Palin is so proud to be pictured as the center of each Hemingway sanctuary? .... Well, forget this and buy the book. It stands up as a standard in itself.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for the Hemingway, February 15, 2003

By	W. Yang (N/A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (Paperback)

Michael Palin writes one of the ultimate coffee table books for the Hemingway afficionado. When Palin says how he admired Hemingway when he was a boy growing up in Sheffield, England, this introductory homage is itself nearly worth the price of the book. We follow Palin as he travels to and writes about each of the pivotal places and people in Hemingway's life (including Illinois, Michigan, Paris, Spain, Key West, Cuba and Idaho). The passages are accompanied by photographs from Basil Pao, Palin's longtime collaborator

Palin describes what events happened in each place that make it significant to the Hemingway fan, but he also describes how each place is still interesting today: the running of the bulls in Pamplona, for instance, or the Hemingway look alike contest in Key West. In that sense, this is also a great travel book. It's clearly written with admiration for the author, but never cloyingly so. Palin's prose is measured, and he works in some of his celebrated humor. This book would make a great gift for the Hemingway fan in your life.