Customer Reviews

Papa Hemingway

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anything I say here will simply detract from this wonderful book, so I will keep it short. I've read a number of Hemingway biographies, but this is unquestionably the best. Hotchner only new Ernest for approximately the last 14 years of his life, so if you're looking for a comprehensive biography, try elsewhere (I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending any of the other Hemingway bios I've read). What Hotchner can give us is a portrait of Papa (Hemingway) from the perspective of a very close and dear friend (Hotchner hunted and travelled with Papa, helped edit and publish his books and essays, and even named A Moveable Feast). And Hotchner is no fool. He knows that Hemingway had a propensity towards exaggeration, and seems to have a pretty good B.S. detector.

If you want all the facts, and want to know everything Hemingway ever did, read one of the opuses written by a college professor who got all of his or her information third-hand. If you want to know what Hemingway the man was like, read this book.

After finishing, I think it is fair to say that Hemingway's most tragic character turned out to be himself. Read this book.

Decades after publication, this book maintains its freshness and rightfully takes a seat as a classic literary memoir. Hotchner, a dabbler in TV and magazines without literary pretensions, keeps his eyes, ears and nose open and delivers the best portrait from life of this complex writer which exists.

Forget the criticisms about technical innaccuracies or adulatory tone; it is part of the game that the tutor, Hemingway himself, taught this tyro. Any lingering doubts can be resolved by looking at Hemingway's own Moveable Feast from this period. The name of Hemingway's game is creating literature, not scholarship or journalism.

The writer is engaged in the early 1950s and followed to his bitter end. Hotchner makes you feel the sadness and loss. Imperfections, foibles, and silliness are all there -- also some cool wisdom. And you can't match the scenery -- Venice, Spain, Cuba, Montana. Obviously a portrait of this clarity is going to cause contoversy and hurt feelings; those maligned have spoken in their own memoirs which of course are well worth reading, too, even the brittle but brave Mary -- Hemingway's fourth wife who became Hotchner's fully armed foe. No matter: she is memorably on these pages too -- immortalized as the tough prickly pickle she was.

It finally does not matter what you think of Hemingway or any of these people. "Getting it right and true" was Hemingway's code, so that the reader feels as if he were there and remembers it all down to the weather and the smells. The result is literature. The unlikely little Hotchner succeeded on Hemingway's own terms, delivering a searingly human portrait that the writer would never have been capable of himself, but certainly would have been forced by his own standards to approve.

It by sheer chance I got this book while I was in San Jose,CA. I read the entire book in 2 days. It gave me so much information about the biographical details, mental make up and lonliness of a great author at the fag end of his life. I reread Hemingway's novels after this which gave me an entirely new insight into the writer's mind as well. The final days of Hemingway are touchingly elaborated by the author. I will certainly recommend this book to any one interested in studying Hemingway.

Hotchner really scores big with this book. The friendship between the two fueles the fire for this book of intense detail of the writer,lover, and friend within Hemingway. Their many adventures together bring vivid memories to Hotchner, and in turn he brings them to the reader. I feel that this biography, is by far the best literary biography done for the cause of Ernest Hemingway. This is a must read for the Hemingway fan.

I am a Hemingway scholar, researcher, and enthusiast and found this to be very thoughtful and insightful. Hotchner writes well and the little anecdotes are fantastic. People who thought they knew a lot about EH wil learn quite a bit more about this great man. I was really sad to finish it and was left wanting more.

Mr. Hotchner met Ernest Hemingway in Cuba while Mr. Hotcher was just a young man. His editor had sent him to Cuba to persuade Mr. Hemingway to write a magazine article. Acutely embarrassed by the idea of "bothering" one of the greatest American writers, he finally sent a note to Mr. Hemingway asking for a rejection letter he could show to his editor. Apparently charmed by Mr. Hotchner's diffidence (and probably wanting a drinking buddy and an audience), Mr. Hemingway called to invite him over. They quickly became fast friends, and the relationship lasted for 14 years until the 1961 suicide by Mr. Hemingway.

The attraction of this book for most readers will be the "behind-the-scenes" look at what it was like to pal around with Mr. Hemingway, and the events that led up to his death.

Mr. Hotchner has a good memory for stories and dialogue, and reports on what Mr. Hemingway said and did in his presence in some detail. He does this in the way you might adapt a taped conversation into a screenplay, so the dramatic movement is quite good. On the other hand, he is totally uncritical of what Mr. Hemingway said or did. Other biographies of Mr. Hemingway have indicated that much of what he said about himself was hopelessly exaggerated, apparently as a prop for a fragile ego.

Despite the fact that both men were writers, and Mr. Hotchner sometimes helped Mr. Hemingway edit his work, the book has very little to say about Mr. Hemingway's writing, but a lot to say about what he did when he was not writing. That is like writing a biography of Picasso and focusing almost solely on his relationship with women. Ernest Hemingway's drinking and carousing are not the reasons why we are interested in him. Although to some it is glamorous to read about endless trips to the race track, drinking endless cocktails and wine, and partying in Spain, others will find it gross. I graded the book down accordingly for these two flaws.

The book is quite sad in capturing the frustration that Mr. Hemingway felt as his ability to write left him. Because he was a celebrity, he seemed to get less than the care he really needed while suffering from some sort of depressed paranoid state (he thought that the Federal government was tailing him).

After you have finished reading about these experiences, I suggest you look on the positive side. Is there some great person you would like to meet? How can you legitimately introduce yourself? That could be the start of an amazing friendship of your own.

Be sure not to overlook finding friends where you least expect to meet them.

This is the best book that I have read about Hemingway as a man. It doesn't pretend to be (and is not ) a biography. It is an intimate and deligthful portrait of Hemingway the fisherman, the hunter, the womanizer, the drinker, the gambler and all the things that really meant something to him. Were can you get such a descriptive account of the pain and insecurity associated with a writer's creativity? Without this book one cannot size the tragedy of a writer that, in his last years, was conscious of his inability to create great literature, but was condemned to live up to his myth and his character. To those that criticize this book, on grounds of lack of objectivity, one must oppose that this is a book about Papa like the one that he, when Paris was a moveable feast, would have wanted to write about Hemingway.........After all, if Papa lived, he would have explained to all of us that time is precious and that he took Hotchner under his wings, wined and dined and shared intimate thoughs and moments with him, only in order to provide the young lad with good story writing material. And Hotchner has delivered!

I am so glad this book is still in print! I still have my 1966 hardbound copy and love rereading it every five years or so before delving back into Hemingway's works! If you are a Hemingway fan, you MUST read this memoir -- it is a sheer delight, and Hotchner makes you feel as if you knew Hemingway personally. Quite simply, a gem of a book!

A.E. Hotchner, a gifted writer in his own right, provides a fascinating memoir of the last 13 years of Ernest Hemingway's life. As a close friend during the time period between 1948 and 1961, Hotchner provides an insider's glimpse of Hemingway's travels, friends, writing, and troubled personality. Hotchner manages to fill in most of Hemingway's personal and literary history before they met through a variety of stories told to him by the great writer and master story teller. Thus, the reader is transported to Spain and its bullfights and bullfighters, Paris, where Hemingway spent his twenties making his name in literature, and Hemingway's home near Havana where he lived, wrote, and fished on his boat, the Pilar. His last years are particularly tragic, as it seems pre-ordained that Hemingway will kill himself despite the best efforts of those who loved him. Hemingway, whose brilliant career was cut short by mental illness, left a legacy of magnificent short stories and novels written in his sparse, gritty style that still ring true fifty years after his death.

For those new to Hemingway, I would recommend reading a wiki review of Ernest Hemingway, and then "A Moveable Feast" to hear in his own words his thoughts on the myriad cast of characters he met around the world. If possible (but highly unlikely, due to its rarity) I would follow that with Charles Fenton's "The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway." I would then read "The Hemingway Women" (probably reading chapters in reverse order) to get one of the best histories of Ernest Hemingway's life. I would conclude with Hotchner's "Papa Hemingway."

The books by Hotchner and Fenton are classics and I would recommend hardback copies. I think remaindered copies from discount bookstores might be the most precious; there's something to be said for giving these homeless books a loving and final resting place on your bookshelf of treasured possessions.

All I can say is that I had no idea Ernest Hemingway was so much more than an author. It would be like calling TR a politician.