From Wikipedia:
"Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star..."
So we have a guy who was raised in the Midwest and was a newspaper reporter. Right after Ernest got out of high school in 1917, his father wrote to a classmate in Kansas to secure him the job (because he didn't want him going off to war.) Hemingway spent about a year in Kansas in total, and the Kansas City Star likes to brag that this time was "one of the most important periods of his life." Kansas does seem to show up in a lot of his works: Hemingway liked to "recast" scenes from his life into his books.
"Hemingway took the train to Kansas City in mid-October, arriving on Oct. 15, 1917. Dr. Hemingway accompanied him to the station. Ernest, who "was disgusted with teary fairwells,'' recast that scene in For Whom the Bell Tolls." Source
In 1918, Hemingway went to war on the Italian Front, only to be seriously injured. (Sound familiar?) He fell in love with the nurse who was healing him. That nurse, Agnes Von Kurowsky, would leave him for an Italian officer. He went back to America to be a reporter until 1921, when he and his wife left for Paris. "In Paris, Hemingway met writers such as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound who "could help a young writer up the rungs of a career"."
In 1923, Hemingway and his wife Hadley went to the San Fermin festival (as we've said, mostly unknown until The Sun) with some friends from Paris. Hemingway started to get interested in bullfighting here. "A few days after the fiesta ended, on his birthday (July 21), he began to write the draft of what would become The Sun Also Rises, finishing eight weeks later." Source
There are a lot of comparisons to be made here, even besides the obvious ones. It was fascinating to see the bits and pieces of the author's life that contributed to his first novel, and how he sculpted them into the complex story we can still read deep themes into today. This blog post is getting too long already, though, so I'll leave that to commenters.
A bunch of American expatriates at a cafe table in Spain, drinking heavily...
In 1923, Hemingway and his wife Hadley went to the San Fermin festival (as we've said, mostly unknown until The Sun) with some friends from Paris. Hemingway started to get interested in bullfighting here. "A few days after the fiesta ended, on his birthday (July 21), he began to write the draft of what would become The Sun Also Rises, finishing eight weeks later." Source
There are a lot of comparisons to be made here, even besides the obvious ones. It was fascinating to see the bits and pieces of the author's life that contributed to his first novel, and how he sculpted them into the complex story we can still read deep themes into today. This blog post is getting too long already, though, so I'll leave that to commenters.
(Hilariously, I found this bit while researching:"Hemingway suffered a severe injury in their Paris bathroom when he pulled a skylight down on his head thinking he was pulling on a toilet chain. This left him with a prominent forehead scar, which he carried for the rest of his life. When Hemingway was asked about the scar, he was reluctant to answer." Source)
That last bit is hilarious, although I do feel a little bad for him! Overall though, this was really interesting to read about. We had talked a little about this in class, but I didn't realize until reading your post the full extent to which Hemingway's life showed up in his works.
ReplyDeleteIt is really interesting how the plot of "The Sun Also Rises" seems to imitate Hemingway's own life. With Brett as the nurse he falls in love with, who then leaves him to go off with Mike (or maybe Lord Ashley, depending on the timeline). Though I'm not sure I want to know, it would be interesting to find out if Hemingway had a similar injury to Jake, and that was what sent the nurse away, or if that is just something he added to Jake's character in order to give him an unpreventable excuse to why Brett could not stay with him.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I really enjoyed learning more about Hemingway's own life. I wonder whether Brett's actions and personality somewhat reflected those of real-life nurse Agnes. I guess it's possible, since like you mentioned, Hemingway writes from own experience. I'm inclined to think that such a complex love triangle and depth of emotion (in the book) could only be conjured from personal experiences.
ReplyDeleteIt's also cool that he was raised in Oak Park! Makes Illinois feel somewhat relevant.
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ReplyDeleteIt's always so cool finding parallels between the author's life and a story's plot. I wonder if the nurse did Hemingway dirty and as such created Brett after her. I also wonder if the dreary vibe in Paris in "The Sun Also Rises" is Hemingway's personal experience transferred.
ReplyDeleteProbably the most upsetting autobiographical aspect of the novel is that Robert Cohn was pretty clearly based on a real person, a "friend" of Hemingway's named Harold Loeb, who was actually instrumental in helping get Hemingway's first book of stories published. Apparently, Loeb had no idea that Hemingway harbored all this resentment toward him, and he was reportedly shocked and hurt by his portrayal in the novel. Hemingway, apparently, was capable of treating friends very badly in his fiction. Cohn works so well as a foil to Jake and his gender anxieties--so he has a necessary aesthetic role in the novel--but as an example of a friend's treatment of a friend, the fictional portrait of Loeb is appallingly mean-spirited.
ReplyDeleteI like this novel a lot better when I *dont'* think about its real-life/autobiographical parallels.