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Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved In Life, And Lost, 1934-1961 (2011)

by Paul Hendrickson(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1400041627 (ISBN13: 9781400041626)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Alfred A. Knopf

review 1: Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961, from Hemingway’s pinnacle as the monarch of American letters until his suicide, the author traces the writer's exultations and despair around the one constant in his life during this time: his boat, Pilar. This book shows that for all the writer's boorishness, depression and alcoholism, and despite his anger, he was capable of remarkable generosity—to struggling writers, to lost souls, to the dying son of a friend. It shows a side of Hemingway we ay not have seen before.
review 2: Paul Hendrickson's wonderful book is less a traditional biography than a sort of non-clinical excavation of the author's psyche, using a wide range of sources, all manner of people who intersected with Hemingway, sometimes only briefly and usin... moreg Hemingway's boat, the "Pilar", as a metaphor for the author. For example, Hendrickson comments: "No sailboats--the Hemingways were rowboaters and canoeists & stinkpotters. Sailing was a different culture. This fits with the link between the "Pilar", Hemingway & fishing. You could formulate it like this: a sailboat would always be to a motor launch as fly-fishing is to night crawlers." While I am hardly in the thrall of Hemingway's books, I found the long study of the author fascinating & full of surprises, especially when dealing with a few characters Hemingway befriended & retained as friends & who did not represent the author's star power, including a minor diplomat named Walter Houk, serving in Cuba before the revolution but who he cared for & was loyal to for a long period of time, even though it is suggested by someone who knew him well(Les Hemingway)that "Papa" Hemingway "loved everything for a small time and then nothing was any good anymore." Obviously, there were exceptions and Hemingway's hallowed boat ranks high among them.Hemingway carefully considered just what sort of boat would suit his fishing needs & his personality at large and it became a part of his consciousness, in Key West, Cuba & Bimini. While much of the extended character study is focused on the boat, Hendrickson invests the energy of a good detective in sorting through many other components of Hemingway's life. Thus, I think this book might be of interest even if one had never read one of the author's famous novels. Among the points of focus beyond the "Pilar" are Hemingway's wives, editors, fellow writers and his children, including his favored son "Gigi", whose life initially had the most promise but which ended most tragically, still in search of his essential identity late in life.With most if not all legendary characters, defining his or her most telling qualities is fraught with complexity and separating the person from the hype & the myth often a frustrating ordeal. Paul Hendrickson sums this up by saying, "as with all of Hemingway's work, you end up feeling more than you necessarily understand: another core Hemingway writing value." less

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