This year marks the 50th anniversary of death, of one of the most renowned and legendary writers, Earnest Hemingway, who committed suicide precisely on this day 50 years ago. The announcement of the publication of 18 volumes of his unedited correspondence promises the appearance of new interpretations of his figure and his work.
On that fateful morning of 1961, Hemingway got up very early. It was Sunday, 2nd of July. He found the hiding place of the key to a cupboard in his rural house of Ketchun, Idaho. His wife, Mary, had hidden this key because the writer had been profoundly depressed, and ill, and had shown that he desired to die. The key let him to the hunting rifle. He must have looked right into the darkness of the double barrel hardly a second ... before the sound, loud, blunt and final, woke up the whole house.
That thundering shot and that ominous odour of gunpowder ended a legend of the most popular author of the XX century of American literature. As a man, he was anti-intellectual, heavy drinker, lover of hunting, fishing, and all sports; tireless publicist of his manliness, capable of mining phrases of fantasy & reverie for the titles of journalists. His personage was impressive and imposing. Perhaps even more than his books, many remember the images of the man, perfectly studied and presented to his own design. He was known to many of his friends as 'Papa'.
And the bulls with them he posed breathlessly, the gigantic troves of animals hunted, showing always that he was the most macho. The white beard and the rounded belly exhibited year after year by imitators are not far from the tupe and sequins of Elvis Presley. His detractors think of him so demonstrated; his defenders reckon that he was the responsible of such a construction, which was no more than a way to preserve the solitude of this writer. In fact, the acceptance speech for the Nobel he was awarded, which he wrote but never attended to collect the covered prize, says: 'When a writer abandons his solitude, he gains public repercussion, but sometimes his work deteriorates ... A writer ought to write what he should write, not to talk about it.'
The memorial event today is in his epicentre in the Havana. The John F, Kennedy Library of Boston put together the major collection of his correspondence in 18 volumes, covering the period from 1907 - 1922, revealing including his views on sexuality which some interprets as ambiguous, linking that with his posthumous publication of his work 'The garden', not very well finished, but very interesting. Some of these people analysed his figure of hyper-macho to be a studied waylaid strategy, or to hide his insecurity.
It beats me why people have to analyse every celebrity, even when they are dead, and when short of clear indication, create, invent or simply guess what might have been ...? Why can we all simply enjoy his work and be glad that while the man was alive, he had done so much to leave us a valuable legacy?
Next Thursday the 7th starts the annual Bull Run in Pamplona. No doubt there would be as usual dozens or more Hemingways appearing and running with the bulls, risking their lives for God knows what and why; hopefully coming out of it safe and sound, or at least alive.
