The mystery, the Hemingway mystique, has been with me since I was an undergraduate. Hemingway framed himself as the hero-writer of his era. The pose reminds me of the mystery of the Greek hero-god Think about melancholy Achilles, whose diffident greatness was captured brilliantly by Brad Pitt in the 2000 movie Helen of Troy. (movie trailer embedded at bottom of page)
The everyday among us cannot help but wonder, looking at Achilles or Hemingway, what is it like, to be a superstar, to have everything, so to speak, and then still be unhappy. There’s no point in debating that Hem was unhappy much of the time. It’s clear in all his fiction. It’s clear in his rejection of sentimentality. No happy person rejects emotion so decisively.
Hemingway has been with me for decades now, since I was first offended by A Fairwell to Arms in a university English seminar. And today we’re setting off for Florida, and the idea has come to me to visit Key West and the Hemingway Museum. Despite the fear of going over the Oversea Highway.
Overseas Highway Debate
When my adult daughter Tiara, who we’re going to see in Miami, heard about the Hemingway Mystique and the idea of driving to Key West she paused. “It’s a little bit of a tough drive,” she said.
“Why?”
“Well … (slowly putting her words in order) you know, it’s a two lane highway over 100 miles of water. You can take a bus, actually, it’s probably easier.”
The very idea of a two lane highway over the ocean is mind boggling. Even if you don’t have an aversion for roadways over water. And I do. The Oversea Highway, I reflect, is probably a sight and a topic in itself. I ask if I could take a ferry instead.
She pauses again. “No … it’s not really efficient, I guess, there’s no ferry. Bus or car, that’s pretty much it. Unless you want to fly, there is a small airport.”
Flying is something I don’t like to do at this point, especially not to small airports located on islands. Despite my doubt about the drive, I feel a tremendous draw to see Key West and most specifically the home of my old nemesis, who is also one of the iconic writers of the 20th century. There is perhaps some sympathetic magic in my mind. I will go see Hemingway’s old house, perhaps some of his writing greatness will rub off. Even thought he’s been dead since 1961. Before I was born.
I go back in my mind to my undergraduate classroom, and our discussions about Hem’s romantic problems, his death defying bravado, his embrace of political extremism and big-game hunting…he is, I suppose, the most American of American writers. That means, in some little way, we are like him. Even if it’s kind of a bad way.
And The Hemingway Mystique Does Linger
I draw a sigh. Poor old Hem, wandering the earth reaching for validation in conquest, saying to the multitude always in a thousand different ways, “I am the best,” through his writing, through his big game hunting, through his fishing, through his four marriages, each designed to somehow prove his ultimate masculine hegemony to man and woman alike. Even with his six-toed cats that roam the Hemingway Museum at his old home in Key West, he was saying “I am more than other men.”
I have to know more about this master of writing theory and practice. So, we are going, if , as I say, I’ve got breath in my body. Overseas Highway or not, I have to try to see Key West.
Link to story of the visit to the Hemingway Museum.
Link to the story of our ride along the Overseas Highway.
