“Hemingway’s Women”
Leonard’s commentary on Hemingway is not flattering. Only
few paragraphs in and you’re wondering why you’d ever read a Hemingway novel at
all. Leonard describes Hemingway as an “American king-baby/boy-man on his way
to a Nobel prize…” who was a serial husband (four wives) and psychologically
(if not, at times, physically) abusive to his wives. Hemingway is quoted as
calling his mistress Jane Mason (who jumped out of a window) to John Dos
Passos, “…the girl who fell for me literally…” –nice guy.
He writes that Hemingway’s mother Grace was “only one of papa’s
many mothers,” as all of his women were mother figures.
Leonard writes that Hemingway’s wives were “enablers” and
goes on the write “There is something dangerously sick about ‘enabling.’ You
victimize yourself.”
New word: Torquemada = Tomas de Torquemada, 15th
Century Spanish Grand Inquisitor (and noted sadist)
New
learning: …from the Michigan Quarterly
Review, “When
she [Hemingway’s fourth wife Mary] became jealous of the young Italian Adriana
Ivancich (the model for Renata in Across the River and into the Trees),
he blamed Mary for his own dangerous flirtation, compared her to the sadistic
Spanish Inquisitor-General and told her: ‘You have the face of a Torquemada.’”
Torquemada:
Always thought Hemingway looked like an ass in this picture:
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