Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved In Life, And Lost, 1934-1961 (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
It seems to me that Hemingway's latter years seem to get less attention these days than the Paris years. This book is a fine correction to this. Hendrickson centers his H story around Pilar (the boat not the famous Pilar from 'Whom..' ) and tells an intimate tale of H's love with the sea and those important in his life. Hendrickson shows the good and the bad and is brutally honest in his assessment. I read Boat in conjunction with 'Islands in the Stream'. For those of you who may be like me and have had the opportunity of having done a bit if fishing in your lives I can tell you that you won't be disappointed by the fishing scenes. However, as good as they are they can't compete with the unbelievable description in 'Island' of Thomas Hudson's youngest son battling a large billfish. 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 using 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."
What do You think about Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved In Life, And Lost, 1934-1961 (2011)?
Starts off excellent- very well-written and researched- but derails somewhat toward the end.
—Janay
Not typically my favorite genre, but I enjoyed this. It's dense, but readable.
—nicole
Eh. I guess I like reading Hemingway more than I like reading about Hemingway.
—Jenny
very well written, if not overly detailed.
—shruti
