WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
It tolls for thee." ~ John Donne
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Finca Vigía
pronounced feen-ca vee-hee-a
meaning Lookout Farm
now a museum
once the home of Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)
where he lived off and on between 1939 - 1960
writing segments of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1939 - 40)
and The Old Man and the Sea (1951)
in rural Havana, Cuba
about 15 miles from the City Center
Over the decades, there has been serious concern about the condition of Finca Vigía and the many priceless books and manuscripts housed there. Thanks to joint efforts between Cuba and the United States, the estate is now a living history museum, carefully preserved down to the finest detail. Each room has become a time capsule, seemingly undisturbed since Hemingway's last day there, back in July of 1960. Gerry and I were fortunate to see the Hemingway house / musuem last month, when we were docked in Havana for twenty - four hours as part of a Norweigian Cruise -- before the recently re - instated, travel restrictions severely and unnecessarily curtailed this international opportunity for so many curious Americans.
at Finca Vigía, on a beautiful spring day:
One room just for writing:
Another just for reading:
Where Hemingway Sat!
Some Reading & Writing
Advice from Hemingway
Books should be about the people you know, that you love and hate, not about the people you study up about. If you write them truly they will have all the economic implications a book can hold.
In the meantime, since it is Christmas, if you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, read Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara.
Then when you have more time read another book called War and Peace by Tolstoi and see how you will have to skip the big Political Thought passages, that he undoubtedly thought were the best things in the book when he wrote it, because they are no longer either true or important, if they ever were more than topical, and see how true and lasting and important the people and the action are. Do not let them deceive you about what a book should be because of what is in the fashion now. All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
from "Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba"
in Esquire (December 1934)
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The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.
. . . all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and . . . no true-story teller . . . would keep that from you.
from Chapter 9 of Death in the Afternoon (1932)
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I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.
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Click for more Hemingway Quotes
For example:
"My attitude toward punctuation is that
it ought to be as conventional as possible. . . .
You ought to be able to show that you can do it
a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools
before you have a license to bring in your own improvements."
&
"Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all.
Suffer like a bastard when don't write, or just before,
and feel empty and f----d out afterwards.
But never feel as good as while writing."
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, June 14th
Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com
