Beschreibung:

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. Three typed letters signed (one "Hemingway," two "Ernest Hemingway") to Lester J. Bowman in Brooklyn; n.p., n.d. [Havana 1940]. Together 4 pages, 4to, single-spaced, two letters on onion-skin paper, the third on inexpensive tan paper, a few minute fold holes, one letter with slight creases, all signatures and holograph closings (about 25 words) in pencil, with five holograph corrections or insertions (about 30 words) in pencil, with three envelopes with typed addresses by Hemingway (two postmarked or with return address in Havana -- both postmarked 1940, one 15 August, the other seemingly 9 April). "THERE IS NOTHING ON EARTH MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER THAN WRITING WELL" In these excellent and pungent letters -- virtually quotable at random -- to a young, aspiring author, Hemingway gives his views of the times and talks of the war in Spain (and war in general), writing, his current work in progress ( For Whom the Bell Tolls ), the drinking life, Bowman's work, women, "shitty criticism" and some other writers, etc. [9 April?]: "...wait until you read this new book [ For Whom the Bell Tolls , to be published 21 October 1940] on which have been working one year and one month and then if Pilar and Maria are the same woman why I will give up. Of course maybe they will be...[Arnold] Gingrich [publisher of Esquire ] is in some ways a good guy and a very smart editor when not expanding too much so that he has no time to edit. But never take him as a literary critic...There is a guy named Thomas Rourke who can write more like me than I can...I read Mark Twain, The Bible and all those other books and don't have to deny anything except Max Eastman proveing [ sic ] I am a fag or something and finally let that fall of its own weight. And it fell..." Regarding "shitty criticism" Hemingway remarks: "...I am getting more rhino hided I hope. Anybody could make me charge in the old days as soon as they moved that cape. But am [a] little older now and have been a couple of places and also don't give a shit. It's all shit and we have to eat a ton of it. So why pretend it is corn flakes and that you like it..." He concludes: "Today have an awful hangover and writing a letter makes me feel a better and a wiser man. It's five thirty and I have worked since six a.m. and you take care of yourself and realize it is a son of a bitching way to make a living. But there is nothing on earth makes you feel better than writing well. So tomorrow I've got to try to do it again..." [15 August]: "...I am a very careless typer when writing letters because I have to be very careful when I write other things: dispatches, stories or anything else...Never be snotty about being poor. It's just the same as being snotty about being rich. I have been very poor and very snotty about it and I know...To me they [his women characters] are not much alike but they are all women that I have known. I've never known a woman who went to Vassar but maybe will meet one some time. I hope not. Marie Morgan [in To Have and Have Not ] had been a whore before she married Harry. The whores in [the story] 'The Light of the World' were all whores...The 5thCol and 1st49 stories [ The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories , 1938] were all the stories I had ever published up to time that book was published. Since then have written six and published 5. [ A ] Farewell to Arms was written in 1928 eleven years after Caporretto etc...I think the war in Spain was the war of your generation and anything else is romanticism. That war was easy and cheap to go to and you got killed or wounded quickly. So far this [World War II] is a Deluxe war with everybody in it plenty wrong...War is criminal idiocy and only justified in defense of your country...Why don't you write a good story about playing the piano? There have been fewer good stories on that than on war..." [no date]: "I felt like hell not to see you in N.Y. ...I had just finished a 200,000 word book [ For Whom the Bell Toll