My Interview with Ernest Hemingway

“Why did you kill yourself with a shotgun blast under your chin”?, I asked Mr. Hemingway.
“I understand you are also a hunter. Have you ever shot a Kudu”?, He responded calmly.
“I killed a very good 57” Kudu in the Ehi-Rovapuka tribal conservancy in Namibia”, I said proudly.
“How big was this conservancy”?, he queried.
“857,000 acres with only 3000 Herero living there and I had it all to myself for two weeks”!
“That is a very fine animal you got. I have only hunted East Africa myself where the Kudu don’t get as large and are much more difficult to get. I did get a fifty one incher towards the end of safari”.
“You have changed the subject and are avoiding my question, Mr. Hemingway”.
“Your question is trivial and not important. Don’t you think it is more interesting to talk about what we did why we are alive, than how we died. We can’t control when and how we die so it does not matter. What matters is how we live why we are still breathing. Here, I have been saving a bottle of this fine Cuban rum for an occurrence such as this. Let us drink well, my friend”.
“I will be happy and honored to drink with you sir, but not being able to choose the time and manner of our death is not always true. Didn’t you do just that”?
“Not really. I was losing my vision and dying of cancer anyway. I didn’t want to linger”.
“You are a proud man, sir”.
“No, I am wretched coward. Haven’t you read my short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro”?
“Of course, it is one of your most well known stories and an excellent piece of writing. Did you base the main character on yourself”?
“Well that is pretty obvious isn’t it? I don’t think you are much of an interviewer. Maybe if you drank more rum it would improve your skill”?
“I agree, give me another full shot of that happy juice”!
“I am starting to like you, son.”
We both take full shots of the rum down in unison like kids at a college frat party. One long slurp with the happy juice going down warm and sweet.
“It seems your Snows of Kilimanjaro story is about death and regret”?, I stated pretending to be an expert.
“Well, the main character is slowly dying of gangrene. I start the story with vultures and end it with hyenas. Both are miserable stinking scavengers feeding off corpses. I wasn’t subtle with the symbolism. Please take another drink; you are starting to show some improvement”.
“There were a several flashback monologues where the main character seems to be reliving subtle, but traumatic events in his life. Why use this method”?
“They are necessary to bring in the feeling of regret. He knows he is dying and is now taking stock of his life.”
“Your character disparages his woman even though she loves and admires him. Why”?
“She was the rich bitch who ruined him. She was a fine woman really, but she stole his talent by taking care of him. He felt miserable about having an easy life. It removed his incentive to write and now as death walked up his chest, he agonized about all the stories he would never be able to tell”.
“Harry seemed to accept his death with resigned anticipation.”
“He was a man”, Earnest sighs heavily.
“Harry experienced life and wrote about most of it, but he left out the whoring and gambling. He was a coward for that and he was a coward for taking the easy safe comfortable way of being taken care of by a rich bitch. He chose security and modesty over freedom and daring and he hated himself for it. It was now all coming together with the gangrene making its way up his leg to his heart.”
“How would you summarize The Snows of Kilimanjaro”?
“It is about death which means it is about life. You should know that as you have hunted Africa. The cycle of birth, killing and death is all around you there. There is nothing wasted in God’s world”.
“I didn’t know you were religious”.
“I am not into organized religion, but you have to be a blind idiot not to believe in the creator”.
“What is it like”?
“What is what like”?
“Being dead”?
“You will find out soon enough. The Snows of Kilimanjaro is my gift to you. The important thing is to live fully now. You should contemplate your death every day. Harry was a healthy robust man in the prime of life. He was on safari in Africa with a beautiful woman experiencing life as few of us get a chance to. He was at his peak, but his death came regardless. Death is unpredictable and time cannot be taken for granted. I was an ambulance driver in the Great War you realize. I patrolled the waters off Cuba during WWII hunting for U-boats and picking up the dead. I haven’t been able to write about it. I have only skirted around its edges.”
“Is there a last piece of advice you could give me, Mr. Hemingway”?
“You can borrow money, but you can’t borrow time. Go now.”

All I can think of to say right now is "Wow".

A very origional, novel idea, and beautifully written as well. I like it!

BTW Very creepy.

I like that. Makes a man sit down and take stock.

BRAVO!!

Hemingway is a favorite of mine and your "essay" is certainly thought-provoking.

Pardon me for asking, but did you come about this on your own and was it written recently? Again, please don't take offense but I was just wondering where this "came from" if you know what I mean?

Regardless, it's a great read!!

Thanks,
Scott

I wrote it today to satisfy one of my assignments for an online creative writing course through UCLA. The class is called "Cage Free" writing and the assigment was to respond to a piece of literature by talking to one of its characters or the author. It doesn't matter if they are dead or alive, real or imagined as I get to make everything up anyway. Thank you all for your kind comments. I hope to write a hunting oriented novel someday that actually gets published and makes me stinkin rich!

quote:

Originally posted by BigBoreCore:
I wrote it today to satisfy one of my assignments for an online creative writing course through UCLA. The class is called "Cage Free" writing and the assigment was to respond to a piece of literature by talking to one of its characters or the author. It doesn't matter if they are dead or alive, real or imagined as I get to make everything up anyway. Thank you all for your kind comments. I hope to write a hunting oriented novel someday that actually gets published and makes me stinkin rich!

Well, I'll be damned!! It seems you may have a talent for this stuff! Keep it up amd make sure you post some of it here for us to enjoy and BTW good luck with the "stinkin rich" part.

Regards,
Scott

Very well written. Congrats.

BBC,

Very well done.

I enjoyed it as I sipped my Jack Daniels...and contemplated

I enjoyed reading your essay. Well done, sir!

I really think it is great that your on-line education creates something we can all enjoy. I beleive you have begun a wonderful journey and I hope to read more of your work.

Not to burst your celestial bubble BigBoreCore, but you are not the first to do an "interview with Earnest Hemingway." Probably not news to you, but it might to be others.

http://bygonebureau.com/2008/0...th-ernest-hemingway/

A+

Thanks
JD

Who cares if it is the first or the 100th still very good. Wish I had some talent.

BBC
Great essay. I took some elective writing classes when I attended Michigan State 30 years ago. I've always loved stories but I'm much better at telling them then writting them. You have a talent. An ablity to mix fiction with truth; as we all know quite a bit about PaPa and can see him sitting there talking to you.
Again my complements.

Kinda Spooky...I liked it!
Rich Elliott

Very well done BBC. I just finished reading "Green Hills of Africa" and your "interview" is uncanny.

BTW, I think your interview is significantly better than the one AZwriter referenced.

Cheers
Canuck

That's an enigmatic piece, BBC. I am a student of Hemingway and am currently re-reading one of the biographies. His imagined replies are very likely close to what I would guess the real thing would be, should you ever have had the opportunity to do the actual inverview.

Very well done BBC. Certainly thought provoking.

Michael J

BBC, very well done. I enjoyed reading your "interview".
Larry

Good Stuff! Thanks.

Well done -- very well done!
G