To Have and Have Not

I love Hemingway, but I certainly haven’t read his entire catalog.  To Have and Have Not was one of those novels that slipped under my radar, until, of course, I started doing research for the Florida Trip.  Since I always associated Hemingway with Key West, I was surprised to learn that he did very little writing while in the state of Florida.  In fact, this is perhaps the only novel that was written mostly in the state, and it’s his only novel that takes place in the United States.

The older I get, the more I realize that my life is becoming further and further removed from the Hemingway Hero.  Yes, I want to be that guy that drinks too much, fights, kills all sorts of animals, smokes, ravages women, fights some more, and mistreats his wife, but alas, my life decisions prevent it.  Perhaps that’s the mystique of the Hemingway Hero.  It’s every man’s dream to live like Harry Morgan, perhaps in the same way that all women want to be Martha Stewart.  (All women want to be Martha Stewart, no?)

“That night I was sitting in the living room smoking a cigar and drinking a whiskey and listening to Gracie Allen on the radio.”

The Florida influences are obvious in this novel, but it’s also clear that Hemingway’s heart was with Cuba.  As Harry reluctantly turns to a life of smuggling in order to survive (he was a “have” who became a “have not” in a twist of fate brought upon by another “have”), we see that Cuba is the paradise of the novel.  But even paradise has its price, and the a revolution serves as an appropriate backdrop for the action.

“Bacardi.”

In terms of manliness, this book has it all: a protagonist who’s always ready for a fight (even when his arm is shot off), a domesticated hooker, a first mate with a rum obsession, a Chinese gangster named Mr. Chin, one of the most depressing yet tantalizing sex scenes in the course of human history, and lots of talk about boats.

And of course, it has a Hemingway Hero.

“Him, like he was, snotty and strong and quick, and like some kind of expensive animal.  It would always get me just to watch him move.  I was so lucky all that time to have him.  His luck went bad first in Cuba.  Then it kept right worse and worse until a Cuban killed him.”

The director of the film adaptation said that Hemingway admitted To Have and Have Not was his worst published novel, “a bunch of junk.”

And who am I to argue with Ernest Hemingway.

Reading the book, though, inspired me to search my teaching archives.  The last time I taught Hemingway was nearly 14 years ago when we covered The Old Man and the Sea in my pre-AP/IB English 10 class.  Most of my notes make no sense to me, but I did find the following quote, which I probably wrote on the board and used as a foundation for a 1000-word essay assignment: “A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.”  I bet my students loved that one.

“He started to walk off down the dock looking longer than a day without breakfast.  Then he turned and came back.”

Pascua de Florida

When I’m bored and feeling particularly unmanly, I generally grab a Hemingway biography off my bookshelf and read tales of alcoholism, big game hunting, and misogyny. It really is great fun.

This morning, I found a copy of A.E. Hotchner’s Papa Hemingway.  I haven’t read it before, and judging from the yellow sticker on the cover, I purchased it for ten cents at a garage sale.  There isn’t an index, so I couldn’t do my usual routine with a new Hemingway book and look up all the references to “colon” (try it some time).  Instead, I just breezed through the pictures in the middle.  There he is shirtless at the typewriter; there he is with Black Dog in Cuba; there he is playing matador for Ava Gardner; there he is using a rifle to shoot a cigarette out of the mouth of a birthday party attendee.  (That guy had stories to tell for a lifetime.)

Then this fell out of the book:

 

And on the back:

I’ve been to the Hemingway House a few times, mainly when I was a kid, most recently on Spring Break of my freshman year in college when a friend and I chased a girl all the way to Key West.  (She eventually got away.  Twice.)  I always saw the Florida/Hemingway connection as more of a tourism gimmick than anything else. Maybe it was just my naiveté (probably it was my naiveté), but the only real takeaway for me was the unsuccessful search for the famous six-toed cats.

But here are Jim and Dorothy living it up in Florida and having the time of their lives.  From my hobby as a philatelist (don’t tell anyone), I know the date was somewhere in the early 1970s, based on the eight-cent Eisenhower stamp (Scott #1402, thank you).

Jim and Dorothy seem to making the rounds in Florida, touring Key West on Tuesday and then heading out to Ft. Lauderdale. 

And the weather?  “Delightful.”

I see Dorothy and Jim slathered in sunscreen, their black socks reaching to the knee, their sandals covered in an entire vacation’s worth of sand and mosquito repellant and foot sweat.  They’re well rested because their room at the Flamingo Motor Court has one of those Magic Fingers devices hooked up to the bed, and Jim — always the planner — brought along two rolls of quarters.  They can’t believe that the sun is actually shining and the temperature are in the 70s in February, something that never happens back in Springfield.  They’re already thinking about buying a modular home in Boca and riding out their golden years in the Sunshine State.

And this is my eureka moment.

Could it be that Florida might make the ideal bike tour?  There aren’t mountains and streams, but there is that unmistakeable Florida charm that has bewitched New Jersey snowbirds and retirees for years.

I grew up in Florida, so I’ll always have fondness for the place, but could it, perhaps, be a placed that I’d actually like to explore?

I know, Thomas Wolfe, you can’t go home again.  But what if you never really appreciated home the first time around? 

And could the focus of the tour be … wait for it … literature?  Besides Hemingway, I’m not really sure that Florida has a rich literary heritage.  I’ll have to research this and get back to you.

But I’m excited.

A Literary Tour of Florida.  Who woulda thunk it?  Thanks, Jim and Dorothy.

P.S.  In the same book was the following newspaper clipping.  It appears that Louisa was very proud of Choon B. Choi.  I’m proud of him, too.