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On Today’s Menu:
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** Share some deep-sea-fish cakes for an iconic author’s birthday.
** Linger to peruse my list of his best short stories.
** Savor a last ½ cup tallying up a serious bar tab.
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STT-24
First Sip:
Since I had started to
break all my writing down…
and try to make instead of describe,
writing had been wonderful to do.
But it was very difficult
and I did not know how I would ever write anything as long as a novel.
It often took me a full morning of work to write a paragraph.
– from A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway
Chapter 17: ‘Scott Fitzgerald’
.
Slice of Cake:
What is the best of Ernest Hemingway’s writing?
Number one for me is Hemingway’s dialog.
Honestly, I’m not sure (a) why he wasn’t a playwright, and
(b) why we don’t see stage versions of his short stories.
Here are 4 examples where I took
Hemingway prose that’s mostly dialog
and transcribed it into the form of short scripts.
First: An example of men talking to men.
(Let’s call it Exhibit A.)
Bill –
So long as it’s over.
That’s all that matters.
…I understand her mother is sore as hell.
She told a lot of people you were engaged.
Nick –
We weren’t engaged.
Bill –
It was all around that you were.
Nick –
I can’t help it. We weren’t.
Bill –
Weren’t you going to get married?
Nick –
Yes. But we weren’t engaged
Bill (judicially) –
What’s the difference?
Nick –
I don’t know. There’s a difference.
Bill –
I don’t see it.
Nick –
All right. Let’s get drunk.
Bill –
All right.
– from The Three-Day Blow
a short story by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway in Cuba
photo by Tore Johnson
Life Images Collection, Getty
Next: Two examples of men talking to children.
(Let’s call them Exhibits B & C.)
Bumby –
Should we go home by Silver Beach’s book store?
Papa –
Sure. Do you like her?
Bumby –
She is always very nice to me.
Papa –
Me too.
Bumby –
She has a beautiful name. Silver Beach.
Papa –
We will go by and then I must get you home in time for lunch.
– from A Moveable Feast1
by Ernest Hemingway
in a chapter called “The Education of Mr Bumby”
The joke here is that her name is actually Sylvia Beach.
(Her bookstore is Shakespeare & Company.)
Set up:
A father checks in on his son who is running a fever.
He takes the child’s temperature.
Schatz –
What is it?
Papa –
Something like a hundred.
Schatz –
It was a hundred and two.
Papa –
Who said so?
Schatz –
The doctor.
Papa –
Your temperature is all right. It’s nothing to worry about.
Schatz –
I don’t worry, but I can’t keep from thinking.
Papa –
Don’t think. Just take it easy…
Schatz –
About what time do you think I’m going to die?
Papa –
What?
Schatz –
About how long will it be before I die?
Papa –
You aren’t going to die. What’s the matter with you?
Schatz –
Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two…
At school in France the boys told me you can’t live
with forty-four degrees. I’ve got a hundred and two.
Papa –
You poor Schatz. Poor old Schatz…
You aren’t going to die. That’s a different thermometer.
On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it’s ninety-eight.
Schatz –
Are you sure?
Papa –
Absolutely. It’s like miles and kilometers…
Schatz –
Oh…
His gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly.
The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the
next day it was very slack
and he cried very easily at little things
that were of no importance.
– from A Day’s Wait
a short story by Ernest Hemingway
Third: An example of men talking
at women.
(Let’s call it Exhibit D for Dreadful.)
He –
I don’t want to move.
There is no sense in moving now except to make it
easier for you.
She –
That’s cowardly.
He –
Can’t you let a man die comfortably as he can
without calling him names?
…
She –
You’re not going to die.
He –
I’m dying now.
Later:
He –
Love is a dunghill.
And I’m the cock that gets on it to crow.
She –
If you have to go away, is it absolutely necessary to
kill off everything you leave behind?
I mean do you have to take away everything?
Do you have to kill your horse, and your wife,
and burn your saddle and your armor?
He –
Yes. Your damned money was my armor…
She –
Don’t.
He –
All right. I’ll stop that.
I don’t want to hurt you.
She –
It’s a little bit late now.
He –
All right then. I’ll go on hurting you.
It’s more amusing…
She –
(crying)
He –
Listen… I don’t know why I’m doing it.
It’s trying to kill to keep yourself alive, I imagine.
…Don’t pay any attention, darling, to what I say.
I love you, really…You know I love you…
She –
You’re sweet to me.
He –
You bitch. You rich bitch. That’s poetry.
I’m full of poetry now.
Rot and poetry. Rotten poetry.
She –
Stop it.
Harry, why do you have to turn into a devil now?
He –
I don’t like to leave anything.
I don’t like to leave things behind.
– from The Snows of Kilimanjaro
by Ernest Hemingway
It isn’t ALWAYS that bad, of course.
Yet, I cannot think of any examples of Hemingway dialog where a
man and a woman really listen and respond to each other.
Instead, couples talk past each other.
And one or the other always seems to be realizing that they want out.
The ONE BIG exception is his first wife, Hadley.1
I have never tried
to apportion the blame, except my own part,
and that was clearer all my life…
Hadley, who had no possible blame, ever,
came well out of it finally and married a much
finer man that I ever was or could hope to be
and is happy and deserves it and that was one
good and lasting thing that came of that year.
– from A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway
Chapter 16: ‘Winter in Schruns’ 2
His memoir A Moveable Feast begins with Hemingway as a good husband
and a really good father. But it ends with an affair, a divorce,
and Hemingway surprisingly frank about his guilt and remorse.1
Lastly: A conversation between he and Hadley about a new lending library, where he’d borrowed some books on credit.
(Let’s call this Exhibit G for guilty conscience.)
Hadley –
But you must go by this afternoon and pay.
Hem –
Sure I will. We’ll both go. And then
we’ll walk down by the river and along the quays.
Hadley –
Let’s walk down the rue de Seine and look in all the galleries
and in the windows of the shops.
Hem –
Sure. We can walk anywhere and we can
stop at some new café…and have a drink.
Hadley –
We can have two drinks.
Hem –
Then we can eat somewhere.
Hadley –
No. Don’t forget we have to pay the library.
Hem –
We’ll come home and eat here and we’ll have a lovely meal
and drink Beaune from the co-operative…
Hadley –
And we’ll never love anyone else but each other.
Hem –
No. Never.
Hadley –
What a lovely afternoon and evening. Now we’d better have lunch…
Hem –
And we’re going to have all the books in the world
to read and when we go on trips we can take them.
Hadley –
Would that be honest?
Hem –
Sure.
Hadley –
Does she have Henry James too?
Hem –
Sure.
Hadley –
My, we’re lucky that you found the place.
Hem –
We’re always lucky.
– from A Moveable Feast1
by Ernest Hemingway
Chapter 3: ‘Shakespeare and Company’
.
** Happy 120th Birthday **
Ernest Hemingway
– born July 21, 1899
in Oak Park,
a suburb of Chicago, Illinois
.
Linger Awhile:
I’ve been thinking this week about what value reading Hemingway has for a woman in the 21st century.
Hemingway defines a certain kind of male loutishness by personifying it—
His public persona is full of big-game shooting, submarine hunting,
repeated wife-divorcing, heavy-drinking macho swagger.
Hemingway defines a certain kind of male loutishness by describing it—
His writing is full of clear and concise observations of men, both weak and strong,
and of women, both weak and strong.
We can (and I believe should) argue with his definitions of weak, strong, women, men, and everything else.
But we can (and I believe should) acknowledge that our arguments are aided by having all those examples so readily accessible in his writing.
(Let’s call these stories Exhibits, well, maybe not A-Z, but at least Exhibits A-M.)
Okay. Here we go. My list of…
The 9 Most-Worth-Reading Short Stories
by Ernest Hemingway
(in chronological order)
** The Three-Day Blow (1925)
I like this one just for the dialog and the slice of life. And how the apple that’s in Nick’s pocket in the first paragraph resonates with his idea in the last line.
** Cat in the Rain (1925)
The woman in this story seems written to be simultaneously petty and sympathetic. Hemingway also contrasts the behavior of the hotel-keeper with that of the husband. On a scale of attention and courtesy, the husband is the loser.
** Ten Indians (1927)
Without ever being forbidden from, or punished for, his crush on a Native American girl, a white boy is subtly discouraged and then tricked into abandoning his interest in her. It feels to me like a perfect case study of how racism is taught and passed down from one generation to the next.
** A Canary for One (1927)
Another portrait of racism, this is a well-crafted story with a last line that reverberates backwards and makes you want to go back and read it over again. It was only on my second read-through that I noticed the disaster metaphors out their train window: a farmhouse on fire, a three-way car wreck.
** Hills Like White Elephants (1927)
This is a brilliant story—done almost entirely in dialog—where little is said, the main subject is never mentioned, and yet a picture of this couple’s past, present, and future are somehow all tangibly conveyed.
** A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (1933)
A study in what public places can mean to lonely, otherwise isolated people.
** A Day’s Wait (1933)
Hem does a nice job of creating good-daddy characters.
** The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1936)
This disturbing story is all about a manly code that Hemingway seems to be endorsing. One man strictly lives by it; another man appears unable to understand it, despite living with a woman who blames him for not abiding by it. The plot twist is shocking, but it’s those last couple of lines that really chill me.
** Soldier’s Home (1943)
I don’t have to like the character Harold Krebs to appreciate this intimate look into the way his mind works.
Red Butte Creek, near my home
Perhaps Nick would find some trout here?
.
“Half Cup More”
No one ever seems to talk about how funny Hemingway is.
In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway describes one day (just one day, mind you) in 1924
when he and F. Scott Fitzgerald take a road trip (yes, one of them was driving),
between Lyon and Paris.
I tallied up their bar tab for the day:
1- When he arrived that morning, Scott had “obviously been drinking” already.
2- Whisky and Perrier after breakfast.
3- White wine with lunch.
4- Something called white maconnais—at EACH of “possibly ten” stops.
5- Four more bottles of wine.
6- Double whiskies with lemonade.
At this point, Hem notes that Scotty “was affected by such small quantities of alcohol” (!!)
7- Another stop for drinks.
8- A couple more whisky sours.
9- A carafe of Fleurie with dinner. (But Hem drank ¾ of that.)
10- A bottle of wine after dinner. Scott had one glass of this…and passed out.
.
Take-Away Box
Now if this was how it ended, and he knew it was,
he must not turn like some snake biting itself because its back was broken.
It wasn’t this woman’s fault…
He heard a shot beyond the hill.
She shot very well this good, this rich bitch,
this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent.
Nonsense.
He had destroyed his talent himself.
Why should he blame this woman because she kept him well?
He had destroyed his talent by not using it,
by betrayals of himself and what he believed in,
by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions,
by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery…
What was his talent anyway?
It was a talent all right but instead of
using it, he had traded on it.
It was never what he had done,
but always what he could do.
– from The Snows of Kilimanjaro
by Ernest Hemingway
.
.
Thank you for reading!
— Kelly J Hardesty
Thoughts? Questions?
I would love to hear what you’re thinking!
Go ahead & scroll down to the end—where you can
leave me note in the comments box.
Join the conversation on my Bluesky page
You Can Read More…
.
—————————
notes & footnotes:
1.
A Moveable Feast was first published in 1964—
After Hemingway’s death.
AND after being heavily edited by his fourth wife.
(Perhaps she resented the reminder that she was neither his first nor his favorite.)
Because A Moveable Feast is, in essence, a love letter to his first wife, Hadley.
Thankfully, in 2009 it was republished—
after being restored, revised, and re-edited
by his grandson, Seán Hemingway.
(So be sure you have a copy printed after 2009!)
2.
Chapter 16: ‘Winter in Schruns’
This chapter of A Moveable Feast describes Hemingway and
his first wife, Hadley, living cheaply in Austria, where
they climb mountains carrying packs and skis,
ski down, then turn around, pick up their skis, climb back up, and ski down again.
…It also contains a disturbing description of them leaving their infant son
to be babysat by a cat.
(The cat’s name is F. Puss.)
Even here in Salt Lake City
(photo of me,
taken by my son)
STT-24
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© Kelly J Hardesty 2026