Our second date was so long the Sun was about to come up..

So after I tucked away a Garden of Eden..I have to confess it took me about a year to bother with Hemingway again. And don’t get me wrong he tried to entice me..showing up on my desk in all kinds of odd forms. Scripts that were biographical sketches of a man who it seemed to me was clearly defined by his alcoholism, his inability to sustain a relationship and all the other cliches that go along with being a writer. Throughout my trip to Paris that May in 2009 I ignored Hemingway. And believe me he was everywhere. At the Deux Magot sidewalk cafe in the left bank where everyone was posing wanting to be seen, there was Hemingway waving from behind the bar. Then you turn the corner and there he is again at Shakespeare and Co.. a bar right next door claims to be the one where he sat for hours writing a moveable feast..For me I was just not interested. The Garden of Eden had left me bored with his style and I figured I would just move on. And I did I ran across the street in San Michel and stepped on a book–by Flaubert. “A Sentimental Education” mhm. There it is again. I picked it up and tossed it into my bag. My love for the French writers of the 19th century was re-ignited and I spent my trip to Paris roaming the left bank looking for Flaubert’s home, spending time at the cafe were Guy wrote Bel-Ami..those guys did something to me. Their writing got me. Flaubert had to fight censorship- he had to fight to get his message out there- he was put in prison for his writing didn’t that mean something? Ok sure..Hemingway went to war and all that..I mean he chose to fight in Spain and Italy so we must give him credit for that but…Flaubert now he was someone who knew how to get me.
My sister and I traipsed through Paris that spring enjoying the amazing colors, the cheap wine and cheese, tripping over men who were interested in us and Hemingway was no longer a thought in my mind. I left Paris very happily with my copies of Collette, Madame Bovary, Bel-Ami and you get the drift.. so Hemingway wasn’t for me- so what? I mean it’s easy to run around Paris and get drunk and isn’t that what he did?
Well I just wiped him from my mind until a year later..when someone handed me a copy of the Sun Almost Rises. Well I know all about that book – it’s the bulls and of course some woman who is unattainable and this band of cads running through Paris and money, searching for something.. ok thank you and I slipped the book away again. But it still seemed to tug at me. Memories of those nights in Paris and my mind would betray me- slipping over to thoughts of what it must have been like for HIM. But after that ordeal in the South of France I decided how could I bother again? But his spirit tugged at me..until I could bear it no more and I let him in. I had to give him a second chance didn’t I? So we sat down together and we started to read all about Lady Ashley..Brett Ashley with her slicked back hair and her cigarettes.. shocking..she is very similiar to that lady we met in the South of France. But I couldn’t help myself. Jake was pulling me in and I wanted to go to Pamplona too..some day.. so I spent my evening flipping through the days of Jake and Brett Ashley and we moved on to Spain..

The South of France-our first date..

My first date with Hemingway was in the South of France in a book called “The Garden of Eden”.

A lot of people don’t really know about this book and a lot of critics say that Hemingway didn’t finish it or that it was written when he was battling depression towards the end of his life. It is true that the book was unfinished and you feel this when you read it. However..there is a lot of Hemingway in this book his flippancy with gender and relationships and what relationships endure and how people deal with their obsessions and emotional hardships. Lessons that we all unfortunately must learn as we float through life in our relationships with others.

Why do we read? We read because we want to connect.  And that is what this book intends to get across. Our connection to others and our need to connect with others. Our youth and our self-absorption in our youth that some of us never recover from is also vividly alive in this book. There are many themes laced in this story that reveal the connections that drive us..abandon us and mold us..

This book is about a man who struggles to connect with his volatile, emotional, dramatic wife but no matter how hard he tries it becomes increasingly difficult. His writing is a conduit for his need to connect but this too is flailing. His wife’s struggle with her own sexual identity is attractive at first but then emasculating at best. And the protagonist soon becomes disillusioned and the honeymoon is soon over..as it often is in reality as well. The whole idea of the South of france is so thick with expectation that it is almost impossible for it to last..

When I read this book to Hemingway’s credit, I could feel the air of the South of France on my skin, the smell of the seawater tickling my nose and the promise of long, lazy filled days spiced up by a refreshing vodka tonic or two as I lounged by the sea. He captures the South of France.. if you are interested at all in this part of the world where there is the hush of wealth amongst the lush trees.secrets around every winding turn, and relationships that start up like fireballs and burn out just as quickly then this might be a good book to start with..

I however.. turned my nose up at this date with Hemingway.  Yes of course there is the South of france and all that.. but I mean what was the big deal? Francoise Sagan wrote Bonjour Tristesse when she was just 17! 17! That book holds an accurate portrait of the romantic illusions of the South of France.. not this book that apparently he didn’t even finish. He still did not have me. I will admit though that I was a little curious about what else he had to offer..people were still talking about him..arguing over him..he certainly got a lot of attention.. but for the time being the book went back into the bag and I was off to explore Paris.. as the plane touched down at Orly airport I was overwhelmed. I felt this sensation that I was finally “home” which sounds strange when I had never even been there before.

Books..

The other day my husband said to me while we were perusing a used bookstore in Paris.. “Stop.. it’s like a drug.. you’re obsessed with books!!” And I realized that he was right.. I have been carting around a trunk full of books from my childhood home in New York..to college in San Francisco..to graduate school in Boston..to Los Angeles..and now to Europe.

But the fact of the matter is that I love books. I love the way they smell, the way they feel, I love sitting down with a new book that I am excited to read  and getting out of my skin for a few hours. What I really love is a book that I get so into I can’t put it down..but unfortunately I haven’t come across too many of those lately and I would love if people could leave suggestions of books that are really tough to put down.

My friendship with my books has been the longest and strongest one of my life. It started when I was about three and instead of chewing on my books like my sister did I sat down and pretended to read them.(Her love of books came much later in life and now I think she is worse than me!) My mother is the same way.. she has a closet full of books that I used to sift through as a kid but she wouldn’t let me take any of them because she knew I would not return them! Maybe it’s a genetic disposition to love a good book..

As a kid, the library became a sacred place for me.. I would go hide in the stacks grabbing books up like they were candy. All kinds of books. Starting with create your own adventure books, to Judy Blume books, to Holden Caufiled and then of course to  Wuthering Heights where I fell in love with the moody difficult Heathcliff.. (little did I know later in life how difficult men like this would be I would in real life I would have re-thought my choice of literary heroes)  In my teenage fantasies books kept me company and fed my imagination and as I grew up whenever I needed to KNOW something I looked for a book- and there are books on EVERY subject..

Of course I put aside books for a years when I was running around with boyfriends, going to college parties, trying to get my career started.. and then after graduate school I was given a job as a story editor where I was getting paid to read manuscripts and screenplays? And my love for books was reignited.. this time with a passion that I forgot I had. My days were now about finding the next big thing..the story that you wouldn’t want to put down.

And then I met Hemingway. He came into my life at one of those moments in life when you are vulnerable and maybe not thinking clearly..when there were events that would spiral around me that would launch me out of my comfort zone. But I will say honestly that I fought against my attraction for Hemingway- I was not a fan of Hemingway. But everyone else was. It seemed everyone was clamoring for me to acquire material that was based on his life or his stories or his influence etc. I knew what I needed to know about him.. he drank a lot and had lived in Paris had an infatuation with bullfighting and lived dangerously with his big deep sea fishing and his bulls..that was about it.

I turned my back on him and instead focused on the French writers of the 19th century..Flaubert, Guy De Maupassant, and then to the women..Collette, Edith Wharton..and then the Russians….Dostoevsky..and of course Tolstoy where I fell in love again.. this time with Count Vronsky.. All these books inspired me and I started to finally focus on writing my own stuff..stories about the South of France..a place I dreamed of going and living and then one day as if the ghost of Hemingway himself placed it there.. The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway showed up on my desk. I ignored it for weeks.

Instead,  I turned my attention to a short story I was writing.. the main character Chimaera was a mixture of mythology and surrealism.   While researching  at the library in West Hollywood, “A Sentimental Education” by Flaubert fell off the shelf and landed at my feet, I picked it up and the first word I read was Chiamera.. I knew it was a sign. I decided that with the money from my first writing job I would buy a ticket to Paris. It was time to go.. I forgot all about the Garden of Eden..but life is funny.. and there is this thing called the grand divine influence the collective unconscious, the universe, fate, whatever you want to call it but it was working in my life twisting and turning events propelling me forward again..

I had dreamt of France since I was a kid. Cutting out fake passports from cardboard and showing my mother all the places on the map I would travel but the one place I wouldn’t let go of was Paris. I couldn’t wait to go to Paris.. I spent years studying French.. there had been so many attempts to go to Paris. In college, I chose to stay with my then boyfriend who said if I went to Paris he would break up with me,  instead of joining my friends during a summer abroad I stayed with him.. a decision I always regretted..but regardless of excuses I always felt that it just never seemed like the right time to go to Paris..until the spring of 1999 when the check from my first screenplay was cashed and I actually had disposable income. I booked my ticket on Air France.

Two weeks before my trip,  a message on my voicemail told me that an ex-boyfriend died unexpectantly..my dream trip to Paris was now blackened by this news..I spent two weeks preparing his funeral and trying to figure out how to ship him back to his parents in Minnesota..Drowning in grief, I literally had a meltdown at the post office  on Santa Monica Blvd. when I was trying to mail his remains.. the lady asked what was in the box and I said “Well it’s my ex-boyfriend”.. the entire post office gasped and then consoled me. I will never forget the kindness of those strangers.. A really nice guy said that I should go to Paris anyway because it would wash away some of the pain..I remember looking at him strangely – How could I go enjoy myself after this? He said that things happen for a reason .. and I needed to go.. So  I sent my sister who lived in NY a ticket to join me.. as a gift for her 21st birthday.. and off we went..

When I got on the plane I was searching around for a notebook when The Garden of Eden fell out..my grief was overwhelming so I decided to bury myself in this book.. it was the beginning of my affair with Ernest Hemingway.. and so we begin with the events of my life that seemed to create themselves around me all based on things I have dreamt of or said.. one could say magical things have happened because I believed that they could.. or cynics could say I was just lucky..but I believe we create our own luck..and so this blog is going to tell the story of how Hemingway weaved his way into my life without my knowledge.. and how events evolve from pure will and intention.