Timeless Hemingway started as a favorite quotations page and was titled "Timeless Quotations." A Hemingway section was soon added and the name of the site changed to "Hemingway and Timeless Quotations." The quotations section was eventually dropped and the site became known simply as "Timeless Hemingway." The site moved from home.earthlink.net to timelesshemingway.com in April of 1999.

Timeless Hemingway has come a long way in ten years. Have a look at the site's growth from 1999 to today. Or for fun, take a blast to the past and see how Timeless Hemingway looked in the early years.

The Aurora, Oswego and North Aurora libraries participate in "The Big Read," a national program dedicated to encouraging reading in communities. Fox Valley Reads will present a month of events to celebrate A Farewell to Arms. These events include:

• Dress Like a WWI Soldier: A Hands-on Experience

• Fashions of World War I

• Movie: A Farewell to Arms with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes

• A Farewell to Dreams: Presented by Hemingway Scholar Keith Gandal of Northern Illinois University

• Nursing in Wartime
  

For more information, visit the Fox Valley Reads web site.

On the "Books" page, you can find bibliographies, CliffNotes, notable quotes, and reader reviews related to each Hemingway title. You can also read an excerpt of certain books courtesy of Amazon's online digital reader.

There has always been information on Hemingway's books on Timeless Hemingway, but the material is scattered throughout the web site. The new "Books" section provides visitors with one centralized location for learning more about Ernest Hemingway's books.

Notable events include:

• A presentation by Dr. Susan Beegel, scholar and editor of The Hemingway Review, on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea

• A presentation by Dr. Sandra Spanier on the preservation of the Hemingway papers in Cuba

• An elegant dinner at Ernest Hemingway's Ketchum, Idaho home presented by the Nature Conservancy of Idaho

For more details and to register, visit ernesthemingwayfestival.org.

Topics covered in the interview with Patrick Hemingway include:

• The origins of the name "Papa"

• Ernest Hemingway's greatest literary work in Patrick's opinion

• Genetic predisposition for suicide in the Hemingway family

Timeless Hemingway's "Code Hero" program awards free web design services to non-profit organizations and charitable events. The program is highly selective and accepts only one non-profit organization or charitable event each year.

Timeless Hemingway can build a web site from scratch or redesign an existing web site. Timeless Hemingway designs web sites in the Hemingway style: simple, clear, and effective.

If you would like your non-profit organization or charitable event to be considered for the "Code Hero" program, please contact Timeless Hemingway.

After adding a blog and then a wiki to Timeless Hemingway, social networking seemed like the next logical step. I evaluated various open source software options, as I was attracted to the idea of keeping the social networking functionality in-house. However, I ultimately decided to create a Timeless Hemingway branded page on Facebook. With its incredibly large user base and impressive selection of widgets/applications, Facebook is a clear leader in the social networking arena.

Become part of our social network. Connect with Timeless Hemingway on Facebook.

Ernest Hemingway was a frequent patron of Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy and mentions the restaurant in his 1950 novel, Across the River and Into the Trees. If you were to visit Harry's Bar today, you would see this sign on display outside of the restaurant.

"Harry's Bar of Venice, in an effort to make the American victims of subprime loans happier, has decided to give them a special 20 percent discount on all items of the menu during the short term of their recovery."

It is true that Ernest Hemingway believed "the very rich are different from you and me." Arrigo Cipriani, the owner of Harry's Bar, however, has found the opposite to be true: "You would be surprised how people like to have a discount on their bill whether they are rich or poor." Hemingway aficionados, looking to take advantage of this offer, should be advised: alcoholic drinks are not included.

On April 19th, 2008 at 7.30 p.m., Brian Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian playwright and actor, will perform his play "Hemingway's HOT Havana." Then on April 20th at 11:00 a.m., Tom Sanders, an American journalist, will be in search of Ernest Hemingway. The festival takes place at The Mercure Shakespeare Hotel in Stratford, England.

For more information on the Stratford-upon-Avon International Festival of Literature, visit the blog maintained by the festival directors, Steve and Hillary Newman.

The Mint Theater in New York City, NY is proud to present Ernest Hemingway's only play, The Fifth Column. This is the play's premiere. Hemingway's original version of the play has never been performed on stage before. Director Jonathan Bank explains: "The Guild (Theater Guild) produced an 'adaptation' of the play by Benjamin Glazer, a Hollywood screenwriter (he wrote the screenplay for A Farewell To Arms). But the play that Hemingway wrote has never been produced—it was published, but not produced."

The Fifth Column begins on February 26, 2008. The Mint Theater is located at 311 West 43rd Street in New York City, New York. Tickets can be ordered online at The Mint Theater Company web site.

In 2007, John McCain said: "I am an incurable idealist and romantic. Robert Jordan is everything I ever wanted to be. I read that book at age 13 and now at age 70. Nothing's changed." The book McCain is referring to is Ernest Hemingway's 1940 classic, For Whom the Bell Tolls. McCain titled his own 2002 memoir, Worth the Fighting For, a phrase from the last chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Ernest Hemingway once told Lillian Ross that "As you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary." John McCain would definitely agree with this statement. Now at age 71 and in the midst of his second presidential bid, his wish of "aspiring to Jordan's courage and nobility" is as important and as necessary as ever before.

The Hemingway Newsletter is full of information that Hemingway aficionados and scholars will enjoy. Newsletters often contain:

• Updates from the Hemingway Society

• Details on events such as festivals and conferences

• Recent and forthcoming Hemingway related books

• Hemingway references in print and on the stage and screen

• Other interesting tidbits about Hemingway and his haunts

While the archiving of The Hemingway Newsletter is a work in progress, a number of editions are currently available online for your perusal. You can find a listing of these editions on Timeless Hemingway's Ernest Hemingway Links page.

In A. E. Hotchner's 1966 book, Papa Hemingway, Hemingway revealed his less than favorable opinion of The Naked and the Dead:

"The guy who wrote The Naked and the Dead—what's his name, Mailer—was in bad need of a manager. Can you imagine that a general wouldn't look at the co-ordinates on his map? A made-up half-ass literary general. The whole book's just diarrhea of the typewriter."

Ernest Hemingway often had harsh words for his fellow writers and those he criticized were usually the ones he respected the most.
Norman Mailer's literary accomplishments are great, his works memorable, and his legacy in American literature cannot be overlooked. Time will determine his place in history and whether he is the rightful literary heir to Ernest Hemingway.

Anne and Hilary Hemingway, nieces of Ernest Hemingway, recently gave Middlebury College a large collection of letters written by Ernest Hemingway and his family. The letters show that Hemingway kept in contact with his mother and sent her checks for many years. Hilary Hemingway admitted: "He enjoyed making his image of a tough guy who gave his mom hell," but she also said, "He was a dutiful son. He took very good care of his family."

In addition to the letters, the collection also contains numerous photos of Hemingway and his family. It is expected to take months to catalogue the hundreds of letters and photos. A public opening will take place sometime next year.

The pre-sale estimate for the proof is $75,000 to $125,000. The final sale price, however, could be much higher since this is "the first signed advance proof copy of the novel ever to surface" according to the auctioneer. The proof is being offered by the descendants of Toby Otto Bruce, who was an employee and very close friend of Ernest Hemingway.

How much money have past Hemingway auction items fetched? Read "How does Hemingway size up in today's auction market?" from Timeless Hemingway to find out.

Ernest Hemingway House (Ketchum, Idaho)

Second Poem To Mary (read by Hemingway)

Ernest Hemingway House (Key West, Florida)

The following is an excerpt from the new ordinance that was approved by the Key West City Commission.

"The cats reside on the property just as the cats did in the time of Hemingway himself. They are not on exhibition in the manner of circus animals. ... The City Commission finds that family of polydactyl Hemingway cats are indeed animals of historic, social and tourism significance."

Ernest Hemingway had nine lives. His cats clearly do too. They dodged a bullet that might have sent them packing and the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum would have been the lesser for it.

The play is titled PAPA "the man, the myth, the legend" and the official web site describes it as a "fully realized Broadway-style play with a complete set, authentic props and costumes. A lighting plot with over 65 lighting cues, plus wonderfully chosen and professionally mastered sound cues on CD." Jordan Rhodes is a veteran actor who has appeared in hundreds of television, film, and theater roles. One reviewer wrote (of his Hemingway portrayal): "Rhodes dominates the stage as Hemingway. He is in turn daunting, gleeful, frustrated and arrogant."

A benefit performance of PAPA "the man, the myth, the legend" will take place in New York City for the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, an organization established to preserve and restore Hemingway's former home in Cuba. For more details on this exciting and dynamic play, visit Hemingway on Stage.

Rocky Entriken, a visitor to Timeless Hemingway, sent in the below comments regarding the "three sports" quotation.

"As I am told, the quote belongs to Barnaby Conrad, a writer of the same era as Hemingway and a San Francisco raconteur of some note. Mostly he did magazine articles but his books include The Death of Manolete. My source is Dan Gerber, yet another writer of the era."

The quotation might be in Conrad's 1968 book, How to Fight a Bull. If it is there, that would mean the original source is still the "Blood Sport" story by Ken Purdy, which appeared in the July 27, 1957 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. In order to confirm Barnaby Conrad as the original author, I need to find the quote in something he wrote before 1957. Alas, the search continues.

The following are excerpts from letters that Ernest Hemingway wrote Marlene Dietrich:

I love you and I hold you tight and kiss you hard.

I can't say how every time I ever put my arms around you I felt that I was home.

I fall in love with you bad and you're always in love with some jerk.

Maria Riva, Dietrich's daughter, insists that the affection displayed between Hemingway and her mother was merely the love of two close friends and never developed into anything sexual. I would agree with her and Hemingway confirms it himself in A. E. Hotchner's book, Papa Hemingway: "'The thing about the Kraut and me,' Ernest said after I told him what Marlene had said about him, 'is that we have been in love since 1934, when we first met on the Ile de France, but we've never been to bed. Amazing but true. Victims of un-synchronized passion.'"

"Victims of un-synchronized passion" — only a writer as great as Hemingway could describe a relationship so perfectly.

Martha Gellhorn committed suicide. This is confirmed in a Washington Post review of Caroline Moorehead's Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn: "In 1998, sick with cancer and other maladies, Gellhorn calmly took a pill and ended her life, in control of her destiny until the very end." Ernest Hemingway controlled his destiny "until the very end" some thirty-seven years earlier.

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway were similar not only in how they died, but also in how they lived. Gellhorn was the constant explorer travelling the world on writing assignments. She was the frontline war reporter with a burning desire to be in the thick of the action. She was the incredibly ambitious writer who was dedicated to the craft until the very end. Martha Gellhorn undoubtedly lived a life worthy of its own footnotes and as time passes more and more people are beginning to realize this.

Prior to his death, Hemingway submitted to the Wisdom Foundation of California his insightful observations on numerous subjects including love, death, and writing. Playboy magazine published these statements for the first time in their January 1963 issue. Below are excerpts from the "On Love" section of the Playboy piece.

Love enlarges the scope of the mind, enhances the mental faculties, clarifies emotion and gives poise to enthusiasm.

To understand another is one of life's richest blessings, and to be understood by another is perhaps love's sweetest and most satisfying gift.

Love is the ultimate of existence, the principle of brotherhood, the essence of character, the basis of fellowship.

Love reveals the plan of the universe and the character of a man at a single glance.

I might go with something along the lines of: "Noodle Restaurant Chain Takes Marlin Off Menu." Not exciting I know, but accurate. How about "Marlin To Be Removed From Menu After Investigation." A little more attention grabbing, but it is still missing something. Let's try: "Hemingway's Favourite Fish Escapes Dish." This headline mentions Hemingway, the fact that marlin was his favorite fish, and on top of that, it rhymes. That's a winner. Too bad The Daily Telegraph thought of it first.

Hemingway is mentioned twice in the article. He is recognized as a reason why blue marlin has become the "ultimate sporting fish." Then his book, The Old Man and the Sea takes a bow for being "one of the pinnacles of fishing literature." Only two mentions and Hemingway's name still grabs the headline. Now a closing headline for this blog post: "Hemingway To Never Stop Making Great Copy."

Money is desperately needed for the repair of the Finca Vigía and for Hemingway's boat, the Pilar. Due to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, Americans are not permitted to contribute financially to these projects. Without American financial assistance, Cuban restoration workers doubt that they can restore the house properly. Thus Hemingway's beloved Finca Vigía has become embroiled in a game of "political football," as some have called it.

Others believe that the fight to preserve the Finca Vigía has nothing to do with politics. Gladys Rodriguez, a former curator for the Finca Vigía, told NBC News recently: "Hemingway is a cultural bridge between both our people. It's not political, no I never think in that way. It's a cultural thing only." I agree that the fight to preserve the Finca Vigía has little to do with politics, but the ultimate fate of this literary treasure will likely have everything to do with politics.

To learn more about the Finca Vigía preservation efforts, visit the web site of the Hemingway Preservation Foundation.

1. The opening paragraph of A Farewell to Arms.
2. The closing line of The Sun Also Rises.
3. His description of F. Scott Fitzgerald in A Moveable Feast (the butterfly analogy).
4. His selected letters edited by Carlos Baker, which contain countless pearls of wisdom.
5. Introducing the world to the iceberg principle.
6. Coining the phrase, "grace under pressure."
7. His innovative writing style, which has inspired many authors.
8. One can reread Hemingway and always find something new and compelling.
9. His ingenious ability to construct a fiction, which is more realistic and truer than any life event could ever be.
10. His enduring and human themes. From death to loss to perseverance to courage, Hemingway writes of the subjects that affect us all.

In what ways are you thankful for Hemingway?

A paperback edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls from amazon.com, ten dollars.

A Hemingway t-shirt from buysomethingawesome.com, twelve dollars.

A photo print of Hemingway from barewalls.com, twenty-five dollars.

Dinner at the Hemingway home in Ketchum, Idaho, one thousand dollars.

That's right, $1000 per person was the cost to dine at the Hemingway home in Ketchum, Idaho. A meal for two at the French Laundry, one of the greatest restaurants in the world, would cost $420 (as of 2006) before wine and tax. Why does a dinner at Hemingway's home cost so much more? Well, because it is Hemingway's home. Hemingway's fame is global and the tales told about how he lived and died are legendary. The expensive price tag for dinner is easier to swallow if you take into account that you are eating at the home of a legend. Correct? How much would you be willing to pay to dine at the Hemingway home in Ketchum, Idaho?

Hemingway scholar James Nagel and Patrick Hemingway once visited the Key West museum in disguise and took the tour. Guides informed tourists that the cats they saw roaming the property were direct descendants of a six-toed cat that Hemingway brought over from Cuba. James Nagel, however, had a different story to tell: "The truth is Hemingway didn't have cats when he lived in that house ... Hemingway liked cats but Pauline, to whom he was married, wanted peacocks. So they got peacocks for the yard ... The time when he had so many cats was when he lived in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba."

If any lesson has been learned here, it is that we should never underestimate Ernest Hemingway's lasting appeal. You have left quite a legacy when even your cats make headline news. When cats that were never yours make news, you have achieved legendary status.

Timeless Hemingway recently partnered with a tour company to provide exclusive travel packages to Hemingway inspired destinations. From Paris to Italy to Africa to Spain, you can see what Hemingway loved about these special places. One of Hemingway's most brilliant gifts as a writer was his ability to describe a place: the sights, the sounds, the smells. His writing, however, can only take you so far. Experiencing the destination first-hand brings a new level of perception, a fourth and fifth dimension as Hemingway might say.

Travel packages include: Hemingway's Venetian Love, Hemingway's East African Safari, and Hemingway's Moveable Feast. To learn more, visit the Timeless Hemingway shop.

For those of you unfamiliar with a wiki, it is defined below:

A wiki (IPA: [?wi?.ki?] <wee-kee> or [?w?.ki?] <wick-ey>) or wicky is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit and change most content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing.

I took this definition from Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that happens to be the most well-known wiki. Wikipedia was my inspiration in launching HemingWiki. It has become the first stop for all of my research needs and I am often amazed by the accurateness of the information. I wanted to experiment with my own wiki and see if the visitors of Timeless Hemingway would embrace the notion of writing the book on Ernest Hemingway.

If you would like to help in building the most comprehensive Hemingway wiki on the web, please contribute content now at HemingWiki. Many thanks!

In a 2004 interview, Valerie Hemingway said of Mary Hemingway: "She kept asking me those first two or three years after he died, like, 'Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Why could we not have prevented it? How was it that we missed...?' The thing was that I couldn't and never did say to her was that he had told me outright that he intended to kill himself." Ernest Hemingway was clearly suicidal in the final years of his life. He had tried twice to kill himself with guns in his Ketchum house. Mary's questions of "Why could we not have prevented it? How was it that we missed...?" are the questions of a woman in denial. The red flag of Hemingway's suicide was impossible to miss.

Whether Mary Hemingway wanted her husband to die remains to be seen. She certainly made it easier for the act to take place. But "willing" someone to kill himself? That was Ernest's choice. Throughout his life, he had seen first-hand how things were taken from others — his father was robbed of his masculinity, his comrades in war were robbed of their lives. On that July 2 morning, Hemingway made certain that no one would rob him of the death he had chosen for himself.

Hemingway admitted in a 1925 letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald that of all the subjects a writer could write about, war was one of the best, if not the best. A number of Hemingway's most famous books were directly influenced by wars. A Farewell to Arms is still considered by many critics the best novel ever written about World War I. The Spanish Civil War was the inspiration for Hemingway's 1940 novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway's interest in war was as a writer first, an American second.

I am having trouble imagining Hemingway "so busy being an American" even in a general context. Hemingway was a Paris expatriate, he travelled the world, he spent much of his adult years living in Cuba. When I think "American" and I think Hemingway, I think first and foremost, "American" literary icon.

There is definitely a lyrical nature to Hemingway's writing. Many passages read like poetry. One of the best examples of this, in my opinion, is the opening paragraph of his 1929 book, A Farewell to Arms. Read the passage out loud to yourself. What do you hear? I hear enchanting repetition connected rhythmically by the word, "and." The extensive use of "and" is a Hemingway trademark. There is a true need and purpose for the word in his works. Hemingway's literature is actually enriched by the use of "and." You cannot say that about too many authors.

The first set of Hemingway audio books will be released in May 2006. These will include the titles: A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. Titles to be released at a later date include The Sun Also Rises, Death in the Afternoon, and A Moveable Feast.

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

[The early Hemingway did not believe that bullfighting was a sport. For him it was a tragedy. He expresses this feeling in his October 20, 1923 article titled "Bull Fighting a Tragedy," reprinted in By-Line: Ernest Hemingway Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades, edited by William White. Hemingway reiterates his beliefs regarding the tragedy of bullfighting in his 1932 book, Death in the Afternoon.]

"For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

["For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a phrase from John Donne's Meditation XVII in his book, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Hemingway chose the following portion of the meditation as an epigraph to his 1940 novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls: "No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."]

"Oak Park is a place of broad lawns and narrow minds."

[This statement accurately describes Hemingway's feelings for his native Oak Park, but a source has never been found for the remark. Likely something written in a piece of personal correspondence, the statement is absent from Hemingway's Selected Letters.]

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

[This quotation is most often attributed to Mark Twain, though a growing number of quotation aficionados have attempted to put it under Hemingway's pen. On a visit to San Francisco in July of 1937, Hemingway told reporters: "Say, this is great! After frying in New York, stewing down in Florida and sweltering in Los Angeles this is something like summer weather. I can't for the life of me see why anybody would ever move out of San Francisco, particularly in the summer time." This is the closest Hemingway ever came to saying that "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."]

"If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."

[Not surprising that this one gets attributed to Hemingway considering the amount of letters he wrote in his lifetime. This quote has also been attributed to Cicero, Voltaire, and Mark Twain. The original thought may belong to French mathematician Blaise Pascal, who wrote in his Lettres Provinciales (1657): "I have only made this [letter] longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." Another translation for the quotation reads: "I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter."]

"Hemingway was remembered most fondly as 'Papa.' I am not sure if you could work that into a road name. Other phrases that are associated with Hemingway include: 'A Moveable Feast,' 'A Clean Well-Lighted Place,' and 'Grace Under Pressure.' You may want to look through the FAQ section of Timeless Hemingway. Perhaps something there might help to inspire a road name."

I never heard back from this individual so I am not sure if he found my suggestions helpful. It is a difficult question and I struggled during my brainstorming session. I feel Hemingway would prefer that the road honor his literary legacy rather than his public persona. Having said that, I settled on "A Clean Well-Lighted Drive" as my choice for a road name. Though the general public may not be immediately aware that this is a Hemingway inspired phrase, "clean" and "well-lighted" are extremely fitting words for a road.

If you were given the task of naming a road in honor of Ernest Hemingway, what name would you choose?

Under Kilimanjaro is the full account of Hemingway's 1953-1954 safari in Kenya with his fourth wife Mary. It is somewhat of a supplement to the 1999 True at First Light. The publisher's web site describes the manuscript as "part handwritten and part typed, with many of the pages heavily edited in Hemingway's hand." They go on to explain where the book has been for all of these years: "He then left this manuscript, along with those for A Moveable Feast, Islands in the Stream, and The Garden of Eden, in a safe-deposit box in Cuba, often referring to them as his 'life insurance' for his heirs."

"Life insurance for his heirs" — Hemingway's posthumous life has provided just that. For devoted Hemingway fans and scholars, there is a certain sense of excitement when a new Hemingway book is published. Why is that? Good marketing? Good writing? Or is it simply because Hemingway's image and essence still interests people enough to buy his books. When a movie becomes a blockbuster hit, how many sequels will it spawn? Hemingway was literature's blockbuster hit and it is no surprise that his writing legacy has lived on, sequel after sequel.

The picture became clearer when I read an online interview with DeWitt Sage. He explained the genesis of his Hemingway documentary: "AMERICAN MASTERS did a film that I directed and produced with Catherine Collins about F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was broadcast soon after September 11, 2001. And shortly after that we got a fax and a phone call from one Michael Katakis, who is the executor of the Hemingway estate. They wondered if we would be able to do their 'complicated character,' as they put it, and wondered if I would be interested in coming out to Bozeman, Montana, to meet Patrick Hemingway, the sole surviving son, and his wife Carol."

I certainly wish I was in Sage's position a few years ago when I submitted a proposal to Simon & Schuster detailing a Hemingway quotations book. Quoting from the proposal: "Organized into thirty chapters, containing close to 1000 quotations from the author’s letters, fiction, interviews, dispatches, and even poems, this book draws from the most disparate of sources to show the immense scope and genius of Hemingway’s thoughts and observations." The proposal was rejected on the grounds that Hemingway would not have endorsed the dissecting of his works into a quote collection. The true test of a writer, in my humble opinion, is if his words *do* read well outside of their context. Hemingway's one true sentences read beautifully in isolation and make a more powerful statement on their own. "It would have been a fine quote book," he said, "a fine quote book."

On September 26, 2001, Gregory Hemingway was walking around naked in Key Biscayne, Florida. He was carrying a woman's dress and high heels. He was arrested on an indecent exposure charge and sent to the Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center. He died there of heart failure on October 1, 2001. Gregory's cross-dressing tendencies seem to have blossomed at an early age and it was a practice he continued throughout his life. Ernest was aware of his son's peculiar preferences and it created a great discord in their relationship. An even greater discord would have been realized if Ernest was alive to see his son undergo a sex change operation in 1994.

I remember seeing Gregory speak on the A&E biography: Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life. At one point in the program, he said of his father: "You naturally incorporated his standards which were extremely high and extremely hard to live up to. So as long as you were doing well and satisfying this inner need to do well, it was great being his son, but you felt failure much more acutely I'd say. I wanted him to love me, to love me, yeah." I do believe that Gregory Hemingway was genuine in his comments and that he wanted his father to love him. That love would have been a very positive force in Gregory's life. I am convinced, however, that Gregory Hemingway would have needed much more than a father's love to curb his self-destructive lifestyle.

Hemingway's letters are simply magnificent and I consider myself a better person after having read them. The letters truly show that this man was a genius, ahead of his time in so many ways. Some letters show that he was a compassionate and caring man. Other letters show that he could be terribly insensitive, vulgar and even brutal. But his criticisms are well-founded and the manner in which he argues his case is extraordinary.

Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters edited by Carlos Baker contains close to 600 letters Hemingway wrote between the years of 1917-1961. The letters are filled with famous insights that only could have come from the mind of Ernest Hemingway. It is a priceless, timeless collection in my opinion and Hemingway's commentary will stay with you for a lifetime. The book was published in 1981.

In 2002, it was announced that a project had begun to publish the complete letters of Ernest Hemingway. Needless to say, such an undertaking is monumental and I commend all of the Hemingway scholars involved in the effort.

"I have a question about The Sun Also Rises."

"Sure."

"You said in class that the last line is perhaps the greatest closing line in all of literature."

"Isn't it?"

"I don't see how it could be."

"Why not?"

"Well. . . it's so basic and ordinary. . . an eight-year-old could have written it."

"That's why it's great," he said. "That's why it's great."

Three years later, I would be back in that office again, asking this professor if he'd serve as my senior honors thesis advisor. He didn't seem too surprised when I revealed to him the focus of my study. With his ebullient approval, I began work on "The Importance of Being Ernest: Hemingway's Truth in Fiction and His Fiction in Truth."

My research took me in directions I never dreamed. What was originally envisioned as strictly a literary analysis soon expanded to include elements of biography and psychoanalysis. The conflicted gender identification Hemingway experienced as a child connected beautifully with the continual struggle of his characters to conceptualize their own masculine identities. The surface simplicity of Hemingway’s language, which eluded me as a freshman, proved to be a mask for the text's underlying ambiguity. When the ninety-four-page thesis was completed, I felt as if I had a better understanding of that closing sentence and of Hemingway himself.

Mark Twain once said, "never let formal education get in the way of your learning." College professors serve as invaluable resources for their students, assisting them through their many intellectual endeavors. Yet the act of learning itself remains a highly individualized process prompted not only by a professor's guidance and encouragement, but also by a student's zealous curiosity and desire for knowledge. My professor, no doubt, could have easily explained to me the significance of that famous closing line, or the fundamentals of Hemingway's "esthetics of simplicity," or the particularities of Jake and Brett's relationship that had led up to the sentence, or the many reasons why the novel could not have ended any other way. Had he done that, I suppose I would have been satisfied with his answer. I suppose I would have continued my collegiate studies only half seriously, as many naïve freshmen do. I might not have later devoted an entire year to the study of Hemingway and his work. I might not have fallen in love with late nights at the library, perusing the articles and essays of Hemingway pundits, contemplating their theories while formulating my own. Could six simple words have opened my eyes to so many things: the importance of inquiry, the excitement of research, the challenges of scholarly writing, and the immense joys upon its completion? I believe Jake Barnes said it best, "Isn't it pretty to think so?".