Ernest Hemingway/The Time in Between

4.The Time in Between

Having published "A Farewell to Arms", the years of struggle were ending. Ernest Hemingway was now an author of worldwide renown, happy with Pauline and financially independent. But his good fortune in business, art and marriage was overshadowed by serious attacks on his health (anthrax infection, cut eyeball, glass-gash in his forehead, grippe, toothache, hemorrhoids; kidney trouble from fishing in Spain, torn groin muscle, finger gashed to the bone in an accident with a punching ball, laceration of arms, legs and face from a ride on a runaway horse through a deep Wyoming forest, later: car accident in Wyoming in which his arm was badly broken).

Following the advice of John Dos Passos, he moved to Key West where he established his first American home. From the old stone house, a wedding present from Pauline's uncle, he fished in the Tortugas waters, went to Sloppy Joe's, Havana's famous bar, and traveled to Spain every once in a while, gathering material for "Death in the Afternoon" and "Winner Take Nothing".

A safari led him to Mombassa in fall 1932, Nairobi and Machakos in the Mua Hills. Many animals died on that safari. "The Green Hills of Africa", "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" were the literary results.

His way of life provoked criticism by the Left. Max Eastman and others demanded greater commitment to the affairs of the people. A young left-winger begged him to give up his lonely, tight-lipped stoicism and write about truth and justice. For a while, it seemed he would do so. His article "Who Murdered the Vets?" for "New Masses", a leftist newspaper, and his book "To Have and Have Not" showed a certain "social awareness." Soon, he would take political sides more explicitly.

next: /Spain in Flames