Hemingway's Havana: A Reflection of the Writer's Life in Cuba

Hemingway's Havana: A Reflection of the Writer's Life in Cuba

Hemingway's Havana: A Reflection of the Writer's Life in Cuba

Hemingway's Havana: A Reflection of the Writer's Life in Cuba

Hardcover

$24.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Tuesday, April 2
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

In Cuba, Ernest Hemingway, author of The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, found a sense of serenity and enrichment he couldn’t find anywhere else. Here through more than a hundred color photographs and accompanying text, is a look at the Cuba he loved.

Photographer Robert Wheeler takes us through the streets and near the water’s edge of Havana, and closer to the relationship Hemingway shared with the Cuban people, their landscape, their politics, and their culture.

Papa Hemingway lived in Cuba for more than two decades, longer than anywhere else. He bought a home—naming it the Finca Vigia—with his third wife, Martha Gellhorn and wrote his masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea there.

Wheeler has followed Hemingway’s path across continents—from La Closerie des Lilas Café in Paris to Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West to El Floridita in Havana—seeking to capture through photography and the written word the essence of one of the greatest writers in the English language. In Hemingway’s Havana, he reveals the beauty and the allure of Cuba, an island nation whose deep connection with the sea came to fascinate and inspire the writer.

The book includes a foreword by América Fuentes who is the granddaughter of the late Gregorio Fuentes, the captain of Hemingway’s boat Pilar and his loyal and close friend.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781510732650
Publisher: Skyhorse
Publication date: 03/20/2018
Pages: 208
Sales rank: 1,153,083
Product dimensions: 7.60(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robert Wheeler fondly recalls time spent with his daughters along Boston’s Freedom Trail, from pushing a stroller, to walking hand-in-hand. The rich and fascinating stories evoked by each historic site, as well as the exceptional charm of Boston’s quaint city streets, shops, and restaurants, lured him back again and again, inspiring this sensory and absorbing book. Robert is also the author of Hemingway’s Paris: A Writer’s City in Words and Images and Hemingway’s Havana: A Reflection of the Writer’s Life in Cuba. He lives near the sea in New Castle, New Hampshire, with his wife, Meme.

América Fuentes is a native of Cojimar, Cuba, the small fishing village east of Havana where Ernest Hemingway docked his boat, El Pilar, and the grandson of Gregorio Fuentes, the longtime captain of the Pilar.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Sea

Ernest Hemingway came to Cuba from the sea, due south across the clean and blue Florida Straits from Key West. The year was 1934, and he motored into Havana Harbor — past the 200-foot rise of the stone Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña and Morro Lighthouse — aboard his new and prized fishing boat, Pilar. What he immediately saw and felt was so very different than most Americans who flew into Havana's airport or yachted into the many fancy marinas. On the long and winding Malecón and along the palm-treed shoreline, Hemingway saw life — a people naturally absorbed in the reflections of the sea made by the intense colors of the setting sun. It was clear that these Cubans were living por el mar, y para el mar, and doing so with grace and in harmony. First impressions counted greatly to Hemingway, and Havana's honest and subtle splendor is what filled his senses as his boat slowly and softly moved into the welcoming and protective Havana Harbor.

Nowhere in all of Havana do the sun and city and the sea and stars come together more beautifully than along the Malecón, Havana's Balcony. Lovers, no matter their age, stroll along and sit upon this winding stone wall. Romantic liaisons between young lovers ... married couples escaping the heat and activity of a cramped and shared apartment within the city ... older couples reflecting on a life lived ... children playing while talking about their day — this is indeed a place of energy, hope, reflection, and joy. Hemingway would walk along the Malecón and feel the bluish-green sea push its weight against it while thinking about stories written and those still to write. He would often sit, taking out a small notepad, and write. He would write of the direction of the wind, the strength of the current, and what the colors of the sea looked like with the fading sun. Hemingway was a romantic, and he was an Imagist poet, and he lived what he wrote and wrote what his eyes saw.

Anywhere — under the shade of trees, sitting in these chairs and looking over Havana's Bay and out to sea — one can easily experience the Cuba that so inspired Hemingway. Watching carefully, Hemingway would see how the fishermen in their small boats do what they did every day. Some men would be waist-deep in the bay, immoveable and patient like statues, ready to cast out their nets. Quietly, Hemingway would praise and celebrate these men, as he knew their livelihoods depended on their talents. Most days, Hemingway could feel the warm winds coming in off the sea and he would catch the fresh scent of salt water in the air, and this would quiet him ... calming him so that his mind was able to explore the possibilities of new story ideas. So much of Havana, and Cuba, centers on the sea, and in this beautiful but merciless sea lies a part of Hemingway's spirit and a vast part of his literary genius.

Hemingway knew well that life on Havana's Malecón was filled with intrigue and beauty. Cuban bodies, in many geometrical forms, adorn this five-mile-long seawall at all times during the hot days and well into the dark nights. Like Hemingway's love and respect of the sea, they too have their profound relationship with it, and this he witnessed and admired. Certainly, there were always fishermen and countless lovers, yet many others came to the Malecón to speak to the sea ... talking silently, only lips moving, and asking, with humility and grace, for protection and for good fortune. Having visited the African continent, Hemingway knew that this spiritual connection was part of an African religion, a religion beautifully named Santería. He would observe as worshippers would pray to Yemaya — bodies gracefully swaying, their eyes filled with water and light and hope — and place flowers gently onto the sea's surface as a gift and as a symbol of their enduring love and admiration.

The hurricanes that slam their weight and power onto the island of Cuba, making strong trees bow down nearly to the ground, instill fear and awe in the people. Cubans say that the sea becomes the Brave Sea, as nothing can control it and nothing is stronger. They say the sea turns from bright blue to deep black, and this is when they know it will come over the land, flooding their streets and causing power outages and buildings to crumble and chaos and death to prevail. Hurricanes are measured by the height they reach on the Morro Lighthouse, and there are times when the Morro disappears in total blackness. Hemingway wrote strikingly of "the blow" in his novel Islandsin the Stream and withstood many storms in his personal life, but what he admired most was the aftermath. When the black waters recede and again turn blue, solidarity embraces this island nation and everyone looks like one family, together, caring for those in need and cleaning up after the destruction.

Hemingway knew that, as with writing, there should be nothing easy with fishing: one should have a good catch, but not an easy catch. That first bite, while waiting patiently for something, so patiently that the silence becomes unduly loud, is exhilarating. And at that moment, there is fear — fear that the fish might escape and disappear — like words in the mind. At times, one can even see the fish circle the bait, and it is beautiful to watch how the fish is working. Then the bait is taken completely and the fish knows and thrashes wildly and is now a part of the line ... part of the story. And this is triumphant. And then you wonder what the fish will look like in your boat. But you must not hurry — you must be patient and wait and play and fight, keeping the fish in the water until it is ready. Once in the boat, the greatness of the fish is realized. And this, like a good day's writing, is what is regarded as a "good catch."

There is a lovely photograph taken of Hemingway that, perhaps more than others, captures him with concentrated purpose and great joy. The image shows an older Hemingway, bare-chested and pants rolled high, with a cap and spectacles on, helping haul a fisherman's net onto shore — his daily catch and meager reliance. Hemingway felt far more comfortable, and received added delight, when helping people do what they were born to do. Rather than subject himself to the monotony of the rich and the famous — those who had it all and could only look back with self-glorification — he sought the common man who continued to represent and to mirror the struggles of daily living with but few belongings and longings. Hemingway himself was a simple man, a man who cast a wide net for those whose work would always guide humble lives and command gallant actions.

The sea carries a message from all those fishermen who knew and loved the man they fondly called Ernesto. Those fishermen, many long dead now, are not talking men — especially on land — only speaking when they must. What they say through the sea is that Hemingway knew how to communicate with them ... he spoke their language — not always their words, but their language, simply and frankly and with integrity, and followed, always, by action. They would take drink together and they would pass time together in pursuit of the fish. They are humble, and Ernest was humble. As one Cuban fisherman once remarked, "He never placed us to the side. And he listened to our histories, our stories, and shared all he had, always. Even if it were one fish, he would not wait to have ten to share the one." For these men, the sea has been their whole life, and they knew that Hemingway's life, too, was the blue sea and the fish that lived in it.

The breeze coming off the sea in the early evening, just as the sun begins its colorful decent, is gentle and soft along the Malecón and even up high on hilltops. Cubans believe there must be vitamins layered in the breeze because a body feels calmly refreshed and renewed, and ready to participate in what the night brings. Hemingway's farm sat high on a hill and received this tender breeze, which moved him toward lovely evening meals with Mary, always lit by candlelight, as was her preference. Together, they would take long and winding walks along the pathways of the farm, simply walking without need for voices. Nature, when noticed, provides remarkable transitional elements. Along the water's edge that surrounds this city, Havana's Balcony, the breeze is but one such notable element that, when experienced presently, fits beautifully into the repertoire of what drew Hemingway to live for so long and so well in Cuba.

The whispered truth about Hemingway and fishing is that those Cuban fishermen who knew him well respected his talent but respected even more, and admired deeply, his prose. Hemingway loved to fish, he loved Cojimar, and he loved Cuba, but he was not as skilled with a fishing pole as he was with a pencil. It was known throughout that their Ernesto had boundless enthusiasm for the sea and for fishing and for the fish, but that his best skill, and his utmost passion, was for writing. These fishermen knew well about the many great challenges that the sea presented and, although they were not writers, they instinctually knew about the many challenges of writing. They knew that even when Hemingway was out on the sea physically, there was always a part of him, mentally and spiritually, that was still struggling within the pages of a story. And this reality, this truism, represents yet another dimension of what drew these artists-of-the-sea to respect, confide in, and befriend Ernest Hemingway.

El béisbol is the sport of passion in Cuba, and this shows beautifully in Hemingway's Cuban novella, The Old Man and the Sea. In fact, Santiago's monologues on baseball help paint this story in Cuban colors. Baby boys already have a glove and ball and bat in their rooms, waiting for them to crawl, then walk, to the field. Whether they are on a field or on a street, practicing is a way of life. When Santiago reflects on baseball, one must connect the sport to life and, specifically, to life as a fisherman. Baseball requires discipline and patience and to be in the right place at the right time in order to catch the ball; this is also true of fishing. One must keep one's poise in baseball and also on the sea, and one must be physically and mentally prepared for anything to come one's way. Hemingway knew that baseball and fishing demanded focus, and that both involved one's soul. This adds yet another dimension to Hemingway's novella and to his old man, Santiago.

To be a Cuban fisherman is to have a love of solitude. These men are quiet and humble, and a significant part of who they are suffers when on land. A fisherman is alone on the sea but lonely on land, and to be balanced on land is far more difficult than it is on the sea — because the sea moves and is alive. The fishermen that Hemingway trusted and befriended were quietly perseverant, often speaking to the sea far more than to one another ... and hardly at all to those who could never hope to understand. Being alone for these men of the sea, even when others were present, was normal and was respected by those who loved them, but it held great risk. Unlike most foreigners, Hemingway was both accepted and respected by these tested and sincere men for the simple reason that they saw in him their own heart, their own hands, their own eyes, and their own sense of solitude.

The many white islands — like a pearl necklace — surround the Cuban mainland. They entranced Hemingway and called his name. Cubans say that these islands offer a rest to one's mind, and that they are a place to heal. On the main island, for work, Hemingway had his bedroom, standing in the early mornings on his lucky kudu skin while pressing the keys of his Royal typewriter; for pleasure, Hemingway had the grounds of his home, his Finca, and the local children that would come there to play baseball on his field; for entertainment, Hemingway had bars like the Floridita, where he would drink and regale Hollywood friends; and for true seclusion, and to ruminate and refresh his spirit, Hemingway had these small and lovely and enchanting islands. Hemingway's world presented constant personal and professional challenges, and it was here, surrounded in the lightest of blue and where the deep seafloor seemed within an arm's reach, where he could reflect on all he had done and all he would still do.

There are no public personas on the open sea. Those fishermen who knew Papa well understood that he was reserved and that he valued his private identity over his public personality. Those men were insistent on that fact, and said that "When others write of Ernest Hemingway, they add more to the story than what is there. They embellish, and this is not what he liked and this is not what we liked." There are stories and photographs showing Hemingway in a drunken and careless light — a puppet put on display and mocked. Hemingway would rage against these depictions, and it seemed as though his comrades, the fishermen, knew more about his true character than even he knew. The sea is an equalizer, perhaps the greatest socialist experiment one may experience. And those men, who lived por el mar, y para el mar, knew certain truths about the personality and about the behavior of Ernest Hemingway — truths that some critics and scholars can never hope to know.

Santiago, Hemingway's code hero in The Old Man and the Sea, is held in the highest esteem in Cuba, as he embodies the essence of honesty, effort, and equality. Hemingway admired the labor of the common man, especially that of the fisherman, and created Santiago in the likeness of, and with the virtues of, those fishermen he knew from Cojimar. Santiago's actions, both on land and on sea, are measured and contemplative; his mind is disciplined and yet free; and when around another, he is compassionate and happy and giving. In the end, Cubans celebrate Santiago's decision to go farther out into the sea than anyone, and they respect the brotherhood he shares with the great marlin on his line, and they cry for the devastation wrought by the sharks that quickly spoil his great fish. All is renewed and awakened in Santiago, and those Cubans that know his truth see the old man as the perfect and beautiful example of how to live a life.

There are fishing tournaments that take place all around the globe, but perhaps none is better known and its prize more coveted than the annual Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament, held at the handsome Marina Hemingway. The most serious of all fishing devotees enter hoping to claim the prized trophy, one fashioned in Hemingway's likeness. Hemingway and his Pilar, under the guidance of his trusted captain, Gregorio Fuentes, won three times in the 1950s, and President Fidel Castro took first place in 1960, shaking Hemingway's hand in victory as can be seen in a famous Life magazine photograph. Today, in this tournament, it is always catch- and-release. One wins the fight, but releases the fish back to the sea. This gesture is a triumph, a measure of being an aficionado, and is an exhilarating and soulful part of the process. Winning, most medalists have said, requires luck and knowledge — no one knows for sure which comes first — but it is passion that drives all those involved in this Hemingwayesque day.

A close and dear friend of Hemingway's, Mario — now profoundly weathered and aged — is one of the many fine and true fishermen of the village of Cojimar. Mario first noticed Hemingway because of his height. Looking into Mario's deep blue eyes, Hemingway asked for help in cleaning his day's catch, then humbly offered a tip and a cold drink. The two would, for years, pass time together out on the sea and in along the small crescent shoreline of Cojimar. Hemingway would listen to Mario speak about his life and how, at seven years old, he felt a passion to fish — a passion stronger than the necessity for money or even for dinner. He told Hemingway that the sea was his church — a place for the poor and the simple to touch the hand of God, and he said that the happiness and fulfillment of being out to sea far outweighed the dangers it could present. He believed that being on shore, surrounded by land, was more severe than facing the roughest of seas, and that it was where he felt most lonely.

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "Hemingway's Havana"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Robert Wheeler.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD by América Fuentes,
PREFACE,
INTRODUCTION,
THE SEA,
THE LAND,
THE WORK,
THE VISIT,
FINCA VIGÍA, SAN FRANCISCO DE PAULA,
WALKS,
HOTELS,
RESTAURANTS,
EPILOGUE,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR,

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews