Speaker 1 00:00:37 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber. And tonight we have a double Decker here for Ian Graham. Lee's talking with David backs, the editor of private wilderness, the journals of secret F Olson, the personal diaries of one of America's best loved naturalist reveal his difficult and inspiring path to finding his voice and becoming a writer in the last part of the hour. Lisa talks with Kristin Hemingway Jains, the great granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway. Wow. About her book earnest way and international journey through Hemingway's life, earnest ways, a guide and literary exploration into the cities, Hemingway visited and lived in both as they are now. And as they were when he creased them all the, some more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 2 00:02:34 David, David back and see you there. Yes. Hello there. So David Backus is waiting to, uh, tell us all about a private wilderness, the journals of Sigurd Olson. And, uh, let's see. He is he's, uh, also, uh, signal since biographer, uh, 2015, David retired as a professor, professor of journalism and mass communications at the university of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Welcome to write on radio David backers.
Speaker 3 00:03:13 Thank you. I have to be
Speaker 2 00:03:13 Here. You sound like you're a long way away. Could you talk up a little bit into your microphone?
Speaker 3 00:03:19 Yes. Is that better?
Speaker 2 00:03:21 A little bit, a little bit. I've got my engineer here, shaking his head. Um, tell us a little bit about, uh, your relationship with, um, Sigrid Olson's work.
Speaker 3 00:03:37 Well, it goes back a long time. I did my master's degree research on one of his conservation, uh, battles that he was in that was way back in the early eighties. And then, uh, my dissertation was, uh, a history of the con canoe country, Minnesota and Ontario. And, uh, so that was 88. And then I was hired at UWM Milwaukee and they started the biography, uh, the research for it in 1990. So it's been an old, it goes back 40 years or so.
Speaker 2 00:04:15 That's really interesting just to make sure that, uh, we're familiarizing all of our listeners with a cigarette Olsen. Let me just read the little blurb or bio about him. That's on this lovely book by a Minnesota university press university, Minnesota press. Uh, it says sick of F Olson, 1899 to 1982 introduced generations of Americans, the importance of the wilderness. He served as president of the wilderness society and the national parks association as a consultant to the federal government on wilderness preservation, he and many honors, including the highest possible awards from the Sierra club, the national wildlife Federation and the Isaac Walton league. First of his many influential books was the singing wilderness in 1956. And that is reprinted by the university of Minnesota press. If you are interested in that, that was the book that first got me interested in the boundary waters and, uh, in the wilderness, uh, tracking and all of that kind of stuff. And I expect that was similar for you, David, was it
Speaker 3 00:05:29 Kind of, I, uh, my family, uh, took us on a bunch of vacations when I was a young child to beautiful natural parts of the country. And in 1963, we wound up in Eley and discovered how much we loved it there. So we started going up there every summer and my parents bought the singing wilderness at some point. And I think I was a second half of high school, maybe when I read it for the first time. And I, I really loved it.
Speaker 2 00:06:03 And are you, are you in a fussy and auto of the, uh, the lakes up there and paddling?
Speaker 3 00:06:09 Yes. Uh, I, uh, and then it took nowhere near the amount of journeys is a secret. Also there's some of my friends, but I've had some great experiences in the canoe country.
Speaker 2 00:06:21 We could waste a lot of time talking about our experiences up there. I'm sure. Um, so the, the main thing about this book is that the, this is the diaries and you've, you've gotten hold of the private diaries and edited them, uh, printed them. And what's so interesting about them is that you, you kind of emphasize on the <inaudible> writing that you do, uh, the, the actual writing, his writing style and what he tries to do with the work. Uh, tell us a little bit about why that interested you having originally been his biographer.
Speaker 3 00:07:01 Well, it took him a long time to figure out how he could write the things that were most deeply, uh, touching to him. And it was a big struggle because he, he felt this sense of calling really to write the kinds of things he eventually became known for those, those essays, that touch people's hearts that they capture so well, the emotions that people feel when they're outdoors and connected with nature, but that was not an easy sell for many, many years. And so he tried other things. He wrote hunting and fishing stories for outdoor life field as stream, uh, outdoor America, you know, those kinds of magazines and, uh, became actually by the 1930s, he was kind of a regular and so fairly well known among people who read those sorts of outdoor magazines. But that, wasn't what excited him, that wasn't what really interested him.
Speaker 3 00:08:06 And he had this necessity to find a way to write full time. And meanwhile, he had become, uh, a teacher up at Eley first at the high school. And then after he got his master's degree, he was a professor at the junior college and eventually Dean, well, all during that time while he was teaching, as much as he knew that he was good at it, the students enjoyed him. Uh, he, he, it wasn't what he most wanted to do. He felt this neat to write. And so trying to figure out how he could write what he felt called to write and also make enough income to support his family. That was a major struggle. So he had, because he had spent his summers guiding people in the canoe country. And a lot of the people who took guides in those days, the 1920s were, uh, fairly well off.
Speaker 3 00:09:03 They could be doctors, it could be lawyers, prominent writers, you know, that kind of thing. He became friends with some people who were reasonably successful writers. And they said, if you want to be able to write full time, make enough money to support your family, you have to write short story fiction. So he tried writing nature related short story fiction for the Saturday evening, post the Atlantic all kinds of popular national magazines. And he was terrible at it. He got scathing rejection letters, almost every single time, but he, he was driven so much to succeed at writing. He, he, he tried that type of writing at least now in an off and on for 20 years. But meanwhile, he dabbled in the kinds of, of style that became his hallmark and editors and some agents who he consulted with. They said, this is really nice writing, but there's no market. And so it was endlessly frustrating for him and therefore for him, for his, his family as well,
Speaker 2 00:10:10 All, uh, BWC lovers and wilderness lovers of course should, should read this book, um, because he you're coming out with his private diaries. And, um, you know, we see him experimenting with, uh, with writing and tried trying to find different rhythms and focuses and things like that. Um, how did you, how did you get access to these diaries?
Speaker 3 00:10:35 Well, again, with Elizabeth Olsen, uh, probably in my grad school days, but really for the biography, I had access to everything. Um, and his diaries at that time, some of it was at the Minnesota history center. Uh, but the bulk of it was at his home. Uh, and I, so I, when I started the research for the biography, I spent one solid week in his writing shack, going through his diary set were kept in metal file, filing cabinets out there, but I was disturbed because I saw references to beginning his diary, his early as 1930. But the earliest that I could find in his writing shack was 1937. So I wondered what had happened to those. And I spent the next three years continuing to research. And I was at, had reached the point where I thought, well, I just, I have to start writing. And I told Bibles and about it.
Speaker 3 00:11:40 And he happened to be at the house right then because Elizabeth had gone to a nursing home and he, and he and his wife finally were cleaning some things out. And I said, well, you know, I just, like, I never found those journals and I just have to start writing. And he said, well, I just found him there he's dead. They were in a cardboard box at the back of her refrigerator and unplugged refrigerator in the basement. And so that gave me the, the full set and I photocopied all of them. And so I had, uh, the idea even then that it would be great eventually to do this book. Um, but once the biography was done, uh, the remaining things that had been at the house were divvied up between the Minnesota history center and the, uh, Wisconsin state historical society. And those journals went to Wisconsin and, uh, they had a restriction on them that prevented, uh, publication of any sort, uh, until I think 2018. Yeah. I think it was a 20 year thing. And, uh, so I, I thought, well, eventually, maybe I'll be able to do it. I kind of forgot about it. But, uh, in 2019, I think it was the, the state archivist for Wisconsin called me. And he said the permissions had ended. He had talked to Bob the previous summer and Bob said, yeah, that's fine. Let's, let's, let's it's time to let them be fully open. And, uh, meanwhile Bob had died and, and the archivist asked me,
Speaker 2 00:13:27 Yeah, slowly up there a minute, tell us who Bob Olson is. And you just said that he died.
Speaker 3 00:13:33 Uh, Bob is a one of cigarette in Elizabeth, two sons. Uh, he's younger as a tooth. The other one was sick Jr. And Bob and his wife Vannie spent their final quarter century or so in, uh, Elisabeth's childhood home, just outside of Hayward, Wisconsin. So, uh, Bob and vine and being so close, relatively close to me, they became like second set of parents. So when, uh, they, uh, when this became open and then the state archivist said, you know, would you be interested in doing a book on this? I, I, I had all of the materials just waiting for me.
Speaker 2 00:14:15 And you had, you, you had already read it though, right?
Speaker 3 00:14:19 Yeah. I had read, I had used all of it, uh, and quoted from it, uh, uh, quite a bit in the biography, but I knew that there was so much more there and that people could get a different view of him. I mean, it's one thing. I wrote his biography. That's my looking at all of the evidence from his life and interviewing people, all his letters, his articles, his journals, et cetera, and me writing, uh, as best I can tell a that shows, who this person was, who he was over the course of his life, who we became, but that's different from reading what he wrote in his journals at the time he's going through stuff. And he doesn't yet know whether he's going to succeed or not, or what is going to become. And so I think it's valuable for people who are, especially anyone interested in Sigurd Olson to read the journals, as well as the biography you'll get it, you'll get a better sense of the, of the intensity of the struggle he went through to become who he became.
Speaker 3 00:15:30 Then you could simply from reading a biography. I th I think, um, and I think it's not only for, uh, people who love nature, who loves cigarette Olson, both the biography and the journals to me are great example of someone who had had this dream, this, he had the sense that he had to do something and all he went through to make it happen. And the key thing is he never gave up. And I know as a professor, my students were so, uh, worried it so often about whether they'd be able to become who they felt they needed to become. There's so many pressures on them, economic pressures, social pressures. And I use Sigrid Olsen in my classes with them as an example of someone who faced those pressures and show that it is possible, even though it's not going to be easy to, to keep going, even when you feel you can't.
Speaker 2 00:16:36 Yeah. Well, that's very good teaching, I think, to lay a pathway for students and for young people. It's, it's quite interesting for me, that seems like yesterday when I was first reading about him and, uh, all of this, I really didn't read much of his, uh, I didn't, I didn't know about the journals. And, you know, when you talk about him writing about nature and those digging into some of the work that you've, um, published here, it did remind me quite a bit of Hemingway in front of funnily enough, we've got a Hemingway in the next segment here. His granddaughter is going to be talking to us about, um, Ernest sway, her new book, uh, Kristen, um, Hemingway Janes, and, uh, in preparation for today's work, reading the Siggins journals and looking at some of Hemingway's work, you know, be too hard to deliver and things like that.
Speaker 2 00:17:38 It just, it, it was serendipitous. The two, um, interviews would take place simultaneously, but, um, that's sometimes out works. It's really, and several of the pieces of writing that he did really caught, caught me like that. Um, particularly the, the, the one that you've put in near the end where he's, um, out in the snow and he hears a truck off in the distance. And he's, he's kind of in the spirit of it. He's, he's there in the kind of spiritual, I don't know what you'd call it, almost a trance and this truck going by as a distance breaks the spirit. And he, he waits for it to leave in the tries to reenter that. And can't right. And that moment really brought tears to my eyes. I've had that feeling before, you know, and it, um, I just, it made me admire him even more, you know, probably cause he's more like me than I thought he was, but I mean, it's that sort of sense of connection to somebody I felt really powerfully.
Speaker 3 00:18:50 Yeah. And it was those moments of connection that he most wanted to write about and pass on to people, but it was important to him personally, too, obviously. And when it was shattered like that, it was challenged. I, interestingly enough, he wrote in his book listening point, sort of the centerpiece of the book is a chapter called the whistle in which he's out at listening point. And, uh, he's in that moment again. And then he hears a train off in the distance and his first inclination is to get annoyed. Uh, and, but the, the, the essay ends with him reflecting on, uh, the, the meaning of the whistle, as well as the wilderness and how there, his appreciation of wilderness also depended on things symbolized by the whistle. And, uh, that striking that balance was important to him.
Speaker 2 00:19:53 Yeah. It's interesting how a train whistle in the distance feels like the wilderness to us, to a great extent. We all feel that sort of connection to it. And we don't mind being waken up, woken up in the night by that sound, do we? And it's very odd. Um, so he was, he started writing in the thirties, uh, nearly 90, 90 years ago. Um, it seems strange to me to, to think that it's that far back and he dies in the early eighties. I remember when he died, I was living here by then. Um, and it was very sad about it, obviously, it's, it's, uh, you know, we're all growing older and now you've retired. How, how does, how did working on those journals affect you emotionally in terms of how your, you yourself were growing older and coming to the end of one career and you know, what are you going to do now?
Speaker 3 00:20:51 I tell you it was interesting, uh, because I read them initially when I was in my early thirties, which is around the time period that he's writing most of them, uh, thirties and early forties for him. And, uh, when I first read them, I thought I I'd get frustrated. I, I said, can't you see what it is you have to do. And, uh, when I came back to them a couple of years ago, and now I'm, you know, I'm in my early sixties and I had not read them in between. And so I was able to approach them fresh and I, I realized I'm much more forgiving now when I read them. And I, I, you know, I had gone through 30 more years of stuff myself and, uh, I could appreciate it without getting annoyed by him, but boy, he's, he did have a hard time listening to himself, I think.
Speaker 2 00:21:52 Yeah. So this books, uh, not just, uh, the printed diary entries, but it's also a lot of picks. Um, you must have needed permissions for those, and they're very well placed, um, you know, checking through his life and the rest of it. Where did you have to sort of select those carefully? Was there was, there were a lot of,
Speaker 3 00:22:19 Some of those I provided, but, uh, uh, the, the family gave me so many, uh, years ago, but most of them, uh, or located by my editor, Christian Tibetan, and, uh, he did an amazing job. I mean, he went to the usual places to just listening point foundation, you know, a couple of people who he, who were connected to the Olson's, who would, uh, likely has some, but he, uh, this was during the pandemic. So he couldn't just go round dark guys, but there's so much that you can find online now, I mean, has access to all of these national archives for servers, archives, uh, and, uh, Minnesota, Wisconsin. So he found tons of great picks.
Speaker 2 00:23:09 Yeah. Yeah. And they are very evocative of the times. And, uh, you know, that, that face that he has, I'm surprised that there isn't some, some artwork, um, you know, with something with his, his face and the landscape. Is there anything that you know of out there?
Speaker 3 00:23:31 Um, I have seen, I think at the Sigurd Olson Institute, uh, some artwork, I know they have a bust of his head there, uh, but I know there was at least one print made at some point or other that shows him with a background of a nature. I don't recall what that was all about the,
Speaker 2 00:23:59 Well, it's interesting that the title for the book that you guys chose you and, um, you know, and it's a, and the press, uh, private wilderness. I always think that kind of, um, really depicts the inside of a, of a person's mind, you know, and it, it struck me how I wonder, was there anything in the entries that you're uncomfortable with
Speaker 3 00:24:29 That I'm uncomfortable,
Speaker 2 00:24:31 That you didn't print or that you felt uncomfortable printing?
Speaker 3 00:24:33 Oh, uh, there wasn't anything that I felt I should exclude because of, uh, I dunno, it, it, it being like too personal or, uh, that it would make people uncomfortable early. What I, when I chose what to include in that to include, I mostly got rid of repetition. Uh, he, he had so often wrote the same kinds of things about how he asked to get out of this. He asked to find his medium, it, it sometimes even the same phrase as the whole sentences appear over and over. And so you'll see repetition in the book as it is, but, uh, there is actually a lot more in his journals. Uh, and I, I cut out parts sometimes that dealt with the things that I didn't think were as important, uh, such as some of the specifics of the financials. Uh, they, they would be interesting for sure, but I don't know how meaningful they would be. I was trying to keep the most important stuff into a one volume possibility.
Speaker 2 00:25:46 And do you use any, did that, he write about his belief and use of furnitures primitivism and religion spirituality, his influences, words worth and thorough and wonderful chronology at the back of the book. And the one thing I just want to bring up that you, you wrote about, and this is him writing about hunting. Um, he says hunting 5:00 AM not so much the hunting as what goes with it. And I love that. That's why if I ever go hunting, it's not because of the hunting it's because of what I find around me in the wilderness. Right? Yeah. So it was a wonderful, and you've, you've done a masterful job of putting this book together. I really congratulate you.
Speaker 3 00:26:32 Thanks for me. It was truly something I had always wanted to do. It was fun to do, dive into that again. And I'm really glad that a Minnesota press does such a fantastic job. They've done four of, uh, Sigurd Olson related books now with me. And, uh, I, I can't say enough about them. They're wonderful people. And they put in such great work on design and marketing everything.
Speaker 2 00:27:00 I love them. We're out of time. Unfortunately, David, it's wonderful to talk to you. Um, yeah, you've just been listening to a private wilderness, the journals of Sigurd F Olsen by David backers. Thanks so much for being on rider and radio. David. Hope to see you again.
Speaker 3 00:27:19 Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:27:21 And now this
Speaker 2 00:27:49 Kristen, are you there? Hello? Hello. Can you hear me just about you sound like you're a long way away?
Speaker 4 00:28:01 Well, he was right in front of me. You were very quiet too, But I have my volume up all the way. Wow.
Speaker 2 00:28:13 So we have Kristin <inaudible> and she's here to speak with us about Ernest's way and international journey through Hemingway's life. Uh, Kristin Jane Hemingway Janes is an American author originally from Seattle beginning at a young age, Christian began to explore America first on road trips with her mother, traveling from Seattle to key west, then on her own by bus and train the American landscape with its roadside cafes, strip malls, and wander as features prominently in her fiction. She is the author of the short collection, the smallest of entryways, and is currently working on a novel based on her travels, as well as the new short story collection. Uh, this book and its way is a kind of travelog, uh, on steroids. Um, welcome to write on radio, Kristin, Hemingway Janes.
Speaker 4 00:29:11 It's good to be here.
Speaker 2 00:29:12 It's very good to have you here. We've had the number of your family on the show over the years, so it's good to have you to, uh, tell us about why you followed in your great, great grandfather's footsteps to write this lovely book.
Speaker 4 00:29:26 Well, it started out, I was doing pieces for, uh, um, like a virtual tour of the different cities. And I was writing about Paris and London, where I was living at the time. And I just thought this would make such an amazing book. If people can have this book physically with them, when they went to these cities, I just felt I'm just a book person. And so I felt like having a book would be so much more enjoyable than just being on your phone all the time. Plus then I can write sort of a backstory and have some biographical stuff along with it. So I just thought, I can't believe no one's done a book like this. And I was really excited to be the person who could do that. I'd already been to several of the cities and it was just wonderful, um, to sit there in London and write about all these different places. It was, it was really, truly like traveling to them for me.
Speaker 2 00:30:26 Had you been to most of them?
Speaker 4 00:30:28 I had already. Yeah, but I'd already been to a lot. So I had, I had some anecdotes and experiences in them. And then, you know, I did a lot of research, obviously, enormous amount of research for the book.
Speaker 2 00:30:42 And I wanted to ask you about, uh, the research versus family stories and what, you know, what's been handed down that fascinated me, you know, talking to you a few weeks ago about all of this, um, you know, just to get a, a sense of how a relative of an icon like Ernest Hemingway, um, uh, descendant, how, how much sort of came down to you in terms of family stories and how much you had to research and what the tension was between those two ways of looking at him?
Speaker 4 00:31:24 Um, well, yeah, it's all kind of mixed together because I grew up starting to go to the Florida keys when I was about seven or eight and earnest brother Lester was still alive at the time. So I not only got to experience key west back in the eighties when, before the festival had even started and going to all the haunts just naturally with my family. But I was also doing that with earnest brother. So I, I mean, I was just immersed in the family stories from the time I was a kid. And so when I went to save Paris, for instance, you know, my uncle had been there before me, uh, spent time having adventures there. So I just, there was just so much of it that I had grown up hearing about. So they were very delightfully mixed together and I got to relive them talking with my cousin, Hillary about it.
Speaker 4 00:32:20 And it was just a kind of a natural thing. She has some anecdotes that I mentioned in the key west chapter about some of the parties that we had in key west when I was growing up, which were just phenomenal. And just like a, some kind of story that you would read. I mean, it was just fascinating being with people who had boxed with Ernest when he lived there, who were still alive. I mean, it was just back you back then. It had only been, not that long since he had died. So I mean less than 20 years since he had died. So he was still very much felt like he was alive in the lore of key west back then. Um, so it was, yeah, it was, it was a combination of stuff. I'd grown up with stories that we retold to each other as I was writing the book. And then the research mainly came in just with historical facts about places, dates, addresses, things like that. But I felt like I had a sense of how to write about these places. Just sort of naturally. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:33:27 That's interesting. There's, there's loads of things that crop up in the book that felt to me, like they would only come from a family member, you know, I'm doing some of that sort of work myself. My great great-grandfather and the family stories handed down seemed to be the ones in some ways that have the most, um, ring of truth to them and their usefulness to,
Speaker 4 00:33:54 It was fascinating to learn about things that I never knew about. Cause I didn't even know that he had spent time in London and that he'd spent time in London with his brother during world war II. And I didn't have any of the backstory about Toronto, which actually was probably the most fascinating chapter for me because it was so integral to his starting out as a writer because he was writing journalism. And some of the stories that he was writing for the Toronto star ended up being the beginnings of stories, like the Nick Adams stories and stuff. So it was, it was so fascinating to me and so valuable to me to learn about his craft, going back to Toronto and just learning the ended up there and just the places there. I mean, it was, that was fascinating to me, but I felt like that was a really valuable, valuable chapter that I got to do because not a lot of, a lot of people even talk about Toronto, but it was so,
Speaker 2 00:34:54 And that came through the research.
Speaker 4 00:34:57 Yes.
Speaker 2 00:34:59 Interesting is his brother Lester, very few people know anything about them. He wrote a novel too, didn't he?
Speaker 4 00:35:07 Um, it's got trumpet in the title, sounded the trumpet, which I actually haven't read, but I was just talking with, um, his daughter, Hilary, who I'm going to see next week, um, about sound of the trumpet. So it, her, it was her father who wrote it Lester and I'm planning on reading that
Speaker 2 00:35:30 And his daughter's name is what's his daughter's name. All that. That's your cousin. Yes, that's right. Okay. It's just quite a lot of you now. And it's hard for me to keep track of how many or how many are, where you all are. It's very interesting. And it's so funny to look at pictures of, of you all. There's, there's nearly always a family resemblance going back to, um, having where himself, of course, but also his mother and father. Do you guys notice that?
Speaker 4 00:36:06 Oh gosh, I was just talking to Hillary today about that. Cause she was talking about her daughter and I was saying, and her daughter is a singer and I was saying, she inherited, maybe inherited grace whose earnest mother singing voice because grace was an opera singer and taught voice lessons. And I said, she looks like grace. I just said that today.
Speaker 2 00:36:29 That's right. It's funny how those genes go down. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:36:34 You said, she thought that my smile and I thought that was really sweet, but people tell me that when they see pictures of Pauline, they told me that I looked like Pauline. So
Speaker 2 00:36:44 It was a, there's a picture on the book, very nice book, by the way, very well put together, uh, published by Pegasus books. Um, and that picture it's definitely has a resemblance, you know, I can see, I can see, I can see Hemingway in you. And now you mentioned it, Paul, uh, would it, I don't know, would it be Pauline or would it be, uh, is it Pauline that you, that you're connected to or Second wife? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 00:37:16 My great-grandmother yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, cause I'm writing a biography of earnest mother right now is there isn't one. And so I was like, well, I enjoyed writing that other one. And I, grace is an absolute, fascinating person, very talented painter and singer. And so I'm writing a book about her and I was thinking I should put a family tree in the beginning because,
Speaker 2 00:37:42 So I do think you should do that because there's a, there's a lot of you working and you know, I've had several, um, Hemingway's on, on the show, you know, academics and editors and writers and everybody. And it's sometimes it's a little bit hard to keep track of who you all are and how you're all connected. That would be really good to have a family tree in that in the next week. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:38:08 The youngest son Gregory. My grandfather had a lot of children.
Speaker 2 00:38:12 How many did he have?
Speaker 4 00:38:14 Um, I think he was, yeah, I think in total it's nine. Wow. You had four wives. Um, it told her about three of them. So
Speaker 2 00:38:26 That's the youngest Gregory and he got some pictures of him in the book here. There's some lovely pictures in here too. They're really, really nice. And a lot of them seem to have come from the, um, uh, the collection that the John F. Kennedy collection. How did you work with, how did you work with them to get these many of these photographs?
Speaker 4 00:38:51 Well, they have a wonderful archive online. Um, I communicated with them. I was actually there for the dedication of the having way, part of it, the Hemingway room, um, when I was in high school. But yeah, they have a really lovely, lovely archives that people can cruise online that just have so many photos and, um, reproductions of diaries. Cause grace earnest mother kept this incredible diary for her children. Um, little writings with earnest handwriting when he was in high school. And I mean, it's, it's really wonderful, but you don't even have to physically go there. You can look online and phone. Great.
Speaker 2 00:39:32 Very moving to look at him, elderly into him. Young. Does that, does that strike you the same way?
Speaker 4 00:39:44 Did you say elderly and young? Yeah. Yeah. I mean he was, he aged way too fast, you know, he wasn't very old when he died. He was only 61. So he looked, he looked a lot older than he really was. Um, when he was, when he was in his late fifties.
Speaker 2 00:40:04 Yeah. It gets to me sometimes when my dad died about the same time and pretty much have the same sort of thing, every drink the rest of it and very, you know, very dodgy and kind of lose losing his way a little bit. And it's, it's just always strikes me. What, what would we have if we'd had another 20 years of Ernest Hemingway? And of course we do get,
Speaker 4 00:40:33 I wrote old man in the seat very late in his career and it's one of his most amazing work. So yeah.
Speaker 2 00:40:39 Tell us a bit about some of the posthumous work. Um, uh, let's see. We had, uh, who, which, who was it that, um, finished, uh, true at first light, which was posthumously published. Who, which one of you was that one of the sons finished
Speaker 4 00:41:01 Patrick?
Speaker 2 00:41:02 Yeah, I think it was Patrick finished it. What do you know about that?
Speaker 4 00:41:08 Not bad. I actually haven't read true at first light. I've read garden of Eden, which was published after he,
Speaker 2 00:41:14 Ah, I love garden, which is your favorite of his books?
Speaker 4 00:41:21 Um, sun also rises is my favorite. Um, probably farewell to arms probably second. Um, I thought the part where he's actually on the battlefields and going on the train and fro the arms, I mean, I just felt like I, that feels like a memory to me. Like So vivid, it's just incredible
Speaker 2 00:41:47 Farewell to arms is my favorite. I've read that several times. And um, every time I read it, it feels completely different. And one of the things that your book did for me was to remind me how young Ernest Hemingway was when, when he actually went through those experiences. You know, of course he writes about a character who is, you know, kind of a lot wiser, but you get the sense from the character in the book of someone much older. And of course he was only what was the 18.
Speaker 4 00:42:24 He was 18. Yeah. He actually turned, it turned 18 in Italy. Yeah. I think he was 17 when he first went, when over
Speaker 2 00:42:34 Is he wounded at age 18. All right. And
Speaker 4 00:42:38 Some of those, I just really, I think it might've been right before his 18th birthday when he was willing to
Speaker 2 00:42:44 Interesting. I love this. I love that story. Um, uh, about the recovering in the, in the hospital room, um, in an, in another country.
Speaker 4 00:43:01 Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 2 00:43:03 The, the, the beauty of that, and then, and the S the quietness of the pros in that and the opening paragraph, I think he wrote over and over again, 40, 40, 50 times. Are you, are you particularly interested in any of his short stories because you write short stories yourself?
Speaker 4 00:43:25 Oh yeah. I love the Nick Adams stories so much, um, big, too hard at rivers. So wonderful Indian camp is just absolutely freaking. I mean, I just, I'm, I'm reading and rereading Marshall and his sister's book at the Hemingway is right now. And she describes in great detail. There are times at Walloon lake and just all these wonderful details about their family life that you just don't get anywhere else. And that the feeling of him being outside and being with nature and all the things that he learned from his father and all those summers that they spent at Wallin, like just come through so vividly in his short stories. And it's just beautiful. I just have always loved his short stories. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:44:17 Have you been influenced by the style?
Speaker 4 00:44:24 No, I don't think so. Um, it's, it was hard because when I took creative writing in college, I really didn't have my own voice yet. And it just takes so many years to develop your own voice. At least it did for me. But part of that probably was because I was self-conscious about it because of him, because I'd read him and probably he's. So it's so strong when you read his stuff and he's got such a reputation for a style that I'm sure subconsciously I was trying to sidestep it, you know? Yeah. And it just takes a really long time to develop your own style. You just have to write and write and write and just figure it out. And finally it happened, but I think with him, it was, he kind of had just a clean slate, you know, he didn't have an Ernest Hemingway before him, so,
Speaker 2 00:45:25 Well, obviously there's loads and hundreds of books out there about how he developed that style. Um, and it, it probably does develop, as you say, in here in Paris, or as you in sort of
Speaker 4 00:45:39 Toronto, I mean,
Speaker 2 00:45:40 You think it happens with a newspaper style now.
Speaker 4 00:45:44 Yeah. And the cable ease that he was writing to, um, when he was a war correspondent. Yeah. In Paris when he was traveling from Paris
Speaker 2 00:45:52 Can also, you can also see the influence of Gertrude Stein on that, on that simplicity that he has with
Speaker 4 00:46:02 The journalism, the training, and then fine. Yeah. That's yeah. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 00:46:07 But you do have it. I noticed a clarity that you strive for in your style too, and sometimes just a sentence or an idea pops out just how you wrote about how distraught he was after leaving his first wife Hadley, even though he's with his second Pauline. And that stopped, that brought me up short, just he gets such a, um, a bad rap for being kind of in many ways, you know, the kind of Muchow over the top Uber message. But he, this incredible sensitivity that is, I think, all the way through his work.
Speaker 4 00:46:51 Oh, he was, he was so sensitive. I mean, from the time he was a child, he was both wise and sensitive. I think it's, it was his incredible sensitivity. I mean, I talk about it in the book, but he was trying to deal with that incredible sensitivity, his whole life, which I can completely relate to
Speaker 2 00:47:14 Me too. And I'm a bruiser of a guy too. And it certainly is. Sometimes people don't understand that you can be both things.
Speaker 4 00:47:24 Yeah. I mean, it's difficult to deal with. Um, and he was in a war when he was a kid. I mean, he was traumatized when he was 17. So from then on, he was, I mean, you know, big two hearted river is about that. A lot of people don't realize that the story is about the war. Really. He never wants talks about the war, but he was just forever changed. And going back to this place that had been so innocent and wonderful for him as a child and was now completely different because he'd been, he'd been in Italy.
Speaker 2 00:48:03 Well, it does. Yes. That's, that's one of my favorite, short stories of his too. And of course that's where he really perfects the so-called iceberg effect. Um, you know, when he's in the, in the second part of it, when he doesn't want to go and fish the dark swampy part of, of that river, um, amazing. And, um, uh, never does write directly about it. Do you, do you use that technique when you can?
Speaker 4 00:48:33 Well, we weren't taught that in school, you know, even before I ever read him, cause I didn't read him until high school, whenever the sun also rises and we were taught back then, I mean, I've, I've heard from someone recently that people don't teach that anymore, but we were taught to show and not tell. Yes. Uh, so that was just sort of how writing was taught when I was in grade school. And I remember in fifth grade or so maybe fourth grade, they were teaching that and I thought something just clicked. I thought, wow, that's really amazing. That's something I want to do. That's really great. You know, because it accesses, it allows the reader to be a participant and it accesses the subconscious and allows the reader to sort of make the story along with the writer and also in their own interpretation. So, I mean, it's just brilliant. It's a, it's a cause you're trying to connect with people when you write. And so it's, it's just a way to do that in a more deep level. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:49:36 It was one of the things that happened with that story, a big two hearted river when I first read it and you know, I was younger and hadn't been to, uh, any classes that taught me any of these techniques and it wasn't even, you know, I had no idea what was going to happen in the future, uh, that I'd ended up, uh, uh, a publisher, um, very strange. But I remember when I first read it, I thought, what is going on with this character, Nick, what is, what is happening? And what's going on here? That is like me, you know, he felt like me, you know, on his own by river catching hoppers, seeing, um, black squirrels. And it really struck me. And it's an extraordinary thing to, to really identify with a character like this. And yet the, in our time now, excuse the pun, he's, he's often den denigrated for, you know, some of his work and some of the behavior that he displays. And I think it's fairly clear that that's coming out of trauma coming out of a certain kind of sensitivity that nobody seems to be checking their anger and understanding. Is that something that bothers you?
Speaker 4 00:50:57 Yes, it does. Um, I know it's difficult to separate, you know, the person, the whole person from the art. Um, a lot of times, and I understand that, but it's really unfortunate because there are some really beautiful things that people, when they're just looking at the stereotype or they're just hearing things about him that are total generalizations are going to miss. And I think he's still really valuable as an instructor for writers. And I hope that that doesn't get lost in the future and that people continue to learn from his writing.
Speaker 2 00:51:38 Well, we'll try to, um, we'll try to keep that alive and keep the positive part of this alive and well on a, on a fun note. Um, uh, what, what ha what, what, what happened to his cats? Are they still, are they still the descendants of the seven clawed cats down there in a key west?
Speaker 4 00:51:59 Well, um, really, I think his cats were mainly in Cuba. They did have, they did have at least, I think snowball, they might've brought from key west. Um, the, the legend is that this the six toed cats at the Hemingway house are descendants of his cats. That is what I grew up with. I grew up spending a lot of time at that house. Uh, I did one time bring a cat that was not six towed over the wall of the, having a house. And she ended up spending the rest of her life there. I'm pretty
Speaker 2 00:52:40 Sure.
Speaker 4 00:52:41 So I put, you know, another kitty in there, but I don't think that she had any kittens. Um, but it is fun to go to the Hemingway house and see the 600 cats. And,
Speaker 2 00:52:53 And yeah, it is. And, uh, what a lovely experience I was lucky enough to do that. Then I was lucky enough to be at Ketchum. This may with my son and I went and saw the grave and paid my respects
Speaker 4 00:53:07 And just
Speaker 2 00:53:07 Beautiful place. And just after that, I met you. So a good serendipity. Very interesting. So we are out of time. Kristin, it's lovely to have you on the show. I hope you'll come back with your, uh, new writing when it's published and you've just been listening. Christine Hemingway, Jane's speaking with me and Graham Leask about earnest sway and international journey through Hemingway's life. Thanks so much for being on right on radio. Kristin. Thank you. See you soon.
