To Be or Not To Be Ernest
Review of the Books & Books Press hardcover edition (May 31, 2022)

[3.5 rounded up]
This is a curious sort of hybrid memoir. Author Kurlansky (1948-) surveys his own life in parallel with that of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) by describing his own visits to locations associated with Hemingway, usually 50 or 60 years after the original events. These are primarily about time spent in Paris France, in Basque country in Spain, in Havana Cuba and in Ketchum Idaho USA.

Kurlansky was obviously following in Hemingway's footsteps in many ways, although he takes pains to try to disassociate his own life from that of Ernest, as evident in the book's title. This is often a myth-breaking survey of Hemingway. It is always pointing out where the larger-than-life author invented his own mythology and spun increasingly wild hyperbolic tales of his adventures.

I still enjoyed it for the most part. Kurlansky obviously did a lot of research as shown in the 5 & 1/2 pages of bibliographic references that he provides at the backend. There are some contradictions and oversights though which will hit a wrong note with Papaphiles. Early in the book, Kurlansky describes Hemingway's suicide as having taken place behind his Ketchum, Idaho home on the river bank. Later in the book he repeats the standard history of it occurring inside the house's front door vestibule. I've never heard the outside version before, and don't know which of the bibliographic sources is its origin. Kurlansky seems puzzled by why Hemingway wrote The Torrents of Spring (1926) to mock his early mentor Sherwood Anderson's (1876-1941) book Dark Laughter (1925) and he doesn't report the conventionally accepted theory that the book was a contract breaker in order to leave his publisher Boni & Liveright and to join Scribner's. Those sorts of issues will leave the impression that the research was very superficial.

The most interesting revelation for me was that much of Hemingway's early Spain experiences were in the Northeastern part of the country in Basque territory, especially his attendance at the running of the bulls and the bullfights in Pamplona. Little of Basque culture is ever mentioned in Hemingway's own books though, whereas Kurlansky has had a long association with the people & culture (c.f. The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation (1999).

Still, I think most Papaphiles will enjoy this survey, especially if they don't view the iconic earlier author through rose-coloured glasses.

See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Statue_of_Hemingway_at...
Statue of Ernest Hemingway at the El Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba. Image sourced from Wikipedia ( )