First glimpse last night of Gehry's Guggenheim in Bilbao. We'll spend time there later today. At Thursday's Hemingway conference sessions: Linda Patterson Miller (l), author of the landmark essay "Why I love Papa," talked about rattling the male scholars' cage back in the 1980s, helping to open Hemingway studies not only to female scholars but also to female and personal voices in writing (including Ann Putnam at right). This led to lively discussion of the longstanding tussle in academia over first-person prose and memoir. This is somewhat similar to what we talk about in my overlapping world of biography, the hybridizing of the craft with memoir. Big topic, long story for later. With the public domaining of The Sun Also Rises, we heard from four editors who have produced four(!) distinct new editions of EH's first novel, one for public consumption, three aimed at classroom use. The projected final volume of the Hemingway Letters, expected to be pubbed in the 1940s, is being worked on now because we still have Valerie Hemingway in our midst, and she was right there as EH's secretary, taking his dictation for most letters in 1959 till the end, in '61. Jerry Kennedy had a brilliant take on those last years, including the travails of The Dangerous Summer, and Michael von Cannon described the editing process and other discoveries for Vol. 17. Later: a pelota (jai alai) demonstration, pintxos and drinks with friends and nightcap with a good crowd at the hotel lounge, conveniently located down the hall from our room.
Friday, July 19
Every day in and around our international Hemingway conference has brought moments of enlightenment, delight and discovery. Friday began with a debate over whether and how the Soviet Union tried to lure Hemingway into its world as a propaganda tool. He would've preferred to be paid royalties for several Russian translations, but significantly rebuffed a royalty offer (this was Cold War era) by saying (in the letter posted below) he wouldn't accept unless Soviets paid all American authors what they were owed. Also in panels: Carl Eby's great exploration of the Basque landscape and mood that was mostly shorn out of the shrunken published edition of The Garden of Eden. Argentinian Hemingway scholar Ricardo Koon also detailed EH's Basque connections in Spain and Cuba. His photos included one shot of EH and Lauren Bacall outside the Carlton Hotel, where we've been staying and conferencing this week. We took an afternoon excursion to the Guggenheim Bilbao, which I'll post separately. The evening was capped by a wonderful spread of food along with music by a Dutch singer-songwriter who recorded a song cycle inspired by EH's first story collection, In Our Time. The Hemingway Society.
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Bilbao afternoon. Calatrava, et al. River walk. Great Gehry. RIP Richard Serra. Oldenburg surprise. The damn Puppy love.
