Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Happy Birthday, Papa!

No, it's not my father's birthday--it's Papa Hemingway's!

Hem and his cat.

There are a lot of old interviews with him floating around the internet--one from The Paris Review has this gem:

HEMINGWAY [asked about the amount of revising he does]: It depends. I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

INTERVIEWER : Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

HEMINGWAY: Getting the words right.

Amen, brother.

2 comments:

jason said...

Good quote and a cool photo of Papa... do you know if this is the cat that still has descendants running around Key West?

Better Living said...

I don't know--I can't see the kitty's feet to see if it's the "Hemingway Polydactyl Cat."