Hemingway on
Fishing
From stories of young
Nick Adams fishing the rivers of Michigan to a novella about an old fisherman
named Santiago fighting off the sharks in an attempt to save his catch, fishing
permeates Ernest Hemingway’s writing. In “Big Two Hearted River,” Nick fished near
a logged over forest and a burned town, and the narrative established
Hemingway’s career as a master of the short story. In The Old Man and the Sea, he revealed the depth of his craft and
received a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize as stamps of approval from the
larger society.
The posthumous
book Hemingway on Fishing is a
collection of some of his best writing on the subject. It includes short
stories, journalistic pieces, and excerpts from books. The forward by Jack
Hemingway, author of The Misadventures of
a Fly Fisherman, reveals a love of fishing shared by father and son. The
introduction by Nick Lyons, who edited the volume, gives a more detailed account
of fishing as intertwined in Hemingway’s life, his writing, and even his
relationship with his family.
The first
section of the book is all about fresh water. It begins with four short stories
about trout fishing, including the iconic “Big Two Hearted River,” which is, on
the surface, just about fishing. The logged woods and burned town suggest
deeper issues in the protagonist’s psyche.
Another short
work, “Now I Lay Me,” is about a man in a hospital, or possibly a prison, who
avoids sleep, and perhaps the accompanying dreams, by consciously remembering
every stream he has ever fished. The story hints at Hemingway’s lifelong may
have been inspired by knowledge of Jack Hemingway’s own experience as a
Prisoner of War, waiting to be liberated by allied forces as they moved through
Nazi Germany.
Most notable of
the book excerpts is one from The Sun
Also Rises, in which the tragic hero gets a respite from the drama of Lady
Brit and his other friends by fishing for trout in Spain. The editor also included
book excerpts drawn from A Moveable Fest and
The Green Hills of Africa.
The center
section reveals the lesser known Hemingway, the journalist who wrote feature articles
for periodicals ranging from the Toronto
Star to Vogue, Esquire, and Look. The articles report on opportunities and reveal the finer
points of fishing for trout in Wyoming, Canada, and various European locations.
Articles devoted to salt water fishing report on tuna fishing off Spain, and marlin
fishing in the Gulf Stream, and off the coast of Peru. The story “On the Blue
Water: A Gulf Stream Letter,” includes a report of fishermen who rescued an old
man in a skiff far from land with the head and front part of a great marlin
lashed to his skiff. The remains of the catch weighed 800 pounds. This gem
surely inspired his prize winning novella, The
Old Man and the Sea.
Section three
includes salt water fishing battles of epic proportion excerpted from The Garden of Eden, Islands in the Stream, and
The Old Man and the Sea. The first
two are drawn from posthumous works, edited and prepared for publication by
members of Hemingway’s family.
The fisherman in
Islands in the Stream is a boy on the
verge of manhood, obviously modeled after one of Hemingway’s own sons. In fact,
the cast of characters is drawn from the family and the fishing friends of
Hemingway’s days in Havana.
These stories
remind us of heroic struggles fought well and fought hard. Some end in
victories while others conclude with great loss. All of us have of course
experienced victories and losses. We fight and endure as we celebrate victories
and recover from defeats. We hope to rise victorious like the Phoenix, above
our circumstances. The nonfiction works are strictly about fishing, but in the
end, the fictional works are not so much about fishing as they are about
struggle and the triumph of the human spirit.
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