05/11/2019
My flawed hero.
Hemingway had a way of seeing his own darkness in the light of others. The brilliance of his prose he marred with the ruination of so many of his relationships, and not just with women.
Fitzgerald said show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy. Papa Hemingway -- literary hero, great hunter and man's man -- ruined that friendship, too. He jealousy cut at Scott Fitzgerald until all the friendship drained out.
I'm reminded no one ever criticized someone into loving him, or her. Papa Hemingway could never seem to honor the genius in those he knew, or even loved. In their skies full of stars, he chose to see the dark. His own.
I believe if he could now, the great writer would tell us jealousy is a critic's way of resenting his own self. A confession of his own weakness. Papa took his own life, it's true. But maybe he lost it long before. Maybe he died slowly, one battered relationship at a time. A true genius, an American literary hero, with a caution to us all from his glass house, under his tin foil crown.
Each of which can so easily belong to us all.
