We see    the impossible                narrator
Hemingway’s     own memoir      about Paris             competent       invincible
skilled in all things
at age twenty-four
living  amongst
a crowd of the famous
most of whom he dislikes
a saintly wife                                          a perfect child
                in the Eden of Saint Germain
                                    and Montparnasse

Then suddenly   blasted out
a world famous  rocket coming off the booster of Europe out of heaven   and into
the blackness
a world he never made                                   from then on on love would be a function
children a by-product
life a long smooth bore barrel
        leading         down     to  a loaded breech                            and a cocked hammer
The memoir      of a            man     who says

See my life     here’s my life
pretty good fucking start       huh
even    when    it gets bad
it’s better than anybody’s in this book
it’s    better  than yours  will ever be
                           and  this   is the truth
Except          it isn’t the truth      it’s a lie

it’s the memoir of a man  who knows
                           he’s going to kill himself
The impossible narrator         never was
and most        of it           is  based on grievance  most of it      is a suicide    note

But     you     will read that book

its lovely descriptions will draw you in

its     spiteful comedy will capture you  its quiet authority
                        will    kill you        too

-- "Nobody Dies: An Inquiry" (c) 1995


GAVIN


Tim Bray wrote:
>
> I suppose it may be remotely possible that there are others reading
> this list who, like me, had never gotten around to Hemingway's "A
> Moveable Feast."  I just did, and it's an awfully good little book.
> A couple of very intense portraits of EP, who used to play tennis with
> EH.  The fact that they had the highest regard for each others' work
> kind of startles me.  A picture of the two of them playing tennis
> (EH says EP was good, but not who won) in Paris would have been a suitable
> icon for 20th-cent EngLit in general, had anyone ever taken it. -T