Naomi Wood Meet the Author


Naomi Wood

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violence and open the way to an open, lasting solution. We'll have

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more details at 8pm. Now it is time for Meet the Author with Nick

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Higham. Ernest Hemmingway was one of the

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giants of 20th century American literature. He wrote of A Farewell

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To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls and he was an enthusiastic husband.

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He married no fewer than four times. Each was the mistress who helped to

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break up the previous marriage. Mrs Hemmingway by Naomi Wood is a

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portrait of the four women involved and it tries to answer an obvious

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question - what exactly did they see in him?

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Naomi Wood, this is a book about Ernest Hemmingway, yet he himself is

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curiously a shadowy character. We hear his wives talking about him,

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describing him. We never know what he, himself, is thinking - why? I

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think enough ink has been spilled on that area. I think Ernest

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Hemmingway, as a character and as a person in history, has been so

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written about in so many biographies. In his own voice you

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can see it in the collected letter, which have just come out. I decided

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to give voice to the four women loved by him and who loved him for

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the 40 years he was married. It is about a voice to the four women

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rather than more voice to Ernest Hemmingway. What was it that they

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saw in him? He was often a monstrous man. Often in his youth he was

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chronically unfaithful. Yes, there was this carousel of wives and

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mistresses that whipped around each decade. It makes you think, why on

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earth did they A fall in love with him and B, stick around? It was a

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mixture of seduction and bewilderment - a sort of toxic

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combination in a way. The seduction came from charm. You can see that in

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the love letters - kind of amazing nicknames and pillow talk he uses in

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his letters. And he was incredibly hand some. He was an incredible,

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talented writer. He seemed to serve no apprenticeship in the modernise

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cannon. I think it was that side of him that made the women fall in

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love. As you say, there was this savage, brutal side that must have

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been completely unendurable and completely alienating. The last one,

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Ma rrk y, was -- Mary, was married to him when he committed suicide.

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There was a mistress, a menage a trois - they all knew one and other.

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The first wife, Hadley, actually invited the second wife on hole dai

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with them. There was a -- holiday with them. There was a menage a

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trois - each decade was met by another mistress who went on to

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become the wife. I calculated in a moment of quiet, one day at the

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British library, how many days Hemmingway had been single - not

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unwed, because he was unwed for seven months in those 40 years. He

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was actually single for 0 days. There was a great hunger to find

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partnership, to find companionship. You can read about that in a

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moveable feast. He talks about this strange loneliness after writing.

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Always Hadley is in the background fulfilling that role. Hadley was the

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first wife. Let's have a thumb nail sketch. Who was Hadley? The first

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wife. Married 1921-1926. She was the kind of lovely, but slight slightly

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Vapid, shall I say, first wife, who he fell in love with and completely

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canonised in a Moveable Feast. He was the one true love he thought he

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never got over. That is after he betrayed her with Pauline Pfeiffer -

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wife number two. She was the second wife, 1927, they were married until

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1940, when they divorced. She was a woman in A Moveable Feast. The rich

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come to infiltrate this couple. They stayed together for a very long time

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and she oversaw his most prolific period. He wrote many, many books

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while married to her. Her money was quite important, I think. He truly

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did, I think, love her, but there was an extent to which her family's

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wealth helped shore him up and help provide a kind of advance. Until he

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was successful. Then there was Martha Gellhorn. She was the one who

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was the most considerable figure. She was a successful novelist. A

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huge hero of mine since writing the book. Why did she ever marry him? A

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mistake. A journalist wrote it was a pairing of flint and steel. You can

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see that - these two personalities interlocked. Their horns are braced

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against each other. She wrote a huge amount of fiction, as well as her

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core correspondence from the Spanish Civil War. She went to the wars of

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central American. She was reporting on Brazilian street children up

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until her 80s. I think she regretted marrying Hemmingway. She said she

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did not want to be a footnote in the history of another. She was

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supplanted by another. She had the most raw deal. Yes, she was married

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to him for the longest time and she was a correspondent in her own

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right. Unlike Martha, she left her job and kind of relished the new

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opportunity to sort of make this beautiful house in Cuba. She was

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with him at his perhaps most difficult and darkest time. He had

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increasing problems with alcohol. They were involved in a plane crash

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in 1954, with left him with severe wounds and injuries. She had to

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nurse him out of that. So, it was perhaps the most difficult time.

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Critics have been divided about this book. You've had some very, very

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good reviews. A number of others have said there's something

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unsatisfactory about it. What they seem to be suggesting is that at the

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heart of it the character of Hemmingway himself never is fully

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developed. Do you accept that? Was it a challenge to bring him alive?

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He was always going to be a bit of an iceberg at the centre of the

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story to adapt one of Hemmingway's own met fors. And the point was, in

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a book called Mrs Hemmingway, not to write a story about Mr Hemmingway,

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it was about the -- Hemingway, it was about the four women. They found

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themselves the mortal around this God-like figure and he

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self-promulgated this idea. So, the point was not to spill more ink on

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the hemming way -- Hemingway point. The point was to explore four

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fascinating women who were bold and fearless and who found themselves

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someone fortunately and sometimes unfortunately married to Ernest

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Hemingway: A chilly evening for a lot of us.

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Last night was a very mild night, around eight to nine Celsius.

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Tonight temperatures will dip to freezing. Showers will continue into

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the evening and overnight into tomorrow as well. This was the

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weather front which brought the rainfall. You can see how the skies

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have

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