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violence and open the way to an open, lasting solution. We'll have | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
more details at 8pm. Now it is time for Meet the Author with Nick | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Higham. Ernest Hemmingway was one of the | :00:00. | :00:09. | |
giants of 20th century American literature. He wrote of A Farewell | :00:10. | :00:16. | |
To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls and he was an enthusiastic husband. | :00:17. | :00:22. | |
He married no fewer than four times. Each was the mistress who helped to | :00:23. | :00:29. | |
break up the previous marriage. Mrs Hemmingway by Naomi Wood is a | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
portrait of the four women involved and it tries to answer an obvious | :00:34. | :00:38. | |
question - what exactly did they see in him? | :00:39. | :00:47. | |
Naomi Wood, this is a book about Ernest Hemmingway, yet he himself is | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
curiously a shadowy character. We hear his wives talking about him, | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
describing him. We never know what he, himself, is thinking - why? I | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
think enough ink has been spilled on that area. I think Ernest | :01:02. | :01:04. | |
Hemmingway, as a character and as a person in history, has been so | :01:05. | :01:12. | |
written about in so many biographies. In his own voice you | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
can see it in the collected letter, which have just come out. I decided | :01:17. | :01:20. | |
to give voice to the four women loved by him and who loved him for | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
the 40 years he was married. It is about a voice to the four women | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
rather than more voice to Ernest Hemmingway. What was it that they | :01:31. | :01:37. | |
saw in him? He was often a monstrous man. Often in his youth he was | :01:38. | :01:43. | |
chronically unfaithful. Yes, there was this carousel of wives and | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
mistresses that whipped around each decade. It makes you think, why on | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
earth did they A fall in love with him and B, stick around? It was a | :01:53. | :01:59. | |
mixture of seduction and bewilderment - a sort of toxic | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
combination in a way. The seduction came from charm. You can see that in | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
the love letters - kind of amazing nicknames and pillow talk he uses in | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
his letters. And he was incredibly hand some. He was an incredible, | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
talented writer. He seemed to serve no apprenticeship in the modernise | :02:21. | :02:27. | |
cannon. I think it was that side of him that made the women fall in | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
love. As you say, there was this savage, brutal side that must have | :02:32. | :02:41. | |
been completely unendurable and completely alienating. The last one, | :02:42. | :02:48. | |
Ma rrk y, was -- Mary, was married to him when he committed suicide. | :02:49. | :02:52. | |
There was a mistress, a menage a trois - they all knew one and other. | :02:53. | :02:59. | |
The first wife, Hadley, actually invited the second wife on hole dai | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
with them. There was a -- holiday with them. There was a menage a | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
trois - each decade was met by another mistress who went on to | :03:07. | :03:13. | |
become the wife. I calculated in a moment of quiet, one day at the | :03:14. | :03:16. | |
British library, how many days Hemmingway had been single - not | :03:17. | :03:22. | |
unwed, because he was unwed for seven months in those 40 years. He | :03:23. | :03:30. | |
was actually single for 0 days. There was a great hunger to find | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
partnership, to find companionship. You can read about that in a | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
moveable feast. He talks about this strange loneliness after writing. | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
Always Hadley is in the background fulfilling that role. Hadley was the | :03:47. | :03:52. | |
first wife. Let's have a thumb nail sketch. Who was Hadley? The first | :03:53. | :03:58. | |
wife. Married 1921-1926. She was the kind of lovely, but slight slightly | :03:59. | :04:06. | |
Vapid, shall I say, first wife, who he fell in love with and completely | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
canonised in a Moveable Feast. He was the one true love he thought he | :04:13. | :04:18. | |
never got over. That is after he betrayed her with Pauline Pfeiffer - | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
wife number two. She was the second wife, 1927, they were married until | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
1940, when they divorced. She was a woman in A Moveable Feast. The rich | :04:30. | :04:37. | |
come to infiltrate this couple. They stayed together for a very long time | :04:38. | :04:42. | |
and she oversaw his most prolific period. He wrote many, many books | :04:43. | :04:49. | |
while married to her. Her money was quite important, I think. He truly | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
did, I think, love her, but there was an extent to which her family's | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
wealth helped shore him up and help provide a kind of advance. Until he | :05:00. | :05:03. | |
was successful. Then there was Martha Gellhorn. She was the one who | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
was the most considerable figure. She was a successful novelist. A | :05:10. | :05:17. | |
huge hero of mine since writing the book. Why did she ever marry him? A | :05:18. | :05:24. | |
mistake. A journalist wrote it was a pairing of flint and steel. You can | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
see that - these two personalities interlocked. Their horns are braced | :05:30. | :05:35. | |
against each other. She wrote a huge amount of fiction, as well as her | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
core correspondence from the Spanish Civil War. She went to the wars of | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
central American. She was reporting on Brazilian street children up | :05:46. | :05:52. | |
until her 80s. I think she regretted marrying Hemmingway. She said she | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
did not want to be a footnote in the history of another. She was | :05:57. | :06:06. | |
supplanted by another. She had the most raw deal. Yes, she was married | :06:07. | :06:13. | |
to him for the longest time and she was a correspondent in her own | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
right. Unlike Martha, she left her job and kind of relished the new | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
opportunity to sort of make this beautiful house in Cuba. She was | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
with him at his perhaps most difficult and darkest time. He had | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
increasing problems with alcohol. They were involved in a plane crash | :06:33. | :06:39. | |
in 1954, with left him with severe wounds and injuries. She had to | :06:40. | :06:43. | |
nurse him out of that. So, it was perhaps the most difficult time. | :06:44. | :06:47. | |
Critics have been divided about this book. You've had some very, very | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
good reviews. A number of others have said there's something | :06:53. | :06:56. | |
unsatisfactory about it. What they seem to be suggesting is that at the | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
heart of it the character of Hemmingway himself never is fully | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
developed. Do you accept that? Was it a challenge to bring him alive? | :07:05. | :07:11. | |
He was always going to be a bit of an iceberg at the centre of the | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
story to adapt one of Hemmingway's own met fors. And the point was, in | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
a book called Mrs Hemmingway, not to write a story about Mr Hemmingway, | :07:20. | :07:26. | |
it was about the -- Hemingway, it was about the four women. They found | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
themselves the mortal around this God-like figure and he | :07:33. | :07:37. | |
self-promulgated this idea. So, the point was not to spill more ink on | :07:38. | :07:48. | |
the hemming way -- Hemingway point. The point was to explore four | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
fascinating women who were bold and fearless and who found themselves | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
someone fortunately and sometimes unfortunately married to Ernest | :07:59. | :08:05. | |
Hemingway: A chilly evening for a lot of us. | :08:06. | :08:19. | |
Last night was a very mild night, around eight to nine Celsius. | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
Tonight temperatures will dip to freezing. Showers will continue into | :08:25. | :08:27. | |
the evening and overnight into tomorrow as well. This was the | :08:28. | :08:30. | |
weather front which brought the rainfall. You can see how the skies | :08:31. | :08:33. | |
have | :08:34. | :08:34. |