Hemingway struggled throughout his life, burying hurts, insecurities, uncertainty in his drinking. In this sense, he is like so many people today who run from something by sinking into something else. It isn't a pretty human habit, to be sure. This is where I pity my mentor.
Why do so many artists drink? Isn't it because when they open up a vein and spew the bloody pulse down on paper, it's then hard to stop the flow of emotion? I don't think too many people are able to remain fully open AND sane, unless they've achieved guru or saint status. It seems to be so tricky for humans, this opening of the heart. Most can only do it at times, and even then at the risk of peril.
Let's recall that back in his day, people didn't have all of the convenient diagnoses (depression, bipolar depression, anxiety disorder, et al.) on which to hang their drunken bodies or their DUI tickets. Medications for imbalance were still decades away. So people drank or took pills or overindulged in some sensory something, all while oddly seeking some release from the sensory and the everyday. Spirit was all around, all the time, but humans have trained their logical minds not to see, hear, or take comfort in anything that isn't entirely tangible.
Even today, this is a major pitfall for the bipedal creature.
These days biographers tend to recognize the history of suicide and drinking in Hemingway's family, granting him some small forgiveness for the genetic basis. Regardless of why, he was what he was; he suffered and caused suffering, too, like most. He paid a sizable price for being a genuis and an original thinker.
As a cat, I can spare him some judgment for those self-punishing mistakes. Can't you?
On writing and booze, from A Moveable Feast
"The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. I ordered another rum St. James and . . . sharpened the pencil with a pencil sharpener with the shavings curling into the saucer under my drink. . . . After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day." -- Ernest Hemingway
Having read most of Hemingway's novels, pseudo autobiographies, and most of his short stories, I would agree with this analysis; and would add that the creative process is often intertwined with alcohol and drugs. In a past life, not so many years ago, I personally had many creative moments while intoxicated, things seemed so much clearer, but more than that, those deep feelings and emotions did not hurt so much when I was drinking. We seem to understand them, as if from afar. We are detached, objective, the observer, the critical analyst. It is only when we are sober that the truth reveals itself, the emotions creep back in, and the depression overwhelms. It is a vicious cycle, difficult to break, and for Hemingway, so it appears, he was unable to break that cycle, until he was finally consumed by it.
ReplyDeleteI would add this: in his last years, Hemingway was recovering from that second plane crash. He was unable to write, to create, to express his emotions, and thus to release them. If that happened to me, I can fully understand the unwillingness to go on, to continue with life. Why? What is the purpose? If one cannot create, then one cannot live. What would be the point?
The release of my emotions comes via pen and paper. I often wonder what I would do or how I would cope if I were unable to write. Writing is the release for me.
ReplyDeleteGreat article!!
Andrea