HEMINGWAY AND THE SEA

 

 “Age is my alarm clock,” the old man said. “Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”“I don’t know,” the boy said. “All I know is that young boys sleep late and hard.”

-OLD MAN AND THE SEA

 
 It was fifty years ago today that writer Ernest Hemingway known around Key West as Papa Hemingway took his own life in Ketchum Idaho.  A place far away from the sea and places like Key West where he wrote many of his novels. Novels like TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT . A novel that takes place in Key West during the depression. It was later made into a movie with Humphrey Bogart and Laureen Bacall. Mariners and the sea play an important role in some of his most famous writing. Like the OLD MAN AND THE SEA  published in 1952 and was the last novel published while he was alive. It was the tale of an old Cuban fisherman a little down on his luck having not caught a fish in over eighty plus days. He was viewed as such a "Jonah" that the parents of his young apprentice refused to let their son get on a boat with him. It too was made into a several movie versions staring Spencer Tracy and Anthony Quinn.
Another Hemingway novel that takes place on the water is ISLANDS IN THE STREAM was published almost ten years after his death.  This story takes place around the waters of Bimini in World War II. A movie was made from it with George C. Scott.  Hemingway certainly knew the sea having spent a lot of time on it fishing on his boat Pilar  which is still on display in Cuba. During WWII he also used it to patrol the waters around Cuba looking for German U boats and probably doing some fishing too no doubt. I wonder if he might not have taken his own life had he remained near the waters he enjoyed and spent so much time on and where he had been so productive in his writings.