Drinking with Hemingway

The current issue of Vanity Fair has an article by A. Scott Berg titled "The Hunt for Hemingway." In it we learn that Hemingway's unknown correspondence is to be published (a collection called "Selected Letters" came out in 1981). What remains is, we are told, enough to fill sixteen volumes, which will be released over the next twenty years.

The irony of this is that Hemingway made very clear his wish not to have his letters published. Nor did he want unpublished material or works in progress to be made public, but that has never stopped those who might profit from their publication.

Berg writes that more than 3,000 documents have been found in Hemingway's Cuban residence, Finca Vigia. Hem, if you really didn't want it published, you should have burned the stuff. 

Of more practical value in the Vanity Fair piece is the listing of the contents of Hemingway's Finca Vigia bar: Schweppes Indian Tonic, Gordon's gin, Old Forester bourbon, Campari, Bacardi rum, and El Copey Agua Mineral.

When the letters come out, Hemingway fans will read them. We'll feel guilty, but we'll read them. Some Old Forester bourbon may ease the guilt.