Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War One later known as "the Lost Generation." He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Hemingway's distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement. It had a significant influence on the development of twentieth-century fiction writing. His protagonists are typically stoic men who exhibit an ideal described as "grace under pressure."
Hemingway took his own life on the morning of July 2, 1961 at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, by way of shotgun to the face, he was 61 years old.
1 comment:
Joseph,
Your site does pop up on occasion in an on-line pipe smoking community I am a member of. And I have to say your site is excellent and a wonderful collection of fellow pipe smokers.
A while back, on July 2nd as a matter of fact, we ended up discussing whether Hemingway truly was a pipe smoker. Obviously your site was referenced as listing Hemingway as a pipe smoker.
And yet, I don't find the picture convincing. It's somewhat vague and I personally would not vouch that the object in his hand is actually a pipe.
In addition, I have found the following quotes:
"Mrs. Hemingway lit a cigarette and handed me the pack. I passed it along to him, but he said he didn't smoke. Smoking ruined his sense of smell, a sense he found completely indispensable for hunting. 'Cigarettes smell so awful to you when you have a nose that can truly smell,' he said, and laughed, hunching his shoulders and raising the back of his fist to his face, as though he expected somebody to hit him."
Lillian Ross, "Portrait of Hemingway", Avon, 1968
Hemingway later said that Cuba held many attractions for him…. What he evidently did not find of interest in Havana were cigars. Although he had learned to smoke Russian cigarettes during the First World War, and once described himself in a humorous 1935 story about Key West as “sitting on the verandah enjoying a cheroot,” he told a writer in 1950 that he didn’t smoke because it diminished his sense of smell.
From the Hemingway Celebrity Profile on cigaraficionado.com
I was wondering if you have any other material that could substantiate that Hemingway was actually a pipe smoker. Or a smoker in general ?
Thanks for the clarifications and help.
And keep up the excellent work on this site.
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