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Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises
The making of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the outsize personalities who inspired it, and the vast changes it wrought on the literary world
In the summer of 1925, Ernest Hemingway and a clique of raucous companions traveled to Pamplona, Spain, for the town’s infamous running of the bulls. Then, over the next six weeks, he channeled that trip’s maelstrom of drunken brawls, sexual rivalry, midnight betrayals, and midday hangovers into his groundbreaking novel The Sun Also Rises. This revolutionary work redefined modern literature as much as it did his peers, who would forever after be called the Lost Generation. But the full story of Hemingway’s legendary rise has remained untold until now.
In the summer of 1925, Ernest Hemingway and a clique of raucous companions traveled to Pamplona, Spain, for the town’s infamous running of the bulls. Then, over the next six weeks, he channeled that trip’s maelstrom of drunken brawls, sexual rivalry, midnight betrayals, and midday hangovers into his groundbreaking novel The Sun Also Rises. This revolutionary work redefined modern literature as much as it did his peers, who would forever after be called the Lost Generation. But the full story of Hemingway’s legendary rise has remained untold until now.
Lesley Blume resurrects the explosive, restless landscape of 1920s Paris and Spain and reveals how Hemingway helped create his own legend. He made himself into a death-courting, bull-fighting aficionado; a hard-drinking, short-fused literary genius; and an expatriate bon vivant. Blume’s vivid account reveals the inner circle of the Lost Generation as we have never seen it before, and shows how it still influences what we read and how we think about youth, sex, love, and excess.
373 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 7, 2016
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5526 people want to read
About the author
Lesley M.M. Blume
17 books187 followersLesley M. M. Blume is an author, columnist and journalist. She did her undergraduate work at WIlliams College and Oxford University, and took her graduate degree in history from Cambridge University.
She now regularly contributes to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal and Departures magazine.
She now regularly contributes to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal and Departures magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 418 reviews
August 12, 2022
"Similar umbrella identities would be ascribed to each era’s under-thirty crowd: the Beat Generation, Generation X, the Millennials, and so on. But the Lost Generation was the forerunner of modern youthful angst banners.”
How did the stars keep aligning for the young Ernest Hemingway? Even before important literary figures had read a word from Hemingway the writer, they were willing to go out of their way to help his career. The focus of Lesley M.M. Blume’s Everybody Behaves Badly is on Hemingway’s early years, both as a reporter in Kansas City and more significantly as a writer in Paris. By looking at these early years, she attempts to unravel the mystique around Hemingway the icon which began in the 1920s. How he used his circle of writers and expats as fodder for his first major work, The Sun Also Rises, is familiar ground and Blume mines this material skillfully. However, Blume’s focus is not on the writing, but on the larger than life figure who would emerge AS (after The Sun Also Rises). Enjoyable and interesting read! 3.5 stars rounded up.
How did the stars keep aligning for the young Ernest Hemingway? Even before important literary figures had read a word from Hemingway the writer, they were willing to go out of their way to help his career. The focus of Lesley M.M. Blume’s Everybody Behaves Badly is on Hemingway’s early years, both as a reporter in Kansas City and more significantly as a writer in Paris. By looking at these early years, she attempts to unravel the mystique around Hemingway the icon which began in the 1920s. How he used his circle of writers and expats as fodder for his first major work, The Sun Also Rises, is familiar ground and Blume mines this material skillfully. However, Blume’s focus is not on the writing, but on the larger than life figure who would emerge AS (after The Sun Also Rises). Enjoyable and interesting read! 3.5 stars rounded up.
July 10, 2025
I read Everybody Behaves Badly because I found it in a used book shop, and it led me to re-reading Sun, which I found even better than I had originally remembered. Now, The Sun Also Rises is not, page for page, always a happy book; it depicts drunken, shallow people (including all but the hero and stand-in for Hemingway, Jake Barnes) "behaving badly" on a trip to a fiesta in Spain. But I liked this book about that book quite a bit, though obviously you would never read it unless you read and knew about Sun as Hem's fictionalized version of the events he lived through over a period of a couple months in Paris and Pamplona. It was his first novel, and justifiably catapulted him to international fame as both literary and popular writer. The cult and scandal of Hemingway began around then and continues to this day.
Was Hem a philandering, arrogant, self-obsessed and self-promoting heavy drinker, destroying almost everyone who ever supported him, or a genius? I think the answer is yes. Recent articles and a biography talk about his eventual suicide as the culmination of at least nine serious concussions (including those that occurred during his surviving two plane crashes), and/or bi-polar disorder, all of which may be true, but what Blume's both gossipy (psst! did you know heiress Pauline Pfeiffer, the woman who openly stole Hem from sweet Paris Wife Hadley, strolled into a Paris cafe wearing a CHIPMUNK fur coat!?) but also well-researched book makes clear is that Hemingway redefined American style brilliantly, even as he eviscerated everyone who ever made it possible: Hadley, Harold Loeb, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson and so so many others. I do think Sun is nevertheless amazing, always have, and this biography, focused on the events that shaped Sun, doesn't diminish my feelings for the work.
One example of Hem's shameful dissing of a mentor (though he does not appear in Sun): Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio), the victim of a cruel and badly written parody, The Torrents of Spring, which Hem insisted on being published as part of the deal with Scribner's for The Sun. Anderson had paved the way for the fellow Chicagoan (Hem's from my suburban Oak Park, initially) to make connections with all the ex-pats in Paris of the time and was endlessly supportive of his young mentee. In the end, Anderson, hurt by the unfunny "parody," was no longer Hem's friend, and in fact none of them from that time remained his friends, really, not even Fitzgerald, who had been another champion of Hem through thick and thin.
I have read several biographies of Hemingway, including one of the most popular ones, by his buddy A. E. Hotchner, who lionized him and fed his macho/genius mythology as only a friend could. In the end, Hotch asks Hem whether in retrospect he would have softened the vicious portraits of his "Lost Generation" "friends," and Hem said, "Oh, hell no," though he appears in A Moveable Feast-- essays about those days in Paris written decades later, some still being drafted on his desk as he died--to express regret over the dumping of Hadley for Pauline, whom he would dump for Martha Gellhorn, whom he would dump for Mary Welsh. Each of his major novels are today associated with a woman who supported him through the writing of it. Only Mary wasn't dumped, since it was she who found him dead from the shotgun.
How do I justify supporting an asshole like Hemingway (mentally ill or not) as a great writer? Because he was a great writer. My Dad found out Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali was a draft resister and told me he would never watch him fight again, and that he was as a consequence of his actions not a "great" boxer. The two things are separate for me, to some extent. I know that #metoo issues may have to affect our assessment of, for instance, Woody Allen as filmmaker, and on and on with others, but I'll at least for now remain acknowledging Hemingway as writer, if not always great person. You may disagree with me, of course, and I'd get that, we all make different decisions about these things, but I think Blume would agree with me, which is one reason I appreciate her book. She doesn't pull punches when he deserves it as she also credits him as one of the great authors. I just re-read The Old Man and the Sea and go ahead, tell me that sucks, I dare you. Pure and powerful prose, just breath-taking, where he touches the very flame.
Was Hem a philandering, arrogant, self-obsessed and self-promoting heavy drinker, destroying almost everyone who ever supported him, or a genius? I think the answer is yes. Recent articles and a biography talk about his eventual suicide as the culmination of at least nine serious concussions (including those that occurred during his surviving two plane crashes), and/or bi-polar disorder, all of which may be true, but what Blume's both gossipy (psst! did you know heiress Pauline Pfeiffer, the woman who openly stole Hem from sweet Paris Wife Hadley, strolled into a Paris cafe wearing a CHIPMUNK fur coat!?) but also well-researched book makes clear is that Hemingway redefined American style brilliantly, even as he eviscerated everyone who ever made it possible: Hadley, Harold Loeb, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson and so so many others. I do think Sun is nevertheless amazing, always have, and this biography, focused on the events that shaped Sun, doesn't diminish my feelings for the work.
One example of Hem's shameful dissing of a mentor (though he does not appear in Sun): Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio), the victim of a cruel and badly written parody, The Torrents of Spring, which Hem insisted on being published as part of the deal with Scribner's for The Sun. Anderson had paved the way for the fellow Chicagoan (Hem's from my suburban Oak Park, initially) to make connections with all the ex-pats in Paris of the time and was endlessly supportive of his young mentee. In the end, Anderson, hurt by the unfunny "parody," was no longer Hem's friend, and in fact none of them from that time remained his friends, really, not even Fitzgerald, who had been another champion of Hem through thick and thin.
I have read several biographies of Hemingway, including one of the most popular ones, by his buddy A. E. Hotchner, who lionized him and fed his macho/genius mythology as only a friend could. In the end, Hotch asks Hem whether in retrospect he would have softened the vicious portraits of his "Lost Generation" "friends," and Hem said, "Oh, hell no," though he appears in A Moveable Feast-- essays about those days in Paris written decades later, some still being drafted on his desk as he died--to express regret over the dumping of Hadley for Pauline, whom he would dump for Martha Gellhorn, whom he would dump for Mary Welsh. Each of his major novels are today associated with a woman who supported him through the writing of it. Only Mary wasn't dumped, since it was she who found him dead from the shotgun.
How do I justify supporting an asshole like Hemingway (mentally ill or not) as a great writer? Because he was a great writer. My Dad found out Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali was a draft resister and told me he would never watch him fight again, and that he was as a consequence of his actions not a "great" boxer. The two things are separate for me, to some extent. I know that #metoo issues may have to affect our assessment of, for instance, Woody Allen as filmmaker, and on and on with others, but I'll at least for now remain acknowledging Hemingway as writer, if not always great person. You may disagree with me, of course, and I'd get that, we all make different decisions about these things, but I think Blume would agree with me, which is one reason I appreciate her book. She doesn't pull punches when he deserves it as she also credits him as one of the great authors. I just re-read The Old Man and the Sea and go ahead, tell me that sucks, I dare you. Pure and powerful prose, just breath-taking, where he touches the very flame.
February 4, 2019
3.5 He was a journalist, not yet a famous author though he knew he wanted to write. To write in a new way, one that would exemplify the time period, using sparse language whittled down to the most basic of elements. Hemingway and his wife Hadley decide to travel and live in Paris. A Paris populated by many famous expats, published authors that he hoped would help in with his writing but also with finding a publisher. He'd meet and pick the brains of Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Dos Passos and others. It would be a trip to Spain, bull fighting, parties and the running of the bulls in Pamplona that would ultimately provide him with the material for his first novel, The Sun also Rises. Ultimately he would betray them all.
I thought this was a very well done book, a book that shows Hemingway in a very unfavorable light. A man who would do anything to become famous, even those who did nothing but mentor him. His novel though would cement his reputation, bringing him some of the notoriety and recognition he craved. Though to be fair he did work extremely hard at his craft, he was diligent snd committed. Just not a very admirable human being.
The thing that amazed me is that though they were always short of money, they managed to continually travel. Also the amount of partying and drinking they all did it's a wonder that they had any brain cells left to write anything, let alone the well known novels they wrote. A veritable mystery.
Now that I have a better insight into the writing of this novel, I need to reread with new eyes.
I thought this was a very well done book, a book that shows Hemingway in a very unfavorable light. A man who would do anything to become famous, even those who did nothing but mentor him. His novel though would cement his reputation, bringing him some of the notoriety and recognition he craved. Though to be fair he did work extremely hard at his craft, he was diligent snd committed. Just not a very admirable human being.
The thing that amazed me is that though they were always short of money, they managed to continually travel. Also the amount of partying and drinking they all did it's a wonder that they had any brain cells left to write anything, let alone the well known novels they wrote. A veritable mystery.
Now that I have a better insight into the writing of this novel, I need to reread with new eyes.
February 20, 2025
Just when you think life is placidly going swimmingly it happens.
You're reading one of your fav apple-pie American books, and some ugly party animal prises open your bedroom door, and with much ado about nothing (in the same tone of voice as a rank Brit tabloid will tell you what REALLY happened to Princess Diana) completely Spoils Your Innocent Fun.
Well, I'm rereading The Sun Also Rises for the thirteen gadzillionth time, and Lesley Blume's inner Daemon has done just that.
She reveals the blackened warts of the REAL characters in the book.
Tell me: did I Need to know all this?!
***
Of course not!
For Hemingway has woven a fantastical fairy tale of innocence surviving the monstrous storm of life, not unlike a glittering spider’s web bending in the stormy wind and glittering intact triumphantly after the deluge!
In this delicately balanced fable of a man who loved and lost, with the sensitively wrought artwork of describing the intricacies of the man’s heart, not a brush stroke is out of place.
Hemingway says: "Look! I've made this dreamlike tale just for your delectation, to show you that your childish suspension of disbelief was like a child's 'knock, knock knocking on heaven's door...’”
" And for you it shall be OPENED. "
That's his message, subsequently desecrated and destroyed by Ms. Blume!
***
If you no longer believe in innocence you've Crossed the River Acheron to Hell.
I do and, for me, God still unveils Eden!
I've done some foolhardy things to prevent folks' daemons from desecrating my Garden. Like take their bait of induced insanity. Induced insanity in a teenaged mind can be the product of Black Souls.
Souls like my erstwhile shrink, Juan.
He wanted to force me into polymorphously perverse urges such as he had. I fought him. He lost hope and tried punishment. I temporarily lost my sanity.
Soon after, criminally convicted by another patient, Juan died a dark death.
***
So desecrating dreams, friends, seems like fun to the woke...
But the child awakened to God's immeasurable love knows Judgment invariably arrives at Everybody's Doorstep.
And if in reality “everybody behaves badly,” it means nothing to our Inner Child.
You're reading one of your fav apple-pie American books, and some ugly party animal prises open your bedroom door, and with much ado about nothing (in the same tone of voice as a rank Brit tabloid will tell you what REALLY happened to Princess Diana) completely Spoils Your Innocent Fun.
Well, I'm rereading The Sun Also Rises for the thirteen gadzillionth time, and Lesley Blume's inner Daemon has done just that.
She reveals the blackened warts of the REAL characters in the book.
Tell me: did I Need to know all this?!
***
Of course not!
For Hemingway has woven a fantastical fairy tale of innocence surviving the monstrous storm of life, not unlike a glittering spider’s web bending in the stormy wind and glittering intact triumphantly after the deluge!
In this delicately balanced fable of a man who loved and lost, with the sensitively wrought artwork of describing the intricacies of the man’s heart, not a brush stroke is out of place.
Hemingway says: "Look! I've made this dreamlike tale just for your delectation, to show you that your childish suspension of disbelief was like a child's 'knock, knock knocking on heaven's door...’”
" And for you it shall be OPENED. "
That's his message, subsequently desecrated and destroyed by Ms. Blume!
***
If you no longer believe in innocence you've Crossed the River Acheron to Hell.
I do and, for me, God still unveils Eden!
I've done some foolhardy things to prevent folks' daemons from desecrating my Garden. Like take their bait of induced insanity. Induced insanity in a teenaged mind can be the product of Black Souls.
Souls like my erstwhile shrink, Juan.
He wanted to force me into polymorphously perverse urges such as he had. I fought him. He lost hope and tried punishment. I temporarily lost my sanity.
Soon after, criminally convicted by another patient, Juan died a dark death.
***
So desecrating dreams, friends, seems like fun to the woke...
But the child awakened to God's immeasurable love knows Judgment invariably arrives at Everybody's Doorstep.
And if in reality “everybody behaves badly,” it means nothing to our Inner Child.
June 4, 2016
I requested this book because so often Hemingway is glorified and proclaimed to be such a transformative figure in modern literature. I have read other books, fiction though, about his life and also read articles on the internet about him. “The Paris Wife” by Paula Mc Clain” about Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, which dealt a lot about Hemingway’s actions towards her and the son that they shared. I have read “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Old Man and The Sea”, I really enjoyed the latter.
This book really brings to light his true nature. He was talented but so incredibly manipulative, narcissistic and cruel. Hemingway was constantly seeking out talented writers to sponsor him and be an advocate for him but in the end he was true to no one. He betrayed them all in a very vicious manner.
This book explores his relationship with Hadley and how she was a constant support for him during his early struggling years and perhaps without her he would have failed completely. The author has done exhaustive research and it shows in all of the end notes as well as the novel itself.
I am actually not a great fan of Hemingway’s work but enjoyed this novel about his life and relationships. I would recommend it to anyone who wants more insight into his life and work.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel.
This book really brings to light his true nature. He was talented but so incredibly manipulative, narcissistic and cruel. Hemingway was constantly seeking out talented writers to sponsor him and be an advocate for him but in the end he was true to no one. He betrayed them all in a very vicious manner.
This book explores his relationship with Hadley and how she was a constant support for him during his early struggling years and perhaps without her he would have failed completely. The author has done exhaustive research and it shows in all of the end notes as well as the novel itself.
I am actually not a great fan of Hemingway’s work but enjoyed this novel about his life and relationships. I would recommend it to anyone who wants more insight into his life and work.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel.
March 31, 2022
“Why did Hemingway make the portraits so literal? Ritual humiliation?”
This is well-written, well-documented and immensely readable. Blume doesn’t share any conclusions--rather lets her quotes and references tell the tale. It’s very thorough, including an epilogue telling how things turned out for each of the real-life The Sun Also Rises characters.
And these characters were definitely all real people. They were drawn so specifically that Hemingway’s (ex-) friends and many of their contemporaries realized it immediately after the book came out. Feelings were hurt, and in some cases, lives traumatized.
What a soap opera it was in real life! Lady Duff Twysden (Lady Brett Ashley), with those mischievous eyes in the cover photo, was possibly sleeping with Harold Loeb (Cohen), Pat Guthrie (Campbell) and Hemingway (Barnes) during the same period. All this, while soon-to-be Mrs. Hemingway Pauline Pfeiffer is making friends with soon-to-be ex-wife Hadley (neither of whom were represented in the book).
And though he acknowledged no debt to these mentors, he got his spare style from Ezra Pound, the Lost Generation depth (not just the quote) from Gertrude Stein, and the introductions to the two of them from Sherwood Anderson whose book Dark Laughter he viscously mocked in his parody The Torrents of Spring. And that was all before creating his first novel out of the private lives of a group of expatriate buddies (which received crucial drastic edits from F. Scott Fitzgerald by the way, that Hemingway took credit for himself). With a friend like Hemingway, you didn’t need enemies.
This is great reading for anyone interested in Hemingway and his writing process--there are enticing details about every step, from inspirations to drafts to revisions to publication. But I come away with even less respect for the man than I had before. Supposedly he had a big boyish grin that won people over, and I wonder if some of that comes through in his prose, since we seem to be attracted to it regardless of his personal nastiness.
All this supports why I like A Moveable Feast best. It’s a story about his favorite subject, the person he was kindest to and most empathetic toward: himself.
This is well-written, well-documented and immensely readable. Blume doesn’t share any conclusions--rather lets her quotes and references tell the tale. It’s very thorough, including an epilogue telling how things turned out for each of the real-life The Sun Also Rises characters.
And these characters were definitely all real people. They were drawn so specifically that Hemingway’s (ex-) friends and many of their contemporaries realized it immediately after the book came out. Feelings were hurt, and in some cases, lives traumatized.
What a soap opera it was in real life! Lady Duff Twysden (Lady Brett Ashley), with those mischievous eyes in the cover photo, was possibly sleeping with Harold Loeb (Cohen), Pat Guthrie (Campbell) and Hemingway (Barnes) during the same period. All this, while soon-to-be Mrs. Hemingway Pauline Pfeiffer is making friends with soon-to-be ex-wife Hadley (neither of whom were represented in the book).
And though he acknowledged no debt to these mentors, he got his spare style from Ezra Pound, the Lost Generation depth (not just the quote) from Gertrude Stein, and the introductions to the two of them from Sherwood Anderson whose book Dark Laughter he viscously mocked in his parody The Torrents of Spring. And that was all before creating his first novel out of the private lives of a group of expatriate buddies (which received crucial drastic edits from F. Scott Fitzgerald by the way, that Hemingway took credit for himself). With a friend like Hemingway, you didn’t need enemies.
This is great reading for anyone interested in Hemingway and his writing process--there are enticing details about every step, from inspirations to drafts to revisions to publication. But I come away with even less respect for the man than I had before. Supposedly he had a big boyish grin that won people over, and I wonder if some of that comes through in his prose, since we seem to be attracted to it regardless of his personal nastiness.
All this supports why I like A Moveable Feast best. It’s a story about his favorite subject, the person he was kindest to and most empathetic toward: himself.
July 28, 2016
This book is an absolute must for anyone out there who still believes canonical books originate from some ineffable quality like “the writing itself” or a mind more deeply attuned to genius. Everyone with a passing acquiantance of Hemingway knows what a shameless self-promoter he was. But that alone doesn’t explain how he, above any number of would-be writers who fled to Paris, emerged as the preeminent American novelist of his generation.
I was riveted by Blume’s narrative. This is a Hemingway we can recognize for the 21st century. The Sun Also Rises, a favorite of mine, originated from what is basically reality television material. I kept thinking MTV’s The Challenge as the contestants (would-be aspirants) were sent to some exotic location (Spain/the bullfights) with the winner coming away with the cash prize. There was much sex and danger in Spain during the summer of 1925, but only Hemingway thought to write it up.
Up until that point he had seduced the who’s who of Paris’s expat, literary world. Oh how they loved him in Paris, but New York’s major publishers weren’t impressed yet. Show us a novel they said. I AM THE NOVEL the man roared! Prove it they said. These ten short stories from the backwoods of Michigan should prove without a doubt that Homer is no match for me he said. Nice try genius – show us a novel.
Hemingway gets to work. In about a two-month span, after the fiesta, inspired by what he discovered, he burst the drains with a bout of nonstop writing. For the first draft he didn’t bother changing the names of the people he based his story on. Blume gives the big reveal showing what Hemingway really thought about his models for Lady Brett Ashley (he thought many of the free-spirited women who flocked to Paris were an abortionist waiting-to-happen) or Robert Cohn (a hack and a no-good Jew) and altered them for fiction, based on the story’s needs, but arguably not in significant ways. These people were devastated by his depiction of them, a fact that not surprisingly gets airbrushed out of literary history. We love the genius, not the people it steps on.
This is one of the great services Blume’s book provides: a depiction of the casualties left behind in order for an insecure man to make a name for himself. When asked later on in life if he’d do it all over again, considering the damage he’d done to people he once considered friends, he answered unequivocably “without question”.
It appears most people have come away from this book ready to pass judgment on Hemingway the man. It is not a pretty sight, the urge to do this irresistible. Blume is better than that though. She wants to understand the trade-off life pays to art. Recently in my Ferrante review I made the argument that you cannot separate the life from the art when passing literary judgment. I loved this book because Blume’s thinking is the same as mine on this question. In our insecurity we assume that if someone is passing judgment on our life our work will suffer under the weight of it. This shows little faith in others, I believe. When asked by Scott Simon on NPR if knowing the backstory to The Sun Also Rises detracts from her appreciation, Blume answered, “Knowing that it was based on a true story only adds to its allure.” Couldn’t agree more.
Every so often you get her honest opinion. When Hemingway is seen whining about how no one is giving him the recognition he feels he deserves (in all of about only five years of trying), you can feel Blume’s nerves grate, a person who spent many more years than that tucked away in the archives with no promise of a fraction of the attention Hemingway ended up receiving. At one point she describes the privileged of Hemingway’s circle on their excursions “sashaying” through Europe – but you don’t get many more tsk tsks than that.
The book raises many questions that Blume decides to leave alone. For instance, why did Hemingway view every expat around him in Paris with such contempt? Where did the supreme confidence in himself come from? Much of his writing during the 1920s had a revenge motive, so that if an editor treated him with disrespect the instinct was “I will destroy this man with my pen”: what’s up with that?
Usually this is a recipe for disaster for fiction. The Sun Also Rises is vengeful, sentimental about its vindictiveness, irresponsible, and has very little that is home-grown about it. For extraliterary reasons Blume zeroes in on, it endures.
Avant-gardism still holds great sway over those writing literary and art history, but this is often a ruse for the promotional aspect of art that academics are unwilling to confront, in the same way they like to pretend commerce and capitalism has very little to do with literary style too. Hemingway wasn’t an innovator so much as a proto-21st century celebrity. Blume, a writer for Vogue, is much better situated to address the man and the art I feel than those who are writing based on outdated realist, literary modes. To give a little of my game away here, I think her Vogue-ish author photo is totally hot.
As soon as Fitzgerald saw Hemingway’s writing he called it “the real thing”. According to who or what though? Those are the questions we ought to be asking instead of slavishly addressing a legend. Blume is not so easily flummoxed by a reputation. Bravo. And it looks like she’s now onto Fitzgerald which is great news.
I was riveted by Blume’s narrative. This is a Hemingway we can recognize for the 21st century. The Sun Also Rises, a favorite of mine, originated from what is basically reality television material. I kept thinking MTV’s The Challenge as the contestants (would-be aspirants) were sent to some exotic location (Spain/the bullfights) with the winner coming away with the cash prize. There was much sex and danger in Spain during the summer of 1925, but only Hemingway thought to write it up.
Up until that point he had seduced the who’s who of Paris’s expat, literary world. Oh how they loved him in Paris, but New York’s major publishers weren’t impressed yet. Show us a novel they said. I AM THE NOVEL the man roared! Prove it they said. These ten short stories from the backwoods of Michigan should prove without a doubt that Homer is no match for me he said. Nice try genius – show us a novel.
Hemingway gets to work. In about a two-month span, after the fiesta, inspired by what he discovered, he burst the drains with a bout of nonstop writing. For the first draft he didn’t bother changing the names of the people he based his story on. Blume gives the big reveal showing what Hemingway really thought about his models for Lady Brett Ashley (he thought many of the free-spirited women who flocked to Paris were an abortionist waiting-to-happen) or Robert Cohn (a hack and a no-good Jew) and altered them for fiction, based on the story’s needs, but arguably not in significant ways. These people were devastated by his depiction of them, a fact that not surprisingly gets airbrushed out of literary history. We love the genius, not the people it steps on.
This is one of the great services Blume’s book provides: a depiction of the casualties left behind in order for an insecure man to make a name for himself. When asked later on in life if he’d do it all over again, considering the damage he’d done to people he once considered friends, he answered unequivocably “without question”.
It appears most people have come away from this book ready to pass judgment on Hemingway the man. It is not a pretty sight, the urge to do this irresistible. Blume is better than that though. She wants to understand the trade-off life pays to art. Recently in my Ferrante review I made the argument that you cannot separate the life from the art when passing literary judgment. I loved this book because Blume’s thinking is the same as mine on this question. In our insecurity we assume that if someone is passing judgment on our life our work will suffer under the weight of it. This shows little faith in others, I believe. When asked by Scott Simon on NPR if knowing the backstory to The Sun Also Rises detracts from her appreciation, Blume answered, “Knowing that it was based on a true story only adds to its allure.” Couldn’t agree more.
Every so often you get her honest opinion. When Hemingway is seen whining about how no one is giving him the recognition he feels he deserves (in all of about only five years of trying), you can feel Blume’s nerves grate, a person who spent many more years than that tucked away in the archives with no promise of a fraction of the attention Hemingway ended up receiving. At one point she describes the privileged of Hemingway’s circle on their excursions “sashaying” through Europe – but you don’t get many more tsk tsks than that.
The book raises many questions that Blume decides to leave alone. For instance, why did Hemingway view every expat around him in Paris with such contempt? Where did the supreme confidence in himself come from? Much of his writing during the 1920s had a revenge motive, so that if an editor treated him with disrespect the instinct was “I will destroy this man with my pen”: what’s up with that?
Usually this is a recipe for disaster for fiction. The Sun Also Rises is vengeful, sentimental about its vindictiveness, irresponsible, and has very little that is home-grown about it. For extraliterary reasons Blume zeroes in on, it endures.
Avant-gardism still holds great sway over those writing literary and art history, but this is often a ruse for the promotional aspect of art that academics are unwilling to confront, in the same way they like to pretend commerce and capitalism has very little to do with literary style too. Hemingway wasn’t an innovator so much as a proto-21st century celebrity. Blume, a writer for Vogue, is much better situated to address the man and the art I feel than those who are writing based on outdated realist, literary modes. To give a little of my game away here, I think her Vogue-ish author photo is totally hot.
As soon as Fitzgerald saw Hemingway’s writing he called it “the real thing”. According to who or what though? Those are the questions we ought to be asking instead of slavishly addressing a legend. Blume is not so easily flummoxed by a reputation. Bravo. And it looks like she’s now onto Fitzgerald which is great news.
August 29, 2017
It's been a long time since I read The Sun Also Rises. I remember that the book was enjoyable, clearly written, but I couldn't figure out why it was written in the first place. I'd been to Paris and also to the bullfights and, while the experiences were interesting, they weren't write-a-book interesting. I couldn't figure out why, if you were going to dream up something to write, you couldn't liven it up a bit with some action. It put me off Hemingway for a while. Now it seems that Ernest didn't dream anything up: the book is apparently fact written as fiction...this puts everything in a new light.
I've long known that Papa put some real-life experiences in his books, but this first novel seems to have had only the names changed. Imagine the chagrin of his fellow vacationers when their antics and excesses were published for the world to read! Ms Blume delves into Hemingway's past, the circumstances pertaining to the writing and publishing of the book, and follows up on the effect the publishing of Sun had on the principals of the story. I knew Hemingway could be a bit of a knob, but I came away from the book thinking that befriending him could be virtually a guarantee of eventual betrayal when your usefulness ran out.
Great job on this book by Ms Blume; the only shortcoming being that you would benefit from reading Sun before reading this so you can grasp the extent of Hemingway's betrayal of his friends. In fact, I'm going to have to go back and tackle it again as a refresher.
I've long known that Papa put some real-life experiences in his books, but this first novel seems to have had only the names changed. Imagine the chagrin of his fellow vacationers when their antics and excesses were published for the world to read! Ms Blume delves into Hemingway's past, the circumstances pertaining to the writing and publishing of the book, and follows up on the effect the publishing of Sun had on the principals of the story. I knew Hemingway could be a bit of a knob, but I came away from the book thinking that befriending him could be virtually a guarantee of eventual betrayal when your usefulness ran out.
Great job on this book by Ms Blume; the only shortcoming being that you would benefit from reading Sun before reading this so you can grasp the extent of Hemingway's betrayal of his friends. In fact, I'm going to have to go back and tackle it again as a refresher.
February 10, 2017
I have a fascination with the Lost Generation (see my shelves). This was the perfect addition. Book tells the story of Hemingway's friendships and writing processes throughout his early to mid career. Very informative
I've never found him that enthralling, but my interest is piqued. The author does a splendid job of telling tales.
I've never found him that enthralling, but my interest is piqued. The author does a splendid job of telling tales.
November 4, 2017
This book was very well written though I did not enjoy the content.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
April 9, 2020
Fairly interesting account of how Hemingway used his friends and associates as the characters in his debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, without their knowledge. It also details his reprehensible behavior while living abroad in Paris. His alcohol consumption didn't help matters. I liked the discussions of his writing techniques and his approach to the craft. At any rate, I'm glad I finally read the story behind the creation of The Sun Also Rises after reading it so many times in graduate school years ago.
September 17, 2023
Everybody Behaves Badly is more of a detailed biography of Ernest Hemingway than it is a book about a book. It’s a Hemingway biography written for Hemingway aficionados. It was written for those who have read Jeffrey Meyers’ 750-page tome on Hemingway but thought that more detail was in order. Now they have the details of Hemingway’s life in Paris in the 1920s.
The content concerning The Sun Also Rises seems almost happenstance. One of the things that I have come to know about Hemingway is that his life is always just below the surface of each of his novels. Hemingway and his gang of Parisian expatriates all lived their lives together, and those lives were transformed into Hemingway’s famous first novel. Lesley Blume, through extensive and thorough research weaves those lives together around Hemingway and consequently tells the backstory of The Sun Also Rises.
I found the lives that were detailed in this book interesting but too trivial to stoke a genuine biographical interest. In fact, knowing Hemingway is about the only interesting thing about these people. Following the inadvertent playing of their parts, they all faded back into obscurity as Hemingway moved on in his career. As such, dwelling on these people’s lives was a bit tedious to endure at times.
One aspect of this book that I enjoyed, however, was the effort involved in Hemingway’s development of his unique style of writing. Rather than just being an instinct or an embedded talent, he had to work at it. Everybody Behaves Badly tells of his efforts, describes the goal of producing something entirely new in literary expression, and describes the extraordinary amount of work Hemingway had to invest into a relatively short novel. It was that process, more than the biographical content of Everybody Behaves Badly, that captured my interest. But then again, I’m more of a Hemingway fan than I am an aficionado.
The content concerning The Sun Also Rises seems almost happenstance. One of the things that I have come to know about Hemingway is that his life is always just below the surface of each of his novels. Hemingway and his gang of Parisian expatriates all lived their lives together, and those lives were transformed into Hemingway’s famous first novel. Lesley Blume, through extensive and thorough research weaves those lives together around Hemingway and consequently tells the backstory of The Sun Also Rises.
I found the lives that were detailed in this book interesting but too trivial to stoke a genuine biographical interest. In fact, knowing Hemingway is about the only interesting thing about these people. Following the inadvertent playing of their parts, they all faded back into obscurity as Hemingway moved on in his career. As such, dwelling on these people’s lives was a bit tedious to endure at times.
One aspect of this book that I enjoyed, however, was the effort involved in Hemingway’s development of his unique style of writing. Rather than just being an instinct or an embedded talent, he had to work at it. Everybody Behaves Badly tells of his efforts, describes the goal of producing something entirely new in literary expression, and describes the extraordinary amount of work Hemingway had to invest into a relatively short novel. It was that process, more than the biographical content of Everybody Behaves Badly, that captured my interest. But then again, I’m more of a Hemingway fan than I am an aficionado.
April 15, 2025
Definitely one of the best Hemingway bios I've read. This is in part due Blume's focus on Hemingway's development as a writer up to and through the writing of "The Sun Also Rises." Blume shows a young Hemingway working hard to make himself a great writer, even a revolutionary one whose enormous influence is still seen today. Blume also shows a man who quickly develops along with his success into a moral monster. Blume isn't out to "get" Hemingway, since his own actions gets himself. I suppose I knew much of this already from longer biographies, but to see him in cruel action and in such tight focus is kind of stunning. Hemingway, great writer that he was becoming, was also a betraying backstabbing son-of-a-bitch. And this included, at one time or another, nearly everyone who moved in his circles. The mental cruelty he put his first wife Hadley through, while he openly courted his soon to be second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer (who he would also betray), is just unbelievable. He would years later rip his friends for encouraging this "evil" activity. That's some serious chutzpah. Fitzgerald would later tell Max Perkins (I think) that Hemingway would probably change women with each major book. That turned out to be accurate.
Anyway, I'm spending too much space discussing Hemingway's toxic personality. (And Blume does point out early that one reason this didn't sink him with his friends was that Hemingway was always a real charmer. He could talk, but he could listen attentively.) That aside, Blume really does bring a lot of attention to Hemingway's style of writing and how it came about. Gertrude Stein, yes. Ezra Pound, yes. But also the boot camp-like training he got as a journalist which helped to form that amazing stripped down style that always suggested so much more. Also important was the changing landscape of publishing in fueling Hemingway's success. Hemingway was, eventually, after a few hard years of struggle, a lucky man, soon to be meeting the right people at the right time. Max Perkins would agree.
Anyway, I'm spending too much space discussing Hemingway's toxic personality. (And Blume does point out early that one reason this didn't sink him with his friends was that Hemingway was always a real charmer. He could talk, but he could listen attentively.) That aside, Blume really does bring a lot of attention to Hemingway's style of writing and how it came about. Gertrude Stein, yes. Ezra Pound, yes. But also the boot camp-like training he got as a journalist which helped to form that amazing stripped down style that always suggested so much more. Also important was the changing landscape of publishing in fueling Hemingway's success. Hemingway was, eventually, after a few hard years of struggle, a lucky man, soon to be meeting the right people at the right time. Max Perkins would agree.
March 27, 2016
Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story of Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises is a fascinating biography by Lesley M. M. Blume, though it is more the biography of Ernest Hemingway’s book than merely a biography of Hemingway. In telling the story of the creation and publication of The Sun Also Rises, Blume also tells the story of post World War I Paris, the ex-pat culture that developed there and of course, the vibrant, virile and explosive Hemingway.
Some might think it easier to admire Hemingway if you know nothing of him, but if you read his books, there is the bra honest, this relentless violent vigor that informs any astute reader that the author is no choir boy. He writes like a hard man and that is what he was. I have read other books about that time including most recently Villa America by Liza Klaussmann and Carl Rollyson’s biography of Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn. Still, I found Blume’s exploration of Hemingway’s seeking out mentors, sponsors, and advocates, all of whom he betrayed viciously was disturbing. He was so manipulative and cruel.
Of course, I knew this. I knew The Sun Also Rises was not just the first of a new kind of writing, but also a betrayal of friends and colleagues. I did not know how thoroughly and completely he betrayed them though. His charisma must have been something almost otherworldly, the way that people forgave him and made peace with him again and again when he did unforgivable things.
I also appreciated how this book restores a lot of dignity and grace to Hadley, his first wife, who is often portrayed as unworthy by literary biographers. Not by Hemingway. Even if he done her wrong, he still admired her all his life and A Movable Feast reveals that deep, abiding love. Blume never treats her with the subtle disparagement that is common with those more taken by this more fashionable, more independent wives. Instead, she recognizes that without Hadley, there might never have been a Hemingway the author. She supported him with uncomplaining loyalty through all the years when he was struggling and poor and was cast off the instant he achieved his dreams. Blume never lets that be okay.
Most of the time, I ignore the end notes unless I am looking for something specific, but that would be a mistake with Everybody Behaves Badly. The endnotes are full of little stories and additional information and skipping them would be a crime. They read like the tittle-tattle and gossip of the cognoscenti. I loved them so much that I read them after each section while the text was still fresh.
I enjoyed Everybody Behaves Badly very much. I have long loved Hemingway’s work. I carried some of his books with me when I went to Spain. I made a pilgrimage to Restaurante Botín, his favorite restaurant in Madrid, and ordering his favorite meal, cochinillo asado with rioja alta and getting very, very drunk. I learned new things about Hemingway, many of them unpleasant which is par for the course with him. But, I also learned a lot about how he came to be the writer he was, how hard he worked at his craft and how very deliberately he developed and evolved his writing style. It was fascinating and inspiring which is exactly what a biography should be.
This is a review of an Advance Reader Copy won in a Goodreads Giveaway. The book will be published June 7th.
Everybody Behaves Badly from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Some might think it easier to admire Hemingway if you know nothing of him, but if you read his books, there is the bra honest, this relentless violent vigor that informs any astute reader that the author is no choir boy. He writes like a hard man and that is what he was. I have read other books about that time including most recently Villa America by Liza Klaussmann and Carl Rollyson’s biography of Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn. Still, I found Blume’s exploration of Hemingway’s seeking out mentors, sponsors, and advocates, all of whom he betrayed viciously was disturbing. He was so manipulative and cruel.
Of course, I knew this. I knew The Sun Also Rises was not just the first of a new kind of writing, but also a betrayal of friends and colleagues. I did not know how thoroughly and completely he betrayed them though. His charisma must have been something almost otherworldly, the way that people forgave him and made peace with him again and again when he did unforgivable things.
I also appreciated how this book restores a lot of dignity and grace to Hadley, his first wife, who is often portrayed as unworthy by literary biographers. Not by Hemingway. Even if he done her wrong, he still admired her all his life and A Movable Feast reveals that deep, abiding love. Blume never treats her with the subtle disparagement that is common with those more taken by this more fashionable, more independent wives. Instead, she recognizes that without Hadley, there might never have been a Hemingway the author. She supported him with uncomplaining loyalty through all the years when he was struggling and poor and was cast off the instant he achieved his dreams. Blume never lets that be okay.
Most of the time, I ignore the end notes unless I am looking for something specific, but that would be a mistake with Everybody Behaves Badly. The endnotes are full of little stories and additional information and skipping them would be a crime. They read like the tittle-tattle and gossip of the cognoscenti. I loved them so much that I read them after each section while the text was still fresh.
I enjoyed Everybody Behaves Badly very much. I have long loved Hemingway’s work. I carried some of his books with me when I went to Spain. I made a pilgrimage to Restaurante Botín, his favorite restaurant in Madrid, and ordering his favorite meal, cochinillo asado with rioja alta and getting very, very drunk. I learned new things about Hemingway, many of them unpleasant which is par for the course with him. But, I also learned a lot about how he came to be the writer he was, how hard he worked at his craft and how very deliberately he developed and evolved his writing style. It was fascinating and inspiring which is exactly what a biography should be.
This is a review of an Advance Reader Copy won in a Goodreads Giveaway. The book will be published June 7th.
Everybody Behaves Badly from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
July 2, 2016
I found the most interesting character in this book to be Lady Duff Twysden, the sultry, gold digging, hard-drinking, sexy, fun-loving, witty, free-spirited women (the kind that all bad boys desire) who Hemingway wanted but could never have: As a scorned, would be paramour, he trashed her in the “The Sun Also Rises” and criticized her at every turn subsequently. She mostly alluringly ignored his schoolboy attacks, thus infuriating “Hem” for a lifetime until he finally shot himself. She hooked up with the disinherited son of a Texas candy firm and lived essentially peacefully in a carefree, commune-style, “hippy” venue in New Mexico-- mainly happy and vibrant to the end (although she did have a bout with tuberculous). She is the diva of the book.
Lesley M. M. (really?) Blume very interestingly, details the life of Hemingway and his fellow temporary expatriates mainly in Paris in the 1920's where there was “a small movement of writers [who] had been trying to shove literature out of [the] musty Edwardian corridors and into the fresh air of the modern world.” Along the way she writes of the accomplishments of Gertrude Stein (Hemingway “borrowed the term “Lost Generation” from her), F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda (comparable to Duff but not as enticing), Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, and others, and their influence on Hemingway. To be sure, Hemingway is outed as a narcissist (if not psychopathic) user of those who helped him along the way-- including his first wife-- but eventually everyone who crossed his path. The book is very detailed (read the end notes-- well, some of them) and yet reads like a racy novel. Can't recommend it enough.
Lesley M. M. (really?) Blume very interestingly, details the life of Hemingway and his fellow temporary expatriates mainly in Paris in the 1920's where there was “a small movement of writers [who] had been trying to shove literature out of [the] musty Edwardian corridors and into the fresh air of the modern world.” Along the way she writes of the accomplishments of Gertrude Stein (Hemingway “borrowed the term “Lost Generation” from her), F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda (comparable to Duff but not as enticing), Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, and others, and their influence on Hemingway. To be sure, Hemingway is outed as a narcissist (if not psychopathic) user of those who helped him along the way-- including his first wife-- but eventually everyone who crossed his path. The book is very detailed (read the end notes-- well, some of them) and yet reads like a racy novel. Can't recommend it enough.
August 23, 2016
I've read The Sun Also Rises exactly once, in college American Lit, and I thought it was pretty good at the time. That college edition has been sitting on my bookshelf for all the time since, and while I haven't reread it, I was satisfied I knew what I was on about. Then I saw this book and decided it sounded fun and thought I would read it, and then maybe The Sun Also Rises again. I suppose the main title should have tipped me off that maybe I wasn't going to relish this experience as much as I thought, though perhaps it might have been more accurately titled as "Hemingway is an Asshole to Everyone." Sure, maybe Fitzgerald was wholly absorbed in drinking himself to death, but at least he wasn't using everyone around him to selfishly advance his own star and then and maligning them on his way to discarding them. Over and over again, Hemingway used people for entrée and favors, and then dropped them as soon as he had what he wanted, which leaves me in the awkward position of endeavoring to separate what I think of the author and what I think of his work. I'll probably still reread the novel, but I don't think the experience will be quite the same with the weight of this history to accompany it.
I think that Blume did an excellent job with the book. She seems to have put an admirable amount of work into the research, the writing was good, and I like that she included follow-ups on all of the people that made it into the novel, as well as capturing how much their lives were altered by becoming Hemingway's characters. I'd recommend this.
I think that Blume did an excellent job with the book. She seems to have put an admirable amount of work into the research, the writing was good, and I like that she included follow-ups on all of the people that made it into the novel, as well as capturing how much their lives were altered by becoming Hemingway's characters. I'd recommend this.
August 24, 2020
Oh no, you say.. Not another Hemingway book. Well, yes and no. I’ve read many books about him and written by him. Despite his bad personal reputation I still see him as a major American writer. Still admire the genius of his great books.
This is as much the true story of his first acclaimed novel, The Sun Also Rises, as it is about the publishing world, the inspiration, the struggle, the friendships and connections, rivalries and betrayal, and hurdles and luck of getting published.
The characters are real and alive as hell and the times between the wars are depicted in detail. Icons are smashed and heroes rise up. As for Hemingway ? He is exquisitely depicted as the slightly crazed, egotistical and even cruel person that he was. A complete conundrum in personality.
As to his genius? For me,it stayed in one piece..
A terrific read. The kind you read slowly to make it last.
This is as much the true story of his first acclaimed novel, The Sun Also Rises, as it is about the publishing world, the inspiration, the struggle, the friendships and connections, rivalries and betrayal, and hurdles and luck of getting published.
The characters are real and alive as hell and the times between the wars are depicted in detail. Icons are smashed and heroes rise up. As for Hemingway ? He is exquisitely depicted as the slightly crazed, egotistical and even cruel person that he was. A complete conundrum in personality.
As to his genius? For me,it stayed in one piece..
A terrific read. The kind you read slowly to make it last.
June 27, 2024
A mogli go wywieźć na taczkach z tego Paryża, a nie wywieźli... (je t'adore, Ernest)
I would rather not have any biography and let the readers and the critics make up their own lies.
Doceniona dziennikarka i historyczka Lesley M.M. Blume zgłębia genezę powstania pierwszej ważnej powieści Ernesta Hemingwaya, noszącej tytuł Słońce też wschodzi (w nowym przekładzie Macieja Potulnego pojawiającej się jako Słońce zaś wschodzi). Historia opublikowana w 1926 roku stała się natychmiastowym sukcesem wydawniczym, rozsławiła nazwisko autora, wprowadziła termin straconego pokolenia i spaliła za sobą kilka mostów. To, opatrzona cytatem biblijnym oraz słowami Gertrude Stein, opowieść o grupie przyjaciół i kochanków wybierającej się na hiszpańską fiestę; w powieści dominują motywy romansu, zdrady, uprzedzeń, kryzysu moralności oraz walki na śmierć i życie. Publikacja niosła ze sobą nowe treści i świeże spojrzenie na młode pokolenie, skalane już katastrofą pierwszej wojny światowej i próbującej odnaleźć własne miejsce w rzeczywistości pod dramacie, świecie, który bardzo chce ruszyć do przodu, ale jeszcze nie wyzdrowiał. Hemingway z na wpół szczerej pozycji cynika zdaje świadectwo z tego, czego doświadczył, i tym ruchem zrzuca z siebie część ciężaru. Stało się to, ponieważ, jak pokazuje nam Everybody Behaves Badly, chociaż nazwiska zostały zmienione, a wydarzenia powieści poddane fabularyzacji i działaniu fikcji, to Słońce zaś wschodzi jest pewnym udokumentowaniem prawdziwej fiesty, afery i życia Hemingwaya i jego przyjaciół. Niektórzy uczestnicy skandalu posunęli się do tezy, że to nie dzieło literackie, zaledwie reportaż. Pod główną postacią Jake'a Barnesa kryje się sam autor, rozdarta wewnętrznie Brett Ashley to tak naprawdę bywalczyni salonów Lady Duff Twysden, Robert Cohn to maska dla daleko aspirującego Harolda Loeba.
Lesley M.M. Blume uważnie rozpatruje czynniki kierujące bohaterów powieści do tego pamiętnego tygodnia fiesty oraz konsekwencje tej publikacji dla ich dalszego życia. Bardzo doceniłam te wątki, gdyż nad samym Słońce zaś wschodzi pochylałam się tyle razy, a znając jego historię nigdy nie poświęciłam pierwowzorom dłuższej chwili. Ich biografie zainteresowały mnie i poruszyły; znalazłam w nich drugie dno znanej już historii. Podoba mi się też sposób, w jaki autorka poddała analizie samego głównego bohatera reportażu i autora powieści, Hemingwaya. Pasjonuję się jego postacią od lat i widziałam go w kilku obliczach; naprawdę zdaję sobie sprawę, jak złożonym i niełatwym był człowiekiem. Myślę, że Blume świetnie uchwyciła jego wielowymiarową biografię i głośną, urzekającą oraz pełną wewnętrznych sprzeczności osobowość. Tak samo wspaniale poradziła sobie ze scenami bezbronności w związku i domu Hemingwayów. Odkryła również, jakie konsekwencje dla reputacji autora i jego miejsca w literaturze miała publikacja tej całkiem nowej książki. Cieszyłam się z tej lektury i dowiedziałam się o kilku nowych dla mnie faktach oraz wątkach biograficznych uchwyconych postaci. Jako miłośniczka Scotta Fitzgeralda oraz osoba zainteresowana jego więzią z Hemingwayem, doceniłam również fragmenty o jego wkładzie w Słońce zaś wschodzi. Autorka opowiedziała historię wczesnych lat ich znajomości w sposób subtelny a przenikliwy, pełen ciepła (taką czerpałam z niej uciechę, że aż przebierałam nogami). Blume dokonała świetnej pracy badawczej i dziennikarskiej, bez trudu przechodziłam przez kolejne strony książki. Wątki historii pojawiały się i schodziły prawie jak w kalejdoskopie, a jednak pozostawały w perspektywie i zostawiały swój ślad na ogólnej narracji i punkcie widzenia czytelnika. Czasami miałam wrażenie, że ton jest trochę... plotkarski, ale nie w negatywnym odcieniu tego słowa, podążający za sensacją. Jednak pewnie jest to coś związanego z doświadczeniem dziennikarza, no i idealnie pasuje do przedstawianej historii.
To ładny tytuł, prawda? Everybody Behaves Badly. Słowa oryginalnie napisane przez Hemingwaya w powieści, przejęte przez Blume jako główne motto jej publikacji. Zdanie zawierające w sobie zarówno moc winy i napiętnowania, jak i siły łagodzące. Bo to tylko świadectwo, tylko prawda, tylko rozrachunek. Kiedy się to wyzna, można już sobie wybaczyć i spróbować żyć dalej.
"I once asked him: so, if you had it to do over, would you have been softer?" Hotchner recalled.
"Oh, hell no," Hemingway replied.
PS. This is not literally true and I don't want it established as part of the Hemingway legend. - Scott Fitzgerald
I would rather not have any biography and let the readers and the critics make up their own lies.
Doceniona dziennikarka i historyczka Lesley M.M. Blume zgłębia genezę powstania pierwszej ważnej powieści Ernesta Hemingwaya, noszącej tytuł Słońce też wschodzi (w nowym przekładzie Macieja Potulnego pojawiającej się jako Słońce zaś wschodzi). Historia opublikowana w 1926 roku stała się natychmiastowym sukcesem wydawniczym, rozsławiła nazwisko autora, wprowadziła termin straconego pokolenia i spaliła za sobą kilka mostów. To, opatrzona cytatem biblijnym oraz słowami Gertrude Stein, opowieść o grupie przyjaciół i kochanków wybierającej się na hiszpańską fiestę; w powieści dominują motywy romansu, zdrady, uprzedzeń, kryzysu moralności oraz walki na śmierć i życie. Publikacja niosła ze sobą nowe treści i świeże spojrzenie na młode pokolenie, skalane już katastrofą pierwszej wojny światowej i próbującej odnaleźć własne miejsce w rzeczywistości pod dramacie, świecie, który bardzo chce ruszyć do przodu, ale jeszcze nie wyzdrowiał. Hemingway z na wpół szczerej pozycji cynika zdaje świadectwo z tego, czego doświadczył, i tym ruchem zrzuca z siebie część ciężaru. Stało się to, ponieważ, jak pokazuje nam Everybody Behaves Badly, chociaż nazwiska zostały zmienione, a wydarzenia powieści poddane fabularyzacji i działaniu fikcji, to Słońce zaś wschodzi jest pewnym udokumentowaniem prawdziwej fiesty, afery i życia Hemingwaya i jego przyjaciół. Niektórzy uczestnicy skandalu posunęli się do tezy, że to nie dzieło literackie, zaledwie reportaż. Pod główną postacią Jake'a Barnesa kryje się sam autor, rozdarta wewnętrznie Brett Ashley to tak naprawdę bywalczyni salonów Lady Duff Twysden, Robert Cohn to maska dla daleko aspirującego Harolda Loeba.
Lesley M.M. Blume uważnie rozpatruje czynniki kierujące bohaterów powieści do tego pamiętnego tygodnia fiesty oraz konsekwencje tej publikacji dla ich dalszego życia. Bardzo doceniłam te wątki, gdyż nad samym Słońce zaś wschodzi pochylałam się tyle razy, a znając jego historię nigdy nie poświęciłam pierwowzorom dłuższej chwili. Ich biografie zainteresowały mnie i poruszyły; znalazłam w nich drugie dno znanej już historii. Podoba mi się też sposób, w jaki autorka poddała analizie samego głównego bohatera reportażu i autora powieści, Hemingwaya. Pasjonuję się jego postacią od lat i widziałam go w kilku obliczach; naprawdę zdaję sobie sprawę, jak złożonym i niełatwym był człowiekiem. Myślę, że Blume świetnie uchwyciła jego wielowymiarową biografię i głośną, urzekającą oraz pełną wewnętrznych sprzeczności osobowość. Tak samo wspaniale poradziła sobie ze scenami bezbronności w związku i domu Hemingwayów. Odkryła również, jakie konsekwencje dla reputacji autora i jego miejsca w literaturze miała publikacja tej całkiem nowej książki. Cieszyłam się z tej lektury i dowiedziałam się o kilku nowych dla mnie faktach oraz wątkach biograficznych uchwyconych postaci. Jako miłośniczka Scotta Fitzgeralda oraz osoba zainteresowana jego więzią z Hemingwayem, doceniłam również fragmenty o jego wkładzie w Słońce zaś wschodzi. Autorka opowiedziała historię wczesnych lat ich znajomości w sposób subtelny a przenikliwy, pełen ciepła (taką czerpałam z niej uciechę, że aż przebierałam nogami). Blume dokonała świetnej pracy badawczej i dziennikarskiej, bez trudu przechodziłam przez kolejne strony książki. Wątki historii pojawiały się i schodziły prawie jak w kalejdoskopie, a jednak pozostawały w perspektywie i zostawiały swój ślad na ogólnej narracji i punkcie widzenia czytelnika. Czasami miałam wrażenie, że ton jest trochę... plotkarski, ale nie w negatywnym odcieniu tego słowa, podążający za sensacją. Jednak pewnie jest to coś związanego z doświadczeniem dziennikarza, no i idealnie pasuje do przedstawianej historii.
To ładny tytuł, prawda? Everybody Behaves Badly. Słowa oryginalnie napisane przez Hemingwaya w powieści, przejęte przez Blume jako główne motto jej publikacji. Zdanie zawierające w sobie zarówno moc winy i napiętnowania, jak i siły łagodzące. Bo to tylko świadectwo, tylko prawda, tylko rozrachunek. Kiedy się to wyzna, można już sobie wybaczyć i spróbować żyć dalej.
"I once asked him: so, if you had it to do over, would you have been softer?" Hotchner recalled.
"Oh, hell no," Hemingway replied.
PS. This is not literally true and I don't want it established as part of the Hemingway legend. - Scott Fitzgerald
July 20, 2016
I heard the author interviewed on NPR talking about the real life events that inspired Ernest Hemingway to write The Sun Also Rises. Having read it for 20th Century American Literature in my first year in college, I wanted to get the story behind the story.
Even though, as the author says, everyone behaves badly in the book, I still have a romantic view of the clique of expatriate writers and artists living in shabby apartments getting together to discuss art and literature while drinking wine and pernod in chic little cafes in the Left Bank.
And while that did go on, Blume relates the fraught relationships and the backstabbing as well.
Hemingway was married at the time, living off of his wife Hadley's modest trust fund. More than anything he wanted to be a Great Writer, even though he'd never had anything published aside from his journalist dispatches for the Toronto Star. His goal was to change literature as it was known, to bring it kicking and screaming into the 20th century.
His only problem? He hadn't come up with anything to write about. He had some short stories, and the start of a novel, but he wasn't getting anywhere. He hung out with lots of authors like Donald Ogden Stewart, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald and of course, Gertrude Stein. He talked about writing. He cultivated publishers, he also drank a lot.
Then a brash, beautiful hard drinking English woman named Lady Duff Twysden came to Paris and joined the crowd. Hemingway organized a trip to Spain for the bull fights, including Twysden and his tennis buddy, wealthy Princeton grad Harold Loeb. There was drinking, bullfights, jealousy, wise cracks and tempers flaring.
Hemingway had his first novel. The result became required reading for college freshman everywhere.
Reading about the real people behind the characters was fun, as well as seeing this early version of Hemingway before he was Hemingway...even though that was his intention all along.
It's no surprise that he comes off as a real jerk sometimes--cruel, arrogant, anti-Semitic and always striving to live up to his ideal of manliness (boxing, bull fights, fishing and big-game hunting).
Blume also gives a recap of what happened to the real life characters after the book came out. Some did far better than others.
It's a very well reseached work and while the prose drags a bit in pages, I'd recommend it to anyone who's ever taken a 20th Century American Lit class. That is to say everyone.
Even though, as the author says, everyone behaves badly in the book, I still have a romantic view of the clique of expatriate writers and artists living in shabby apartments getting together to discuss art and literature while drinking wine and pernod in chic little cafes in the Left Bank.
And while that did go on, Blume relates the fraught relationships and the backstabbing as well.
Hemingway was married at the time, living off of his wife Hadley's modest trust fund. More than anything he wanted to be a Great Writer, even though he'd never had anything published aside from his journalist dispatches for the Toronto Star. His goal was to change literature as it was known, to bring it kicking and screaming into the 20th century.
His only problem? He hadn't come up with anything to write about. He had some short stories, and the start of a novel, but he wasn't getting anywhere. He hung out with lots of authors like Donald Ogden Stewart, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald and of course, Gertrude Stein. He talked about writing. He cultivated publishers, he also drank a lot.
Then a brash, beautiful hard drinking English woman named Lady Duff Twysden came to Paris and joined the crowd. Hemingway organized a trip to Spain for the bull fights, including Twysden and his tennis buddy, wealthy Princeton grad Harold Loeb. There was drinking, bullfights, jealousy, wise cracks and tempers flaring.
Hemingway had his first novel. The result became required reading for college freshman everywhere.
Reading about the real people behind the characters was fun, as well as seeing this early version of Hemingway before he was Hemingway...even though that was his intention all along.
It's no surprise that he comes off as a real jerk sometimes--cruel, arrogant, anti-Semitic and always striving to live up to his ideal of manliness (boxing, bull fights, fishing and big-game hunting).
Blume also gives a recap of what happened to the real life characters after the book came out. Some did far better than others.
It's a very well reseached work and while the prose drags a bit in pages, I'd recommend it to anyone who's ever taken a 20th Century American Lit class. That is to say everyone.
June 29, 2016
Blume's book is a very well-researched 'history' of how Hemingway wrote 'The Sun Also Rises": He essentially took a non-fiction account of going to bullfights and fiestas with the friends he had at the time and changed everyone's names - without bothering to change easily identifiable characteristics. For all Hemingway's fame and position in American letters, I've never been a huge fan. I am less so, after reading how he turned on former mentors and friends, in some cases quite cruelly. I actually read this book because of an article Blume wrote for "The Paris Review", in which she described developing a crush on F. Scott Fitzgerald while researching his role in this stage of Hemingway's life. I've loved Fitzgerald relentlessly for decades. Blume has good taste!
June 27, 2016
Hugely enjoyable, plus I loved the author's writing style.
March 5, 2017
My favorite non-fiction is non-fiction about fiction.
June 27, 2016
An astonishing highly charged and extremely entertaining read: “Everybody Behaves Badly The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises” is authored by Lesley M.M. Blume, an award winning journalist and cultural historian, her work has been featured in several notable publications including the NYT and Vanity Fair, she lives in Los Angeles.
Ernest Hemingway was 22 years old when he and his wife Hadley arrived in Paris, as a journalist for the Toronto Star he was a serious dedicated writer with the ambition for literary fame. Hemingway was known for his extreme masculinity and had an irresistible charismatic charm that appealed to both men and women. Cultivating literary friendships that would include Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, F. Scott Fitzgerald, other writers, editors and publishers. Hemingway was mentored and advised on how to develop his writing skills, his friends greatly supported his writing in every way possible. However, it was really shocking the extent that Hemingway totally used his friendships in what Blume highlighted as “literary fodder” in both novels “The Torrents of Spring” (1926) and more heavily in “The Sun Also Rises” (1926).
Wealthy American and British expats flocked to Paris in the 1920’s with the low favorable exchange rate, it was a popular affordable destination for living abroad. The Parisian social and cultural atmosphere was open and tolerant of expats who abandoned families for artistic or literary pursuits, engaged in extramarital affairs , or perhaps , recovering from messy divorces. Hadley had a modest trust fund that the Hemingway’s relied on, their wealthy friends were shocked at their poverty and meager living arrangements as Hemingway was always the mover and shaker loving to be the center of attention. He goaded his friends to join him in the bullring in Pamplona, Spain, or a round or so of boxing. The socialites were pretty, rich, and usually involved in multiple romantic entanglements.
Lady Duff Twysden arrived in Paris with her male companion Pat Guthrie, believed to be a closeted homosexual. There was always an entourage of men who followed her constantly, attempting to gain her attention or favor. Although she had numerous lovers, it was never truly known if she was ever romantically involved with Hemingway. Scholars speculate she may have spurned his advances, inspiring his frustration in a negative unflattering portrayal in his novel. Hemingway in a later interview seemed unable to separate Lady Duff Tywsden’s real characteristics from the fictional one he created for her as Lady Brett Ashley.
Hemingway betrayed numerous close loyal friends who overlooked his serious character flaws and supported all his efforts in authorship, he seldom if ever returned their consideration or showed interest in their literary pursuits. He finally discarded his loyal loving wife Hadley, who had sacrificed years of her young life to promote and encourage him and his writing. F. Scott Fitzgerald accurately predicted that Hemingway would likely change wives with the arrival of a new bestselling book. Blume’s revelatory book sheds additional insight to the intrigue and complexities of legendary Hemingway-- naturally, he never said in interviews If he regretted any of his rude, unethical and ungentlemanly conduct. Pages of great historical photos included.
~ With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
Ernest Hemingway was 22 years old when he and his wife Hadley arrived in Paris, as a journalist for the Toronto Star he was a serious dedicated writer with the ambition for literary fame. Hemingway was known for his extreme masculinity and had an irresistible charismatic charm that appealed to both men and women. Cultivating literary friendships that would include Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, F. Scott Fitzgerald, other writers, editors and publishers. Hemingway was mentored and advised on how to develop his writing skills, his friends greatly supported his writing in every way possible. However, it was really shocking the extent that Hemingway totally used his friendships in what Blume highlighted as “literary fodder” in both novels “The Torrents of Spring” (1926) and more heavily in “The Sun Also Rises” (1926).
Wealthy American and British expats flocked to Paris in the 1920’s with the low favorable exchange rate, it was a popular affordable destination for living abroad. The Parisian social and cultural atmosphere was open and tolerant of expats who abandoned families for artistic or literary pursuits, engaged in extramarital affairs , or perhaps , recovering from messy divorces. Hadley had a modest trust fund that the Hemingway’s relied on, their wealthy friends were shocked at their poverty and meager living arrangements as Hemingway was always the mover and shaker loving to be the center of attention. He goaded his friends to join him in the bullring in Pamplona, Spain, or a round or so of boxing. The socialites were pretty, rich, and usually involved in multiple romantic entanglements.
Lady Duff Twysden arrived in Paris with her male companion Pat Guthrie, believed to be a closeted homosexual. There was always an entourage of men who followed her constantly, attempting to gain her attention or favor. Although she had numerous lovers, it was never truly known if she was ever romantically involved with Hemingway. Scholars speculate she may have spurned his advances, inspiring his frustration in a negative unflattering portrayal in his novel. Hemingway in a later interview seemed unable to separate Lady Duff Tywsden’s real characteristics from the fictional one he created for her as Lady Brett Ashley.
Hemingway betrayed numerous close loyal friends who overlooked his serious character flaws and supported all his efforts in authorship, he seldom if ever returned their consideration or showed interest in their literary pursuits. He finally discarded his loyal loving wife Hadley, who had sacrificed years of her young life to promote and encourage him and his writing. F. Scott Fitzgerald accurately predicted that Hemingway would likely change wives with the arrival of a new bestselling book. Blume’s revelatory book sheds additional insight to the intrigue and complexities of legendary Hemingway-- naturally, he never said in interviews If he regretted any of his rude, unethical and ungentlemanly conduct. Pages of great historical photos included.
~ With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
January 26, 2020
I am not a huge Hemingway fan, and honesty, I forget the reason I picked this up. But it is a very readable book without any white washing. Blume focuses just as well as those people who surrounded Hemingway as well as Papa himself.
March 5, 2017
If you already don't like Hemingway for the usual - arrogant misogynist wrapped in he-man leopard skins - you will probably love this book. If he is a literary hero to you, you may change your mind.
Author Lesley Blume appears to be impartial in the beginning but as the book gets into the meat of things you get the idea she may have been rubbing her hands together whenever she unearthed a new, less than flattering tidbit. Some of it is very funny just due to the fact that Hemingway hung out with some very creative, witty, outrageous folks such as Dorothy Parker, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos and Harold Loeb.
On writing about the relationship between Hemingway and Ford Madox Ford - "while Ford was a highly esteemed writer, he could also be distinctly ridiculous. He seemed almost predestined for a wicked Hemingway parody. Thanks to his rotundity and a fringe of blond hair that drooped from his upper lip, Ford was frequently likened to a walrus. Being embraced by him was like being "the toast under the poached egg," said one writer.
No doubt 'The Sun Also Rises' was a breakthrough novel. Stripped down writing, 'bad' language and sexual content really gave the publishing house fits and in-fighting. Nothing like 'The Sun' had ever been published by a major house before. His writing changed France and Spain into hot, romantic tourist meccas particularly for Americans and swelled the number of ex-pats.
There is a straight line through the book showing Hemingway's shrewd, narcissistic, emotionally reactive personality. I wouldn't call him a misogynist as much as he had an equal opportunity attitude towards men and women in terms of backstabbing, a true believer in the means justify the end. People like Sherwood Anderson and Harold Loeb who had only been kind and opened doors for him found themselves parodied and cruelly criticized.
This is an entertaining, extremely well researched book and a big window into the 1920's literary world.
Author Lesley Blume appears to be impartial in the beginning but as the book gets into the meat of things you get the idea she may have been rubbing her hands together whenever she unearthed a new, less than flattering tidbit. Some of it is very funny just due to the fact that Hemingway hung out with some very creative, witty, outrageous folks such as Dorothy Parker, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos and Harold Loeb.
On writing about the relationship between Hemingway and Ford Madox Ford - "while Ford was a highly esteemed writer, he could also be distinctly ridiculous. He seemed almost predestined for a wicked Hemingway parody. Thanks to his rotundity and a fringe of blond hair that drooped from his upper lip, Ford was frequently likened to a walrus. Being embraced by him was like being "the toast under the poached egg," said one writer.
No doubt 'The Sun Also Rises' was a breakthrough novel. Stripped down writing, 'bad' language and sexual content really gave the publishing house fits and in-fighting. Nothing like 'The Sun' had ever been published by a major house before. His writing changed France and Spain into hot, romantic tourist meccas particularly for Americans and swelled the number of ex-pats.
There is a straight line through the book showing Hemingway's shrewd, narcissistic, emotionally reactive personality. I wouldn't call him a misogynist as much as he had an equal opportunity attitude towards men and women in terms of backstabbing, a true believer in the means justify the end. People like Sherwood Anderson and Harold Loeb who had only been kind and opened doors for him found themselves parodied and cruelly criticized.
This is an entertaining, extremely well researched book and a big window into the 1920's literary world.
January 12, 2024
There is really not much about Hemingway’s life left unknown. He entered the public arena certainly by 1925 and has remained there even after his 1961 suicide. New books about Hemingway, his works and his times may add details to the picture but do not change the defining colors and shapes.
That said, Lesley Blume’s Everybody Behaves Badly is still an enjoyable read. In a single volume, Blume provides the reader with a comprehensive, one volume view of the social and personal backgrounds to The Sun Also Rises. And she does that by returning to many of the primary sources ---letters, interviews, memoirs --- to authenticate with fresh eyes Hemingway's 1925 Paris and Pamplona.
The work is well-researched and well-written. The photo section is excellent, including photos of the principle characters of the period. An epilogue provides information on the endings of the major character prototypes. And, there is an index.
Read in conjunction with Hemingway’s masterpiece, you will come away further enriched with an understanding of the time, the place and the people behind and within the novel even if you have been down the road before.
That said, Lesley Blume’s Everybody Behaves Badly is still an enjoyable read. In a single volume, Blume provides the reader with a comprehensive, one volume view of the social and personal backgrounds to The Sun Also Rises. And she does that by returning to many of the primary sources ---letters, interviews, memoirs --- to authenticate with fresh eyes Hemingway's 1925 Paris and Pamplona.
The work is well-researched and well-written. The photo section is excellent, including photos of the principle characters of the period. An epilogue provides information on the endings of the major character prototypes. And, there is an index.
Read in conjunction with Hemingway’s masterpiece, you will come away further enriched with an understanding of the time, the place and the people behind and within the novel even if you have been down the road before.
abandoned
September 29, 2016No rating for this one, as I'm returning to Audible at about 1/3 through. I knew going in that Hemingway was not a particularly attractive character, but I hadn't realized what a truly selfish, vicious, antisemitic jerk he was. So far the book has been (or at least felt like it's been) an unbroken series of descriptions of Hemingway behaving nastily to his "friends," reports of conversations or excerpts from letters in which Hemingway complains that his genius is not properly appreciated, accounts of Hemingway treating his wife like dirt, etc. What I hoped for here was interesting stories about the expatriate community in Paris in the 1920's, but, for me, this is too narrowly focused on Hemingway, and he turns out to be even less appealing to me than I'd expected. Oh well.
March 13, 2016
A fascinating read. Everbody Behaves Badly presents the people and events leading to the creation and publication of The Sun Also Rises and everyone does, indeed, behave badly. I was especially interested in the depiction of the New York publishing scene at the time.
June 27, 2016
Well, I have been slogging through this book for over a week now, and, honestly, I am almost finished with it, but I am calling it quits. The way Hemingway treated, really, everyone in his life is just bringing me down. I'm not sure that even his incredible talent justified that.
October 10, 2023
If you are interested in the minutiae of the Lost Generation, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, ex-pats in Paris, then this is great. If you're looking for the gossip and drama of this group's relationships, marriages, affairs, novels, and publishing woes, then this is great.
If you are, however, looking for a more novel-like non-fiction book where you follow a more traditional plot arch or if you don't already know a lot about the Murphy's, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, etc. then this maybe isn't for you.
Maybe a tad on the long and windy side but I will read anything about this group.
If you are, however, looking for a more novel-like non-fiction book where you follow a more traditional plot arch or if you don't already know a lot about the Murphy's, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, etc. then this maybe isn't for you.
Maybe a tad on the long and windy side but I will read anything about this group.
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