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The Importance of Not Being Ernest: My Life with the Uninvited Hemingway
Discover Hemingway’s biography through the eyes of a fellow author and journalist. New York Times bestselling author of Salt, Mark Kurlansky turns his historical eye to the life of Ernest Hemingway. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, The Importance of Not Being Ernest shows the huge shadow Hemingway casts.
By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky’s life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway’s death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway’s and Kurlansky’s lives, resulting in creative accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with Mark Kurlansky and Ernest Hemingway in this personal memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten years in Paris and his time as a journalist in Spain—both cities important to Hemingway’s adventurous life and prolific writing.
Paris, Basque Country, Havana and Idaho. Get to know the extraordinary people he met there—those who had also fallen under the Hemingway spell, including a Vietnam veteran suffering from the same syndrome the author did, two winners of the Key West Hemingway look-alike contest, and the man in Idaho who took Hemingway hunting and fishing.
In this unique gift for writers, find:
A memoir full of entertaining and illuminative stories
Little-known historical facts about Hemingway’s life
Anecdotes about those who suffer from what the Kurlansky calls “hemitis”
Readers of biography books about writers such as Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America, or The Boys will love The Importance of Not Being Ernest.
By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky’s life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway’s death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway’s and Kurlansky’s lives, resulting in creative accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with Mark Kurlansky and Ernest Hemingway in this personal memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten years in Paris and his time as a journalist in Spain—both cities important to Hemingway’s adventurous life and prolific writing.
Paris, Basque Country, Havana and Idaho. Get to know the extraordinary people he met there—those who had also fallen under the Hemingway spell, including a Vietnam veteran suffering from the same syndrome the author did, two winners of the Key West Hemingway look-alike contest, and the man in Idaho who took Hemingway hunting and fishing.
In this unique gift for writers, find:
A memoir full of entertaining and illuminative stories
Little-known historical facts about Hemingway’s life
Anecdotes about those who suffer from what the Kurlansky calls “hemitis”
Readers of biography books about writers such as Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America, or The Boys will love The Importance of Not Being Ernest.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 18, 2022
29 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
About the author
Mark Kurlansky
65 books1,968 followersMark Kurlansky is an American journalist and author who has written a number of books of fiction and nonfiction. His 1997 book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), was an international bestseller and was translated into more than fifteen languages. His book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006) was the nonfiction winner of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
July 13, 2022
To Be or Not To Be Ernest
Review of the Books & Books Press hardcover edition (May 31, 2022)
[3.5 rounded up]
This is a curious sort of hybrid memoir. Author Kurlansky (1948-) surveys his own life in parallel with that of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) by describing his own visits to locations associated with Hemingway, usually 50 or 60 years after the original events. These are primarily about time spent in Paris France, in Basque country in Spain, in Havana Cuba and in Ketchum Idaho USA.
Kurlansky was obviously following in Hemingway's footsteps in many ways, although he takes pains to try to disassociate his own life from that of Ernest, as evident in the book's title. This is often a myth-breaking survey of Hemingway. It is always pointing out where the larger-than-life author invented his own mythology and spun increasingly wild hyperbolic tales of his adventures.
I still enjoyed it for the most part. Kurlansky obviously did a lot of research as shown in the 5 & 1/2 pages of bibliographic references that he provides at the backend. There are some contradictions and oversights though which will hit a wrong note with Papaphiles. Early in the book, Kurlansky describes Hemingway's suicide as having taken place behind his Ketchum, Idaho home on the river bank. Later in the book he repeats the standard history of it occurring inside the house's front door vestibule. I've never heard the outside version before, and don't know which of the bibliographic sources is its origin. Kurlansky seems puzzled by why Hemingway wrote The Torrents of Spring (1926) to mock his early mentor Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)'s book Dark Laughter (1925) and he doesn't report the conventionally accepted theory that the book was a contract breaker in order to leave his publisher Boni & Liveright and to join Scribner's. Those sorts of issues will leave the impression that the research was very superficial.
The most interesting revelation for me was that much of Hemingway's early Spain experiences were in the Northeastern part of the country in Basque territory, especially his attendance at the running of the bulls and the bullfights in Pamplona. Little of Basque culture is ever mentioned in Hemingway's own books though, whereas Kurlansky has had a long association with the people & culture (c.f. The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation (1999).
Still, I think most Papaphiles will enjoy this survey, especially if they don't view the iconic earlier author through rose-coloured glasses.
Statue of Ernest Hemingway at the El Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba. Image sourced from Wikipedia
Review of the Books & Books Press hardcover edition (May 31, 2022)
[3.5 rounded up]
This is a curious sort of hybrid memoir. Author Kurlansky (1948-) surveys his own life in parallel with that of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) by describing his own visits to locations associated with Hemingway, usually 50 or 60 years after the original events. These are primarily about time spent in Paris France, in Basque country in Spain, in Havana Cuba and in Ketchum Idaho USA.
Kurlansky was obviously following in Hemingway's footsteps in many ways, although he takes pains to try to disassociate his own life from that of Ernest, as evident in the book's title. This is often a myth-breaking survey of Hemingway. It is always pointing out where the larger-than-life author invented his own mythology and spun increasingly wild hyperbolic tales of his adventures.
I still enjoyed it for the most part. Kurlansky obviously did a lot of research as shown in the 5 & 1/2 pages of bibliographic references that he provides at the backend. There are some contradictions and oversights though which will hit a wrong note with Papaphiles. Early in the book, Kurlansky describes Hemingway's suicide as having taken place behind his Ketchum, Idaho home on the river bank. Later in the book he repeats the standard history of it occurring inside the house's front door vestibule. I've never heard the outside version before, and don't know which of the bibliographic sources is its origin. Kurlansky seems puzzled by why Hemingway wrote The Torrents of Spring (1926) to mock his early mentor Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)'s book Dark Laughter (1925) and he doesn't report the conventionally accepted theory that the book was a contract breaker in order to leave his publisher Boni & Liveright and to join Scribner's. Those sorts of issues will leave the impression that the research was very superficial.
The most interesting revelation for me was that much of Hemingway's early Spain experiences were in the Northeastern part of the country in Basque territory, especially his attendance at the running of the bulls and the bullfights in Pamplona. Little of Basque culture is ever mentioned in Hemingway's own books though, whereas Kurlansky has had a long association with the people & culture (c.f. The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation (1999).
Still, I think most Papaphiles will enjoy this survey, especially if they don't view the iconic earlier author through rose-coloured glasses.
Statue of Ernest Hemingway at the El Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba. Image sourced from Wikipedia
July 9, 2022
While I was drawn to this book by its occasional insights into Hemingway and his background, the theme is off-putting: It's about where and when Kurlansky crossed paths with Hem's writings or locales.
So, we get the author gassing on about Pamplona and Havana, since Hem lived there, or what life is like in Ketchum Idaho, where he and Hem both lived though at different times in their lives. Heck the author even fly fishes, and what do you know, Hem did that too! (I wonder if the author likes wine or women?)
So, the theme is contrived and the writing only somewhat strong, as travel writing or lit analysis goes.
So, we get the author gassing on about Pamplona and Havana, since Hem lived there, or what life is like in Ketchum Idaho, where he and Hem both lived though at different times in their lives. Heck the author even fly fishes, and what do you know, Hem did that too! (I wonder if the author likes wine or women?)
So, the theme is contrived and the writing only somewhat strong, as travel writing or lit analysis goes.
July 4, 2022
I really liked Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, Salt: A World History, and Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man, but this sort-of biography was disappointing. It also felt hastily put together, with lots of typos and missing punctuation.
May 22, 2023
Interesting perspective on how some of us can't escape Hemingway . . . Kurlansky has a large number of apparently random connections to EH--Spain, Cuba, Idaho, fishing. I have a few myself--Spain, Idaho, fly fishing. Kurlansky interviewed many people in support of his main thesis--that there are no two people that see EH the same way, that he harbored a large number of baffling contradictions and thoroughly inconsistent perspectives. For example, he loved Cuba, but his Finca there was an homage to Spain. He loved being called an expert boxer (he wasn't) and loved being called a "soldier"--he never served. He did carry a firearm as a journalist in WWII--that's the kind of thing that could not only get a fellow killed but also put at risk other journalists.
In the 1980s, I spent a week with my father at an Alaskan fly-out fishing lodge--Hemingway's son Jack was there; he and my father were about the same age. Jack was finishing his autobiography at the time. At dinner one night, he told the story of reading "Islands in the Stream." He's reading along, and there's a young man which is clearly modeled on Jack--portrayed as tall, smart, attractive, all that. Jack said, "Gee, I guess dad must like me pretty well!" And then he turns the page and is killed. Hmmmm . . . the giant father figure of the 20th century kills his son in a book--interesting to hear this story with my own father there. Anyway, killing your beloved first-born in a book--another contradiction.
I was just in Key West--a place crawling with the presence of EH even if it's mainly all about the naïveté of tourists and generally false or exaggerated iconography of and about him. The presence of EH cannot be escaped even if the trappings are only marginally accurate.
EH is maybe a little like the Spanish Civil War. I'm by no means a scholar on the subject, but it does seem as if the more one knows about it, the less one knows--massive contradictions and and inconsistencies. So it is with EH. The closing lines of the book run as follows. (EH) "left something of himself in the ether wherever he went. while the man has been gone more than sixty years, the presence he left behind still remains. It seems there is no escaping it. Most of the millions of Hemingway fans in France, Spain, Cuba, Idaho and everywhere else do not have the confusion of having known him. The mythical Hemingway is much easier to grasp--flowers, liquor, or pen?"
In the 1980s, I spent a week with my father at an Alaskan fly-out fishing lodge--Hemingway's son Jack was there; he and my father were about the same age. Jack was finishing his autobiography at the time. At dinner one night, he told the story of reading "Islands in the Stream." He's reading along, and there's a young man which is clearly modeled on Jack--portrayed as tall, smart, attractive, all that. Jack said, "Gee, I guess dad must like me pretty well!" And then he turns the page and is killed. Hmmmm . . . the giant father figure of the 20th century kills his son in a book--interesting to hear this story with my own father there. Anyway, killing your beloved first-born in a book--another contradiction.
I was just in Key West--a place crawling with the presence of EH even if it's mainly all about the naïveté of tourists and generally false or exaggerated iconography of and about him. The presence of EH cannot be escaped even if the trappings are only marginally accurate.
EH is maybe a little like the Spanish Civil War. I'm by no means a scholar on the subject, but it does seem as if the more one knows about it, the less one knows--massive contradictions and and inconsistencies. So it is with EH. The closing lines of the book run as follows. (EH) "left something of himself in the ether wherever he went. while the man has been gone more than sixty years, the presence he left behind still remains. It seems there is no escaping it. Most of the millions of Hemingway fans in France, Spain, Cuba, Idaho and everywhere else do not have the confusion of having known him. The mythical Hemingway is much easier to grasp--flowers, liquor, or pen?"
April 16, 2023
An uneven one. I happened across this in Waterstone’s and was drawn to the humorous title. It’s a beautiful hardback edition, with soft touch cover and lovely colour reproductions of the author’s own paintings. I had never heard of Mark Kurlansky and never read Hemingway (or really knew much about him beyond him being a very famous writer, a drinker and that he had lived in Havana [I visited with my family as a teenager and stayed at the Ambos Mundos], which I appreciate makes me sound rather ignorant).
I read the book very quickly. The author covers a lot of ground over the course of a relatively short book and I found it a pleasurable way to while away the hours in a comfy armchair on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There was so much in here that I knew very little about so for me it was fascinating and I found myself talking about it a lot and sharing little nuggets of information and perspectives with others as I was reading. I loved some of the writing (e.g. descriptions of Parisian food markets, the beautiful Basque landscape, the mechanics of the Gulf Stream) but found it oddly clunky and meandering in other parts. Overall a hard one to place and I’m not sure who I would recommend it to, if anyone. But a book that I’m glad I read and can see myself dipping in and out of again in future.
Another oddity for me, given the effort that went into the beautifully presented edition was that there were so many typos and typesetting issues. I passed over this at first as they didn’t really get in the way of my comprehending the text, but definitely started to grate the more I read on. Often, there were several on a single page. Where was the proof-reading…?
Overall, this was very much up my alley as I am a bit of a dabbler and like learning about this and that. 3.5* rounded down to 3, but a very enjoyable 3. I will probably give Mark Kurlansky a whirl again, maybe some of his food writing as I particularly enjoyed these parts of the book.
I read the book very quickly. The author covers a lot of ground over the course of a relatively short book and I found it a pleasurable way to while away the hours in a comfy armchair on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There was so much in here that I knew very little about so for me it was fascinating and I found myself talking about it a lot and sharing little nuggets of information and perspectives with others as I was reading. I loved some of the writing (e.g. descriptions of Parisian food markets, the beautiful Basque landscape, the mechanics of the Gulf Stream) but found it oddly clunky and meandering in other parts. Overall a hard one to place and I’m not sure who I would recommend it to, if anyone. But a book that I’m glad I read and can see myself dipping in and out of again in future.
Another oddity for me, given the effort that went into the beautifully presented edition was that there were so many typos and typesetting issues. I passed over this at first as they didn’t really get in the way of my comprehending the text, but definitely started to grate the more I read on. Often, there were several on a single page. Where was the proof-reading…?
Overall, this was very much up my alley as I am a bit of a dabbler and like learning about this and that. 3.5* rounded down to 3, but a very enjoyable 3. I will probably give Mark Kurlansky a whirl again, maybe some of his food writing as I particularly enjoyed these parts of the book.
December 8, 2022
Papa, Hem, Mr Way, Ernie, no matter what name he’s given, Hemingway is truly immortal. And he’s possibly the most “biographied” author in history. Which is why Mark Kurlansky’s book comes as a surprise in that it’s a fresh and revelatory picture of the man behind the legend.
Described as an “Ernest Hemingway biography like no other”, the book goes beyond the iconography to capture the humanity of a multi-faceted, deeply complex individual of unarguable brilliance. Hemingway’s flaws and personal idiosyncrasies have been dissected and pawed over ad infinitum by everyone with real knowledge and without. Kurlansky obviously can't ignore these characterisations and while he doesn’t attempt to whitewash them, he suggests they’ve often been exaggerated and embroidered in the service of the sensationalist exposé.
Kurlansky explores the parallels and intersections between his own life and Hemingway’s, not the least being that he worked as a writer and journalist in many of the places Hemingway variously lived, such as Paris, Spain, Basque country, Havana, Key West, Idaho and New York.
A new sympathetic perspective on Hemingway that’s especially relevant given Kurlansky’s insightful angles on a writer's life - his own as intriguing, albeit less neon-lit than Hemingway’s.
Described as an “Ernest Hemingway biography like no other”, the book goes beyond the iconography to capture the humanity of a multi-faceted, deeply complex individual of unarguable brilliance. Hemingway’s flaws and personal idiosyncrasies have been dissected and pawed over ad infinitum by everyone with real knowledge and without. Kurlansky obviously can't ignore these characterisations and while he doesn’t attempt to whitewash them, he suggests they’ve often been exaggerated and embroidered in the service of the sensationalist exposé.
Kurlansky explores the parallels and intersections between his own life and Hemingway’s, not the least being that he worked as a writer and journalist in many of the places Hemingway variously lived, such as Paris, Spain, Basque country, Havana, Key West, Idaho and New York.
A new sympathetic perspective on Hemingway that’s especially relevant given Kurlansky’s insightful angles on a writer's life - his own as intriguing, albeit less neon-lit than Hemingway’s.
July 3, 2023
I really liked this book a lot. It's part memoir and part (mostly) a Hemingway biography. Kurlansky structures it in terms of all the places that Hemingway’s and Kurlansky’s lives have intersected. Not really intersected, since Hemingway died when Kurlansky ws 12 — but there are many places that both authors visited or lived in. It’s an innovative way to write a biography and Kurlansky does a great job of showing how complex a character Hem was and how impossible it is to summarize his life one way or another. Kurlansky has an interesting style that kept me hooked, even when I thought I could do with a little less detail. I had to keep reading. I also appreciated all the details about Basques (people, language, history), since I've visited both French and Spanish Basque country several times.
I’d have given it five stars, but for the egregious lack of line editing — something Kurlansky could and should have done it himself if the publisher wasn’t doing it. There are frequent words left out of sentences (even a famous book title), changes of tense in the middle of sentences, and my personal pet peeve: “off of” when “off” is correct and sufficient.
I’d have given it five stars, but for the egregious lack of line editing — something Kurlansky could and should have done it himself if the publisher wasn’t doing it. There are frequent words left out of sentences (even a famous book title), changes of tense in the middle of sentences, and my personal pet peeve: “off of” when “off” is correct and sufficient.
March 4, 2023
So easy to read on a subject I don’t normally read about. If you follow my reviews you know I don’t normally read non fiction.
This is a kind of memoir of the writers life and how it sometimes runs parallel to Hemingway’s like a road running parallel with a railroad, sooner or later you will encounter a train. The book revisits Basque Country takes us to Paris, Spain, Cuba and Idaho. Very enjoyable and I read much of it aloud to my bedridden wife. She enjoyed also.
It has reignited for me a want to read Hemingway again and I have ordered The Sun Also Rises.
This is a kind of memoir of the writers life and how it sometimes runs parallel to Hemingway’s like a road running parallel with a railroad, sooner or later you will encounter a train. The book revisits Basque Country takes us to Paris, Spain, Cuba and Idaho. Very enjoyable and I read much of it aloud to my bedridden wife. She enjoyed also.
It has reignited for me a want to read Hemingway again and I have ordered The Sun Also Rises.
September 3, 2022
This book is a mix of autobiography and biography. Mark Kurlansky found that many of the key places in his life as a journalist and author were also key places in the life of Ernest Hemingway. The book explores Hemingway's life in Paris, Spain, Cuba, and Ketchum, Idaho. Kurlansky then compares his life to Hemingway's in those same places some 20 years later. I enjoyed his exploration of Hemingway's personality in all these places.
January 21, 2025
I really like this author‘s books. And I liked this one with the exploration of his life and Hemingway’s life. I thought it was really beautifully intertwined. And it introduced me to some events in history that I didn’t know about and elaborated on others. There were some errors in the digital format that were annoying so my rating lost a star because of those mistakes.
June 21, 2022
A light book for Kurlansky, delving into his life alongside a sometimes annoying legend of Papa Hemingway.
It allowed me a chance to share with my dad (both fans of Kurlansky and fishing and to varying degrees Hem) and get my dad writing some of his own memoirs.
Not sure you can ask for more.
It allowed me a chance to share with my dad (both fans of Kurlansky and fishing and to varying degrees Hem) and get my dad writing some of his own memoirs.
Not sure you can ask for more.
June 23, 2022
A great introduction to someone who knows only the basic outline of Hemingway's life. I generally dislike books whose authors inject themselves into the story, but somehow Kurlansky, whose non-fiction I love, pulls it off.
September 17, 2022
If you love Hemingway and the writers activie during his lifetime, this book pulls back the curtain on some other events and activities that were part of that scene and also re-visits some long=accepted stories and myths about Hemingway and his life. Fascinating.
April 21, 2023
I've always enjoyed Mark Kulansky's histories. Until recently, I didn't see them as food writing, although he's been rewarded with many prizes for such. The Basque History of the World is a favorite. So I was surprised while trolling that I had not seen this book about how his life tracked with, or didn't track with, Papa Hemingway. It's not really a biography - many great authors like Carlos Baker have done this. But it's his take on the author maybe more famous for living life to its fullest, and then ending it abruptly.
July 7, 2023
“Listening to these scholars I couldn't help wondering if they are going to run out of material. For all his events and the different chapters of his life, the places, the wives, and lovers, it really was a short life. Sixty years is not a lot.”
November 4, 2024
I absolutely loved this book. What gorgeous insight into one of the world’s most famous writers and his many complexities. I learned so much about the context that Hemingway and other greats of the time were in and inspired by. Highly recommend!
April 28, 2022
Appealing to travel fans and Hemingway fans.
This was an ARC.
This was an ARC.
October 24, 2022
Interesting look at the life of Hemingway and that period of history.
December 31, 2022
I couldn't finish this. The central device of the author's life intersections with Hemingway's quickly became tiring and not particularly interesting. It was also poorly edited & fact checked.
June 10, 2023
Learned more about Hemingway. Learned more about Kurlansky. Learned more about Paris, Spain, Cuba, and Idaho. - And it was pretty enjoyable along the way!
Want to read
September 10, 2024Seems a odd mash up of biography and memoir and that intrigues me
December 5, 2024
Listened to on audio - an engaging story for a road trip!
July 1, 2022
Excellent book!
Just a note: I don’t believe in 5 Star reviews. They should be saved for authors like, as luck would have it, Ernest Hemingway. I am a fan of Mr. Kurlansky and this is another fine effort.
Just a note: I don’t believe in 5 Star reviews. They should be saved for authors like, as luck would have it, Ernest Hemingway. I am a fan of Mr. Kurlansky and this is another fine effort.
December 4, 2022
5/21/22 WSJ had an interesting review
Nov 2022
This is an interesting memoir that's 40% about Hemingway and 60% about the author. It's an interesting contrast about places Hemingway lived and how Kurlansky experienced them. If you're a Hemingway neophyte, as I am, it's super interesting about his like.
I'm inspired to read Kurlansky's book about the Basque country from it, The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation. That's a good vote for this book and the author.
Nov 2022
This is an interesting memoir that's 40% about Hemingway and 60% about the author. It's an interesting contrast about places Hemingway lived and how Kurlansky experienced them. If you're a Hemingway neophyte, as I am, it's super interesting about his like.
I'm inspired to read Kurlansky's book about the Basque country from it, The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation. That's a good vote for this book and the author.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews