It is a marvelous thing, to complete something. As I've done many times before, and as I long to do thousands of times in the future, I finished a book in its entirety and I sat it down. A surreal and focusing thing. As per usual, I would find hours in the middle when I would hurry through passages and arcs, and then have the opposite feeling at the end.
With Hemingway's Boat, I lamented the final few pages turning. I feel of the whole that it was a part Sri Yoganada's other which gave unto myself. This is undoubtedly the feeling that Roosh wanted for me. He wanted me to feel a masculine inspiration and education from a great man that did great things.
Paul Hendrickson, a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, who has written several award-winning pieces of nonfiction, has written about Hemingway, in a way (to my untrained eye) that reminds me of the way Hemingway wrote.
A description of the way Hemingway wrote has been called the "iceberg theory," in that you only see a fraction. A famous example is the "Snows of Kilimanjaro," a tragedy about a man, Harry, who has found himself dying while dissatisfied with the events of his life. Instead of writing about Harry trying to escape the painful minutiae of his life, Hemingway instead writes the details that Harry focuses on in lieu, showing you, only the tip of the iceberg, but leading to a more powerful, fuller understanding of the whole.
Hendrickson has done something similar with his biography of Papa. (although he and others may disagree) He has written the story of the man, focusing on details here and there, chasing rabbits across time and space, at times departing from Hemingway by decades and thousands of miles to tell his story. The central detail, about which the book revolves, is, of course, Pilar, Hemingway's beloved fishing boat.
All of the chapters and rabbit holes and wild goose chases begin on, end at, or encounter that boat.
Soon after the beginning, we learn of Hemingway's desire for a boat. He had corresponded to friends and family for years (a lot of the details of the story came from Hemingway's personal letters, about which he was devoted to the style, manner, and constancy) about wanting the boat before he ever got it. And the boat came to him at just the time when the world had opened, displaying its pearl to the author.
Hendrickson followed the shipmakers, and the wives, and the traveling companions, and the rivals, and the friends turned foes (of whom there were many), and the lovers, and the lifelong bosom buddies of the man off into their own stories so that we can understand how they came to be with Hemingway on that boat.
The boat was made into a powerful metaphor for that which Hemingway loved, for not only could it soothe the man in his most famously negative spirals, but his relationship with it showed a telling insight into his mind, mood and creativity.
In his final few months, right about the time Hemingway found himself unable to write a single sentence, and would soon elect, in the masculine, Hemingway-tradition, to end his own life before it could be taken from him, his visits to his precious Pilar occurred more and more seldom.
Reviews of the book, (which almost unanimously claim it to be spectacular) use the term, "heartbreaking," frequently in their descriptions.
I made it through 98% of the book without a broken heart. I relished it, and felt deeply many of the events within it. I felt inspired, empathetic, and connected, even through the many tragedies, but not once did I feel heartbroken, until page 604. Throughout the entirety of the book, Hendrickson had been careful to include writing from Hemingway himself. He shared Ernest's penchant for simple, masculine description, how he was so invested into detail and observation, and in his writing, and even note-keeping on accounts and so forth, he was painstakingly transparent of the details. He wrote about them in such a way that he didn't paint the picture for the reader, he gave them the paintbrush and told them what to paint.
But on page 604, very near the twilight of Papa's life, he went on a journey from Key West to Ketchum, and kept the barest of notes. Their simplicity was startling, as if another man had written them, or a same man who had given up.
"It was as if the observer of the natural world, whose emphasis had always been on what could be seen and felt, never noticed a bird, a sunset, a tree, a dog, a mountain, let alone a passing car, or another human being."
The book was heartbreaking, as well as inspiring and educational. It has planted seeds in my mind, some of which I will discard into nothingness, others will grow into impassable oaks. I am not now, nor will I ever be, the same, because of Hemingway's boat.
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