If you're like me, your first exposure to "Papa" Ernest Hemingway was reading "The Old Man and the Sea" in eighth grade and absolutely loathing it. I won't give away the plot, but suffice it to say that in 127 pages, nothing at all seemed to happen, and yet it still won him a Pulitzer. Fortunately, I gave Hemingway another chance in high school, when I read "A Farewell to Arms" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls." My knowledge about Hemingway himself was limited to two things; that he wore a lot of fisherman sweaters, and that he killed himself. I may have also known vaguely that he was a war correspondent. But choosing to learn more about Hemingway is falling into a rabbit hole; the man had an insane life. What follows are the facts that nobody ever told you about "Papa."
1. He hated his first name. The hyper-masculine Hemingway thought that people probably associated him with the protagonist of "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde, and he deemed both the character and author far too effeminate for his liking.
2. He wrote 47 different endings to "A Farewell to Arms." When George Plimpton, editor of the Paris Review and a friend of Hemingway's, asked him what the reason for so many different endings was, Hemingway told him, "Getting the words right." The alternate endings were discovered by his grandson Sean Hemingway, as he went through his grandfather's papers. If you're interested, Scribner's published the novel with 39 alternative endings. You can buy it here.
3. Hemingway was in more than one car crash in his time. After one fender-bender, he came to the hospital with a broken arm. The doctor used kangaroo ligaments to bind the bones back together.
4. He was a bit of a danger magnet. In 1954, he chartered a flight over the Congo, as a treat for his wife, but the plane crashed, injuring them both. The next day, they boarded a second plane bound for Entebbe, where they could receive medical care -- and that plane crashed as well. Papers got wind of the two plane crashes with many erroneously believing that Hemingway was dead and publishing obituaries in tribute.
5. While functioning as a war correspondent in France during the Second World War, Hemingway violated the Geneva Convention. As the army pushed toward Paris, Hemingway became the leader of a group of villager’s intent on fighting back against their German invaders. He was brought up on formal charges since journalists are not allowed to lead soldiers into combat, but Hemingway avoided punishment by stating that he only gave advice, but never direction.
6. Despite the plane crashes, car crashes, motorcycle crash and involvement in both world wars and the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway's most noticeable scar came from a less dignified source. While in a bathroom in Paris, he pulled a chain that he mistakenly believed would flush the toilet. It actually controlled the skylight, which promptly came crashing down on his head, leaving a scar. For the rest of his life, when people asked about the scar, he was reluctant to discuss it.
7. He loved boxing so much that he had a private ring built in his backyard, which his wife turned into a swimming pool, for a mere twenty thousand dollars. Hemingway was so annoyed by the expense that he threw a penny on the deck of the pool, telling her, "You've spent all but my last penny, so you might as well have that." Today, the penny remains embedded in the concrete near the pool.
8. His third wife was Martha Gellhorn, one of the most famous war correspondents of the twentieth century. To give you an idea of her beat, she was the only woman to land at Normandy on D-Day. She left Hemingway in part because he refused to get her a press pass for the plane taking journalists to London to cover the war. Gellhorn was forced to sail across the Atlantic on a ship full of explosives, and when she arrived in London, broke things off with Hemingway, who was in the hospital with a concussion after another car crash.
9. He had a ton of cats, including a six-toed one named Snowball, given to him a ship's captain. (In fact, he loved this cat so much that the group of felines are now known as Hemingway cats, and Snowball's descendants live at the Hemingway house in Key West.) He gave his cats great names, including Fatso, Friendless, Spendthrift and Barbershop. He once wrote, "I have taught Friendless to drink with me (whisky and milk) but even that doesn't take the place of a wife and family."
10. He was good friends with James Joyce and the two used to go out drinking together quite a lot. Joyce would get smashed and pick fights with other bar patrons, but would then be too drunk to stand, let alone fight, so he would say, "Deal with him, Hemingway." And Papa would.
