Four Days: Am I Slipping?

Ernest Hemingway, never one to doubt his talent, nonetheless peeved—sarcastically, of course—that he “must be slipping” because four whole days had gone by without someone anthologizing his short story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”

Like many of you, I first encountered his writing when I was in high school. Since then, I’ve read, I believe, everything he wrote—what was published, anyway. I have gone through “phases” of him:  He’s been my favorite writer, I’ve utterly detested him and everything in between. These days, I appreciate some of his work—including “Kilimanjaro” and “The Sun Also Rises”—and feel “meh” about other stuff, such as “Old Man and the Sea” and most of his posthumously-published writings. Somehow I think that’s a healthy attitude to have about almost any “major” or “important” writer.

(I am convinced that more people lie about having read “Moby Dick” than any other novel and bluff their way through dinner-party discussions by paraphrasing “Old Man.”)

Anyway, I mention that possibly-apocryphal comment from Hemingway because of the “four days.” That’s how long it’s been since I’ve been on one of my bicycles. I haven’t even commuted or run errands, let alone ridden for fun or fitness.

No, I haven’t crashed. (Keeps fingers crossed.) Wednesday evening, I felt unusually tired after pedaling home from work. “Maybe I’m getting old after all,” I thought.

That was one time denial about aging might have done me some good. After entering my apartment, the next thing I remember is waking up Thursday, my head pulsing with pain as I coughed.  Since then, I’ve been ejecting gunk that makes me wonder whether the Environmental Protection Agency will declare my respiratory system a toxic site.

A couple of my neighbors claim that riding my bike is “all” I do. I can understand their perception: They probably haven’t seen me enter or leave the building without my bike. So, after four days without riding, will my reputation as a perpetual cyclist “slip?@

Red Cross + FIVE = Help For Homebound Italians

What does FIVE have in common with one of America's most famous writers?

It's not the number of novels said writer published.  You may have surmised as much because FIVE is capitalized.  

In fact, FIVE stands for Fabbrica Italiana Veicoli Elettrici, or the association of Italian Electric Vehicle Manufacturers.  (In Italian, FIVE is pronounced "fee-vay.")  They have been supplying electric bikes for a project called "Tempo della Gentilezza" ("Time for Kindness"), which delivers--in a sustainable "green" way-- essential services and goods to homebound elderly and immunodeficient people.  

Tempo della Gentilezza is a Red Cross project.  That brings me to my connection with a famous American writer.  A Farewell to Arms is based on its author's experience driving a Red Cross ambulance for the Italian Army during World War I.

We don't hear much about the vehicle Ernest Hemingway piloted.  I assume, perhaps wrongly, that it was made in Italy, like the e-bikes used in the Tempo project.  Now, I know Hemingway was a cyclist (and an avid bicycle racing fan), but I have to admit it's a bit of a stretch to picture him on an eBike.  Or is it? 

The Moveable Feast Of Bicycle Racing

Recently, I mentioned Ernest Hemingway in one of my classes.  Not a single student had heard of him, let alone read any of his works.

I have very mixed feelings about that.  On one hand, I'm appalled that they'd gotten to college without knowing about one of the most famous American writers.  On the other, I'm not so sorry, as I've gone through periods of absolutely loathing him (the man as well as the work) for the all-but-complete absence of credible, let alone substantial, female characters and the testosterone-soaked world he created and image he projected.

Then again, there is an economy and precision in his language that few other writers have equaled--and which, ironically, makes him easy to parody.  And for all that he glorified masculine pursuits, few writers have shown war-weariness from a combatant's point of view as well as he did.  

Whether I've loved or hated him, there is one work of his I always loved:  A Moveable Feast, which was published posthumously.  Even after having lived in Paris and enjoyed a few extended visits in the City of Light, I am still moved by his descriptions of his life there.  Also, I always had the sense that if he ever let his guard down as a writer, he did so in writing that book.

If he was capable of sighing, he did it in that book.  In particular, he expresses regret--and seems almost apologetic--in talking about one topic about which he couldn't write: bicycle racing.

One of the things that all of those English teachers never mentioned while they were ramming The Snows of Kilimanjaro and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place down the throats of my generation was that, while in Paris, he became a big fan of bicycle racing and that he was an active cyclist through much of his life.  A friend of his, Mike Ward, introduced him to it after giving up betting on horse racing because, he said, he'd found something better in bicycle racing. 

 

Hemingway similarly became enamored of two-wheeled pursuits after turning his attentions away from the trotters.  Given that he wrote stories about hunting and fishing, which he also loved, it's no surprise that he would want to write about bike racing.  But, as he recounts in A Moveable Feast:

"I have started many stories about bicycle racing but have never written one that is as good as the races are both on the indoor tracks and the roads."

 He gives one possible reason why he couldn't write a story he liked about racing:

"French is the only language it has ever been written in properly and the terms are all in French and that is what makes it hard to write."  

Still, he is glad to have been introduced to the sport:

"Mike was right about it, there is no need to bet. But that comes at another time in Paris."

 Maybe it's time for me to read him again.