Hemingway was happy in Key West. In the morning he wrote, in the afternoon he fished, and at night he went to a public house and drank. One old fisherman said: "Hemingway was a man who talked slowly and very carefully. He asked a lot of questions. And he always wanted to get his information exactly right."
Soon afterwards, he heard that his father had killed himself. Hemingway was shocked. He said, "My father taught me so much. He was the only one I really cared about."
When Hemingway returned to work there was a sadness about his writing that was not there before.
His new book told about an American soldier who served with the Italian army during World War One. He meets an English nurse, and they fall in love. They flee from the army, but she dies during childbirth. Some of the events are taken from Hemingway's service in Italy. The book is called "A Farewell to Arms".
Part of the book talks about the defeat of the Italian army at a place called Caporetto:
"At noon we were stuck in a muddy road about as nearly as we could figure, ten kilometres from Udine. The rain had stopped during the forenoon and three times we had heard planes coming, seen them pass overhead, watched them go far to the left and heard them bombing on the main highroad. . . .
"Later we were on a road that led to a river. There was a long line of abandoned trucks and carts on a road leading up to a bridge. No one was in sight. The river was high and the bridge had been blown up in the center; the stone arch was fallen into the river and the brown water was going over it. We went up the bank looking for a place to cross. . . . we did not see any troops; only abandoned trucks and stores. Along the river bank was nothing and no one but the wet brush and muddy ground. "
"A Farewell to Arms" was very successful. It earned Hemingway a great deal of money. It permitted him to travel.
One place he visited was Spain, a country he loved. He said, "I want to paint with words all the sights and sounds and smells of Spain. And if I can write any of it down truly, then it will represent all of Spain."
He wrote a book called "Death in the Afternoon". It describes the Spanish custom of bull fighting. Hemingway believed that bull fighting was an art, just as much as writing was an art. And he believed it was a true test of a man's bravery, something that always concerned him.
Hemingway also travelled to Africa. He had been asked to write a series of reports about African hunting. He said, "Hunting in Africa is the kind of hunting I like. No riding in cars, just simple walking and feeling the grass under my feet."
The trip to Africa resulted in a book called "The Green Hills of Africa" and many smaller stories.
One story is one of Hemingway's best. The story, called "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", tells of Hemingway's fears about himself. It is about a writer who betrays his art for money and is unable to remain true to himself.
In 1936, the Civil War in Spain gave him a chance to return to Spain and test his bravery again. He agreed to write about the war for an American news organization.
It was a dangerous job. One day, Hemingway and two other reporters were driving a car near a battlefield. The car carried two white flags to show they were not fighting. But rebel gunners thought the car was carrying enemy officers. Hemingway was almost killed. Later he said that "bullets are all the same. If they do not hit you, there is no story. If they do hit you, then you do not have to write it. "
The trip to Spain resulted in two works: a play called "The Fifth Column", and a novel called "For Whom the Bell Tolls". The novel tells the story of an American who has chosen to fight against the fascists. He realizes that there are lies and injustice on his side. But he sees no hope except the victory of his side. During the fighting, he escapes his fear of death and of being alone. He decides that "he can live as full a life in seventy hours as in seventy years."
The book was a great success. Hemingway enjoyed being famous. His second marriage was ending. He divorced Pauline and married reporter Martha Gellhorn. He had met her while they were working in Spain. They decided to live in Cuba, near the city of Havana. Their house looked out over the Caribbean Sea.
But this marriage did not last long. Hemingway was changing. He began to feel that whatever he said was right. Martha went on long trips to be away from him. He drank heavily to forget his loneliness.
When America entered World War Two, Hemingway went to Britain as a reporter. Later he took part in the invasion of Europe and the freeing of Paris.
During the war, Hemingway met another reporter, Mary Walsh. In 1945, when his marriage to Martha was legally over, he married Mary.
After the war, Hemingway began work on his last important book, "The Old Man and the Sea". It is the story of a Cuban fisherman who refuses to be defeated by nature.
Hemingway said, "I was trying to show the experience of the fisherman so exactly and directly that it became part of the reader's experience."
In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature. But he was too sick to take part in the ceremony.
Ernest Hemingway was 60 years old, but he said he felt like he was 86. Even worse, he felt that he no longer was able to write. He seemed to be living the story about the writer who had sold his writing skill in order to make money.
In 1961, Ernest Hemingway shot himself dead. Among the papers he left was one that described what he liked best:
"To stay in places and to leave. . . to trust, to distrust. . . to no longer believe and believe again. . . to watch the changes in the seasons. . . to be out in boats. . . to watch the snow come, to watch it go. . . to hear the rain. . . And to know where I can find what I want."
Ernest Hemingway owned many cats, especially cats with extra toes. Today these cats are sometimes called "Hemingway cats" in his honor. His house in Key West, Florida is now a home for his cats and their kittens.
The article above is a rewriting of public domain material, provided by Voice of America Special English
MSN
MSN (formerly the Microsoft Network), is a web portal (a website used to enter the Internet).
The web portal launched on August 24 1995 by Microsoft. The site was launched at around the same time as Windows 95. Through MSN, people can create an e-mail account using MSN Hotmail, a blog using MSN Spaces, a group using MSN Groups and plenty more. It is now the #2 visited site in the world behind Yahoo!. Many people have come across this site in one way or another because it is the default main page of Internet Explorer.
MSN is also the name for MSN Messenger (now called Windows Live Messenger). It is an instant messenger, which allows people to communicate through conversations over an internet connection. As well as conversations using text, this program also allows voice and video conversations. You can even use small "emoticons" to express what you are trying to say. Messages are sent and received very quickly from around the globe. Its current messenger client is Windows Live Messenger.
Hotmail is a free email service from MSN. It started in 1995. It was bought by Microsoft in 1997. Microsoft Hotmail accounts are used to log in to MSN Messenger.
Reed (instrument)
A reed is a piece of dry bamboo that is used in some musical instruments such as saxophones, clarinets and oboes. The musician blows air through the mouthpiece where the reed is firmly placed, and the air makes the reed vibrate; this vibration in the mouthpiece produces sound all along the instrument, which is changed into specific musical notes depending on the physical nature of the instrument.
Musical instruments that use reeds are members of the woodwind family, because many years ago the instruments were all made of wood. Today the instruments can be made of metal (brass, silver, gold), wood, or a hard plastic made to look like wood.