Sunday, November 11, 2012

Hemingway Week #1 Entrance to Home

Papa Hemingway's
Popular with All Tourists
Front Entrance to Home


At San Francisco de Paulo on the outskirts of Havana  is the only residence Ernest Hemingway ever owned outside the US.  He lived here, between  the periods of his wanderings, for almost 20 years. He left Cuba when the political situation heightened around 1958 under Batista and returned to his home in Idaho. When news of his suicide in 1961 reached Cuba, the home was made into a museum in 1962.  It was left basically as he left it, with 9000 books, typewriter, furnishings and valuable artwork. The rooms are off limits but can be viewed through doors and windows.


Tourist snapping a photo of one of the rooms.

This coming week I will post numerous photos connected in some way with Hemingway and Cuba.


23 comments:

  1. Very interesting. I didn't know he had a home in Cuba although I knew he had lived there. I've seen his home in Key West. Lots of cats!

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  2. I would have loved to have visited this home. I recently read The Paris Wife, which is about he and his first wife Hadley.

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  3. don't you wonder what might have happened if he'd stayed.

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  4. Ernest really got around - Havanna, too! Looks like a lovely place! Muchos gracias, Senora!

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  5. I was hoping you got to go here. Will we be seeing the cats?

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    1. Kathy, the five toed cats are at his Key West, USA, residence but not in Cuba.

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  6. What a nice side trip to your Cuban visit. Quite a character was Hemingway!

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  7. Sad end to Papa. I read once, he killed himself w/ same gun he saw his Dad kill himself with. Is this true, Kate. Like father, like son?

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    1. Yes, that was a sad end to Papa Hemingway. Suicide was part of the family history, and his father did indeed commit suicide but I don't know that Ernest used that gun. I'd heard that he used his "favorite" gun to end his own life. Pretty tragic but he was in ill health, had some shock treatments at Mayo and had abused his body throughout his life with heavy drinking. Some of my "feminist"f friends jeered me when I confessed my love for his work, esp. the short stories, but I didn't let that deter me; I taught his work in my own English lit classroom. Not a lovable man despite his four marriages, but nothing much better than "A Clean Well-Lighted Place."

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    2. I think it was his favorite, because it was Dad's weapon of 'choice'. I read that some place. I do believed he was looking through a window and witnessed his father doing the 'deed'. If so, even sadder I guess.

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  8. I would love to wander around his place.

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  9. This must have been so interesting to see in person. It is amazing to me that it is all just as he left it!

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  10. This must have been an interesting and inspiring place to visit.

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  11. Cool. We've been to his Key West home. Saw the 5 toed cats and everything. :)

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  12. i drank at his favorite bar in havana, back in 1993....

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  13. I look forward to seeing more...

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  14. It looks like you really got around Cuba, Kate! This looks like quite a beautiful haven. I'm looking forward to the continuation of this theme.

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  15. Hi Kate! Re Spanish Moss: It's awful stuff. It's full of little bugs and it itches like crazy. They tell me it doesn't kill the trees, but I think it might 'cause there are a lot of dead or dying oak trees covered with the stuff. I used to get up on a ladder in our back yard and try to pull it off the outlying branches.

    There's a legendary story that when white settlers arrived in this area, the Seminoles told them Spanish Moss made great stuffing for mattresses and pillows. Of course, it drove the settlers wild. A little bit of Native American revenge!

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  16. It would be wonderful to lead his life of travel for a year.

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  17. I think it is possible to separate the human who was the writer from the literature he produced. Hemingway wrote some marvelous stuff.

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  18. He certainly had a full life that's for sure. So interesting to actually see where he lived in Cuba, thanks Kate.

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  19. Great shot. Hemingway loved "The Finca."
    (The shotgun was not the same weapon that his father used to kill himself, and Hemingway did not witness his father's suicide.)

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  20. What a treat! I've been to his house in Key West. Didn't he very much live off of the wealth of his wives?

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