Hemingway's House

Mary Hemingway recalls her life with Papa'
(By WILLIAM STIMSON)
KETCHUM, Idaho — The house where Ernest Hemingway died in 1961 and where his widow still
spends part of each year is a simple red two-story structure standing alone at the end of a rural road and a long, dusty driveway. Inside it is as it was when the novelist lived there. Animal skins with glassy eyes dot the floor and drape the furniture. Above a massive stone fireplace hang the mounted heads of an "almost record" impala shot by Ernest and a kudu shot by Mary Hemingway
when they were in Africa in the early 1950.

Tall bookshelves on either side of the fireplace contain the latest editions of Hemingway's books, and in one corner an oil painting has the author, white bearded and unsmiling.
looking across the Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains are visible through a broad picture window.

Mary Hemingway spends the summer and autum in the house each year, and by the reports of Ketchum citizens, she is something of a recluse when in residence. Mrs. Hemingway laughs
when she hears this. If it is true, she says, it's because if she weren't more careful, interest and
curiosity about Ernest would prevent her from getting her own writing done. Hemingway became a celebrity with the publication of his first novel in 1926 and interest in him has never cooled. Even now dozens of articles and a handful of books appear each year re-evaluating the
man and his work. Mrs. Hemingway feels much of what is written is unfair to her husband.

Even the authorized biography, a best-seller by Hemingway scholar Carlos Baker called "Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story." she feels gives an "incomplete, not very complimentary "'picture. Baker got his facts mostly correct, she said, but failed to capture anything of her husband's spirit: "How could he? They never went hunting or drinking, or even chatted together. Mr. Baker is a very great scholar, but no one can describe a person he has never met.

"One thing about Ernest that only his close friends were aware of was his humor. He had a marvelous, gay delightful sense of wit. That humor was a very big part of his personality.
It was a continuous game of give and take with friends. In Cuba, Paris. Africa, here, it was
like a volleyball game. Anyone who was around could take part." But Hemingway's humor,
"droll and wry. juicy and crazy-mitty." is missing for the most part'from the tomes of biography written about him. M r s . Hemingway laments. But perhaps because it was usually displayed among friends and evaporated with the moment.

Mary Hemingway is a small,, blonde former newspaperwoman with clear blue eyes and an
animation that makes her seem more like a woman in her 40s than in her 60s.
She was interviewed on the sundeck of her house overlooking the Big Wood Valley. She chewed gum. smoked and gazed out over the valley as she recalled her life with Hemingway with obvious pleasure and generous elaberation.

Hemingway met Mary in 1944 in London where she was a reporter for Time magazine. She tried to remember, as she looked over the valley, if Ernest ever named his own favorites among his short stories. "I remember Ernest used to answer when he was asked that question that it was like asking a mother to choose among her children.

"He was awfully proud of the African stories 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' and
'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'." She said she is sure Hemingway would be pleased to know that the
story for which she gets the most requests for reprints is "The Big Two-Hearted River."

Her own favorite among his short stories is a little known one called "Today is Friday."
"It's about the death of Christ, but it doesn't mention that, and that's what I like about it. I'm
well aware that most critics think it's one of his worst. If you print this you better mention that I know that."

Was Hemingway a reader as well as a writer?"Constantly, she says constant reading. His habit was to have four or five books going at once. He was very keen on the history of the Civil War. He might also be reading one of the current authors, like .John Updike, or someone like that. He read French very well andmight be reading a book in that lanuage. Perhaps he would also be reading some kind of book on hunting or fishing. "He used to go back and reread the clasics. like Shakespeare. I remember while he was up here once he was rereading, for the eight, 10th, 12th time, 'King Lear'." To'the end of his life, she said, Ernest never lost his curiosity about the way words are combined by the masters to — through some magnificent alchemy —recreate life itself.

"As Ernest said, "You have to make that magic, but how to do it?' " It was something he struggled for long after he became the most studied stylist in this country. How did he evaluate his
place in literature' As she did for many of the questions, she took a long time to think it over.
But then she shook her head: "I don't think he did. I think he just tried to write as well as he could
and was content to leave thos judgments to others."