Hemingway’s Paper Clips

Ruminations and thoughts on Hemingway and his writing

Ernest Hemingway at his home in Cuba (Photo by A.E. Hotchner, courtesy of PBS).

Hemingway loved paper clips. But he didn’t always carry his paper clips with him. Like the time he ran with the bulls down that narrow cobblestone street in Pamplona. Then he left his paper clips in the pensione. He knew any extra weight—even a clip or two—would have slowed him down. Then the bulls would have got him. Everyone would have seen him fall. But no one would have heard him cry out. At least he wouldn’t have died like a weasel.

Papa hated weasels. Nothing was more pathetic in nature than a weasel that slinked around the log pile. Then it wormed its way into the chicken coop killing all the innocent birds inside. Papa thought all chickens were innocent. He thought weasels were vile cowards. But human weasels were worse. Papa hated them even more. Human weasels made their own gravy. It was bad gravy. Papa hated weasel gravy even more than the weasels themselves. He’d been made to taste it once as a child. He never forgot it.

After the bulls, Papa drank wine out of botas on the street with the other runners. Later, back in his room at the typewriter, Papa wrote about the running. About the thrill of being pursued by dozens of huge mad bulls. How he could hear the thunder of their hooves on the hard cobblestones at his heels. And the heat of their furious snorting just behind him. How he blindly ran for his life. And for his honor.

Then he took up several of his beloved paper clips to hold the pages of manuscript together. He knew it was a good story. Doing stupid things with large dangerous animals always made for a good story. Some called it tempting fate. He called it proclaiming his honor. That’s what writers did. And writers like him were the last real heroes.

That’s enough of that. The image above is of the Hemingway Daiquiri. Papa drank scads of them at the bar in the Floridita Hotel in Havana whenever he stayed there. I probably should have had one before attempting to write like him. In trying to get my brainpan into Hemingway mode, I first had to change the voice in my head to that of a gruff hungover robot that spoke in clipped, terse sentences. I then added a dash of early theater black and white news reels showing big game animals being shot with large guns. Next I put in an all-important huge dollop of mindless machismo.

Then I set the mixture to poach on the stove with mass quantities of alcohol, preferably in Daiquiri form. I remembered to check for temperature and doneness often so that it wouldn’t overcook. Because that’s what happened to Papa in real life. Then he blew his brains out with a shotgun at age 61 because he couldn’t face getting old. He could handle shooting lions on big game hunts. He just couldn’t be the old lion that limped into the scrub to die and never to be seen again. But at least we have his books. And some of his paper clips.

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