Book Review : The Paris Husband : How It Really Was Between Ernest and Hadley Hemingway
not even that clear to Hadley , who may have been confused about her feelings or even convinced that she had to overcome them . The reality , the complexity of life , gets shredded in the pseudo knowingness that gives biography a bad reputation . Not for nothing did Boswell call biography a “ presumptuous task .”
Now we come to the main event : the lost valise . Here ’ s Donaldson ’ s argument : Hemingway was not truthful , and yet biographers , with the exception of James Mellow , take him at his word when they come to tell the story of Hadley ’ s negligence . Donaldson sets up the story by exposing Hemingway ’ s duplicity . He had a contract to write exclusively for the Toronto Star , but in fact filed other stories as “ John Hadley ” for another news service . The Star editor , a “ veteran in the field ,” Donaldson notes , “ must have wondered about his [ Hemingway ’ s ] truthfulness .” The circumstances are such that Donaldson is probably right , but I prefer “ probably ” any day over “ must have ” because Donaldson is no closer to the truth no matter how much he wants “ must have ” to carry some weight .
Here is how Donaldson sets up his handling of the lost valise : “ A lot of misinformation has been circulated about the valise and what Ernest did when he learned that the serious writing he ’ d been sweating over in Paris , the vignettes and stories he really cared about , had gone missing . Much of that misinformation came from Hemingway himself .” Donaldson says biographers have relied on Hemingway ’ s memoir , A Moveable Feast ( 1964 ), even though the book ’ s preface “ explicitly warns readers to expect occasional reordering or altering of what actually happened .” Hemingway said he did the following , which in fact he did not do : He left Hadley in Lausanne , took the train back to Paris to see if perhaps his apartment contained copies of what Hadley had lost , and returned to
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