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Hemingway's Home


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6 Rue Ferou, where Hemingway had an apartment in 1929.

 

Hemingway's home is important in That Summer in Paris for a number of reasons, but one of the main ones is Hemingway's warning to Callaghan to keep his address a secret from F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"“You didn’t tell Scott where I live, did you?” he said after a moment’s reflection.

“No, I didn’t.”

“If you’re going to be seeing a lot of Scott, don’t tell him where we live, eh?”" (Callaghan, 1963)

This exchange hints at possible animosity between Fitzgerald and Hemingway and foreshadows the events still to come when the three men meet at The American Club near the end of the book. Beforehand Callaghan had been under the impression that the two were supposed to be very close friends, but this incident plants the first seeds of doubt about their relationship and causes Callaghan to question whether they had had a disagreement at some point.

Another central incident based in Hemingway's home is Callaghan's first visit and subsequent sparring match which leads to Hemingway inviting Callaghan to box with him at The American Club:

"Rooted in our positions, both showing the same respect for the Spanish chair, we made some more passes at each other. And it was ridiculous. But suddenly he appeared to be satisfied. A real glow of pleasure came on his face, and he began to pull off his gloves. “I only wanted to see if you had done any boxing,” he said apologetically." (Callaghan, 1963)

Apart from leading on to the subsequent sparring matches at The American Club, this incident also highlights Hemingway's inherent need to discover things for himself and assert his dominance.

It parallels his earlier request to read one of Callaghan's stories to "see if you were another god-damned phony" (Callaghan, 1963), implying that Hemingway feels insecure about trusting others and needs to find out things for himself.

 


Works Cited:


Image:

http://www.washburn.edu/reference/awp/hemingway.jpg

References:

Callaghan, Morley. 1963. That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/bio/callaghan-thatsum.html.