Sporting Classics Magazine is a feast.
I can while away hours just looking at the glossy advertisements for gorgeous shotguns, magnificent hunting knives, glorious art and delightfully traditional hunting clothing and gear — all of which is well above my pay grade. It’s also home to some fine writing that covers both contemporary hunting and fishing and the Golden Age of the early 20th Century. This month’s issue features a lengthy piece on Ernest Hemingway’s affair with the socialite and sportswoman Jane Kendall Mason.
Jane Kendall Mason was a beauty. Unable to conceive, she was ummm… unrestrained… in her activities in the hunting field, on the brine and in the sack.
What a piece of work she was. An avid and capable huntress, a pioneer big game fisherman, a hard drinker, and, apparently, an absolute freak in the sack. Hemingway said she was the most uninhibited person he’d ever met. Quite a gal. Typically of Hemingway, after their affair burned out and she took up with a friend, he took revenge on her in print, making her the model for the hard, cruel American Bitch Margot Macomber, in his classic short story The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber. He also caricatured her in To Have And Have Not. Papa was a bastard. And maybe she deserved it.
Regardless, Macomber is a helluva story.
Carlos Gutierrez and Jane Mason (Mrs. George Grant Mason) aboard Joe Russell’s boat “Anita”, 1933. (Image also accessioned as EH 8282P). Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
I won’t recount the story here; I can’t do better than Tom Davis does in his piece. Pick up this month’s issue; it’s worth it, I promise. There’s also a John Seerey-Lester story (with art) on Winston Churchill’s 1907 hunt in East Africa and a bunch of other stuff that’ll make you want to pull on your woolen jacket, pull your slouch hat down low and shoulder your rifle or shotgun and head out into the field. And if a mercurial blond climbs through your window looking for some action, well… adventure comes in a variety of guises.
Trouble, trouble, trouble…
Black Tyrone says
Yes very interesting. Things remain the same in the odd world of “Celebrity”. Very man made and as a result subject to all of same.
” Macomber” is a great short story and was made into a movie, I want to say with Robert Preston. Not seen often on the tube. Best
Thom Eley says
Gregory Peck, Joan Bennett and Robert Preston.
Black Tyrone says
Thanks Thom, I was only sure of Digby Geste until after further reflection
Black Tyrone says
Pilar’s Rabbit Stew
They were all eating out of the platter, not speaking as is the Spanish custom it was rabbit cooked with onions and
green peppers and there were chick peas in the red wine sauce. It was well cooked and the rabbit meat flaked off
the bones and the sauce was delicious. Robert Jordan drank another cup of wine while he ate. The girl watched
him all through the meal.
Craig McDonald says
One of the more fascinating (and fraught) women to pass through Hem’s storied life…
JimC says
the “fraught” ones are always a lot of fun, aren’t they? Until they’re not, that is…
Black Tyrone says
Partisans! Let us not forget the most famous of all such women and I love every one of them! Helen of Troy.
Matthew says
Speaking of the ex-love’s of the “Lost Generation” writers, Daisy Buchanan from the Great Gatsby was based on an ex-love of Fitzgerald’s. He seems to have really held a grudge against her for the relationship falling apart. He was essentially that guy who can’t let go of something that happened in High School.
Of course, I’ve always thought of the Great Gatsby as an empty, nihilistic novel. That critic Edmund Wilson thought it a Great novel, but ridiculed Tolkien always reaffirmed my distrust of intellectuals.
JimC says
Edmund Wilson was a sniveling POS. I hated Gatsby with a passion.
Matthew says
I can’t say I hated Gatsby, there’s certainly some fine writing (when it isn’t to heavy handed), but how it became the Great American novel, I don’t know. A lot of supposed nihilistic works are merely dark. Cormac McCarthy is dark as hell, but when it comes down to it he’s probably a moral absolutist. A major theme of his works even if you are going to die because of it you should still do what’s right. When the Kid tells the Judge “You ain’t nothing” in the final part of Blood Meridian, that’s what he’s talking about.
I’m not sure what Gatsby is talking about other than don’t fall in love with the wrong woman you’ll die in the most contrived way in literature. Oh, the American Dream is a lie. I guess my family should’ve kept mining coal.
deuce says
“The one good thing about being forced to read The Great Gatsby was that I discovered Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft afterwards, because I figured that not everybody from that time frame could have been that incredibly annoying.”
— Larry Correia. Bestselling author, Dragon Award-recipient, former gun-store owner and all-around “I don’t give a damn about the critics and their Narrative” kinda guy.
Matthew says
I need to read the third Monster Hunter International book.
J.F. Bell says
Running with a crazy girl is a little like fighting grizzlies – you probably get a couple of good yarns, and before it’s over you’re liable to to get cut, and you’ll still have the scars long after she’s gone.
In the end you love her until you despise her, but you won’t forget her.
To Gatsby…I slogged through in high school. Didn’t much care for it then, but I’ve always somewhat been of the mind that I balk at people telling me what I’m required to read, moreso when the only justification is that said work is a ‘classic’ and double (maybe triple) when the entire purpose is to mine ‘meaning’ and ‘symbolism’ from the work in question.
Small wonder so many these days can’t imagine reading as an act of leisure.
For what it’s worth I’ve read Gatsby a couple of time in the past decade. I enjoy it for the most, meeting it on my own terms, and while I certainly don’t hate it I wouldn’t go as far as throwing on the Great American Novel laurels.
To be fair, I’m not altogether sure the Great American Novel is achievable at all…though that’s probably a matter for another day.
Matthew says
For what it’s worth I’ve read Gatsby a couple of time in the past decade. I enjoy it for the most, meeting it on my own terms, and while I certainly don’t hate it I wouldn’t go as far as throwing on the Great American Novel laurels.—-
That’s more or less what how I feel about it. What annoys me most is how they think it is such a special thing and it’s become a go to for people who want everyone to think they’re deep.
J.F. Bell says
‘Depth’ and ‘importance’ and the interpretation thereof are two of the worst things to ever happen to reading. A good story can pretty well stand on its own indefinitely. When one has to be propped up by academia…then you got a problem.
People so inclined to read will find what interests them and stick to it and generally weather the exhortations of their instructors and their questions. The ones who aren’t will get a charge of the ‘greats’ and all the accompanying nitpicking and dissection, and to them reading will become less about enjoying one of mankind’s oldest storytelling traditions and more a joyless slog in the name of looking behind the proverbial curtain.
JimC says
No joyless slogs around here!
J.F. Bell says
Heh. Haven’t found one here yet.
I DID manage to lay hands on a couple of Blake’s pieces (In the Rogue Blood and Country of the Wolfes). Had to go a couple of towns over to make it happen, but an overall worthwhile venture all around.
wayne says
Just started reading Nicholas Reynolds’ Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures. Reynolds has impeccable credentials as a Marine Colonel Colonel (reserves), CIA analyst, historian, and director of the CIA Museum. He can write, too.
JimC says
Let us know what you think of it.
wayne says
And I apologize for my increasing typo errors. For an aspiring writer this is unforgivable. I recently gained permission from John Seerey-Lester to print several of his paintings of Theodore Roosevelt hunting in the West with an article I wrote for American Frontiersman magazine. I hope it will run in their summer, 2017 issue. Mr. Lester is a fine artist and true gentleman.
JimC says
Fantastic! Will look for that. My local grocery store carries the mag.
Lane Batot says
Well, all I gotta say is(after looking at that last photo), whatever trouble is coming, that Dalmation oughta be able to take care of it. I should know, I was raised by one myself! I’m often accused of having been raised by wolves, but that’s not entirely correct–I ran at the head of a pack only after puberty, my earlier years I had three parents–a mommy, a daddy, and more significantly(at times) a Dalmation! My gawd, did he live up to his heritage as a “Coach Dog”, clearing the way of ANYTHING he deemed a threat to my feral toddler arse! Irate cattle(I often played Seton’s “Lobo, King Of The Currumpaw” quite literally with a pack of neighborhood dogs), infuriated hogs(which they tend to be when you’ve popped them in the hams with a slingshot), attacking strange dogs(which I hadn’t yet befriended), and human bullies, including ANYONE who even DARED raise their voice towards me–heaven help them! This was back in the days when yer faithful dog could justifiably maul people or livestock without concerns for any sort of liability. I most assuredley WOULD NOT be sitting here pecking this out with my right index finger had it not been for that dog! One reason I grew up roaming the countryside without fear, for sure. My human parents took care of all the civilized stuff; that Dalmation took care of everything else. And yes, I know this has virtually nothing to do with the post, but you DID show a photo with a Coach Dog in it, so you shoulda known what I’d focus on…..
david kane says
i live in the house in potomac maryland that jane kendall mason grew up in. left photos behind and i have them framed on the wall. great stories to say the least
reach out if you wish to share
david kane
dkane@kanerealestate.com
240.498.2910 c
JimC says
I will take you up on that David.
david says
never heard a reply from you…selling the home shortly so reach out soon. my email is dkane@kanerealestate.com and 240.498.2910 is the text
JimC says
I’ll get in touch this week.
david kane says
anyone still interested in jane kendall mason…i have stacks of data. my contact if on the thread here
david a kane.
maryland
Cate says
From my play about the Hemingway Women ( well the wives , his mother Grace , and granddaughter Margot ( Mary 4 Martha 3- NO Footnotes )
Grace as Ernest in Mask : But yes, I reveled in my role as master of the masquerade. But I created (long beat), and my art endures!
It would be different if all the vultures had tried to tell the whole truth. I learn as much from painters about how to write as from writers. You ask how this is done? It would take another day of explaining. I should think what one learns from composers and from the study of harmony and counterpoint and
from painters of the necessity of negative and positive space would be obvious.
( Lights down for transition of critics coming onstage as if presenting at a feminist literary conference. Lights on stage right down reveal one critic standing at podium and other critic at podium stage center with podium placed on center pedestal.)
First Critic : For decades, Hemingway’s writings have been considered valuable statements on the modern condition which unfortunately also display sexist leanings. While praising Hemingway’s authentic stories of World War I and post-war disillusionment, which used short declarative sentences to concisely portray the violence dominating the twentieth century, scholars also lament this praise of masculinity at the expense of women and femininity. His male-oriented stories of hunting, fishing, bullfighting and battle alienated many female readers. Indeed, before beginning my research into his female characters, I was already convinced that I would excavate Hemingway’s certain misogyny. Nevertheless, academia still reveres Hemingway as a master stylist and spokesman for the Lost Generation.
Grace in Mask : ( standing left of critic stage center )
Critics are the eunuchs of art and the lice who crawl on literature.
Critic Number 2 According to Richard Fantina, other critics have even attempted to reclaim Hemingway “as almost a feminist”. That the same author could be regarded by some as a villainous sexist and by others a champion of gender equality makes Hemingway an interesting subject of study. Hemingway straddles both worlds without fitting into either, finally landing himself a place in the troublesome limbo between sexism and feminism.
Grace in Mask : I am not fond of literary scholars . . . and I speculate that if I shot the one who is irritating me at the moment, Phillip Young, he would bleed footnotes.
Critic Number 3 : (Overlapping in speech with Critic 4 ) Moral significance has always been the main criterion for literary value, when feminist image study disclosed that revered repositories of transcendent moral value were denigrators of women, these great writers’ breadth was rightly compromised, their transcendence rightly undermined. ** ( Other critic begin overlap of narrative here.) Men as well as women readers and scholars have been influenced by this unimpeachable demonstration of the moral limits of the literary greats. There has been a measurable shift in the literary academy,
paralleling shifts in other parts of United States social and political life. The point here, then, is not that the writing of this or that dead white male is politically incorrect in some extremely local sense, but that it fails on precisely the grounds of moral spaciousness by which it has traditionally been justified to clients as worth their close attention and respect. My name – Nina Baym.
Critic 4 – (overlapping Critic 3 ) : It will not do to say that Hemingway transcended his time in some, but not all ways, and that regrettably on the subject of women he was a man of his time, because this implies that a writer’s representations of women should not be really important to the way he is judged; i.e., that representations of women don’t matter; i.e., that women don’t matter. It will not do to insist that not women, but humankind is the writer’s subject, because this only repeats the unacceptable argument in a different form, excluding women from humankind, and affirming that the perspective in the work is, indeed, male, that there is, indeed, such a thing as a male perspective in literature.
Grace as Ernest in Mask: And now not just male critics and scholars, but all these “womeny” taking pot shots at me from the grave .
Mary : Once an interviewer asked me, “ Do you still feel as you did in 1966 that a writer doesn’t belong to the public only his writing does? ” Yes, unlike a prima donna or an actress he has the right to privacy if he wants it. No one should be authorized to tell the dissolution of a man even less to tell it for money or sensationalism. I said then, no, I certainly do not think a writer should be discouraged if he / she has approval of his subject, and if as you say his or her aim is to paint a truthful, rounded portrait. But very, very few of us can do or do truthful rounded portraits, made with no motes in the eye, no imbedded preconceptions, no unrecognized prejudices. People’s works have been all full of sensationalism and exaggerations.
JimC says
Interesting stuff and thank you.
More info on the play?