Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995 TAG: 9508290014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
He strolled the streets of the Left Bank of 1920s Paris and boozed it up in the sidewalk cafes of Montparnasse.
He fished for huge marlin off of Cuba and earned the admiration of Fidel Castro.
And for a couple of days in 1933, author Ernest Hemingway graced the streets of a Southwest Virginia railroad town called Roanoke.
His stay, or stays, were brief - only long enough to store his car and take a train to New York City and return a month later to pick up the car - but they left a big impression one of largest figures in American literature.
Well, maybe not big.
But it was an impression.
Sort of.
OK, so he remembered the name of the town.
But he remembered it well enough to give us a place, albeit a small one, in the canon of his short stories. We'll never rival Key West or even Petoskey, Mich., site of the author's childhood exploits and inspiration for several stories, in their association with Papa. But we're in there.
There's a little-known short story, originally published in Hemingway's 1933 collection, "Winner Take Nothing," called "One Reader Writes."
The bulk of the story, which is only a few hundred words long, consists of a letter ``posted" from "Roanoke, Virginia, February 6, 1933."
That's our place in Hemingway lore. Problem is, that story has "the distinction of being the most neglected of Hemingway's short stories - and most would say the distinction is deserved," according to Paul Smith in his 1989 book, "A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway."
Nevertheless, it is Smith who linked the mention of Roanoke in the story with Hemingway's stopovers in our fair burg, which occurred, he points out, just before February 6, 1933, when the letter is posted.
Outside of the letter's dateline, however, the story has little to do with Virginia, or so critics, like our expert Smith, will tell you.
"I think [the connection to Roanoke is] slight and a bit of a coincidence," the now-retired professor of English at Trinity College in Connecticut said. "But I've been wrong too often to bet on it."
The story is the result of a friendship Hemingway had with a Kansas City doctor named Logan Clendening. The doctor wrote a syndicated medical advice column based on letters from readers. Some of the letters he didn't use he shared with Hemingway.
One of them, from a semi-literate woman whose husband went in the service and returned from China to give his wife a dose of "sifilus," became the story "One Reader Writes."
According to Smith, one of the reasons the story is so neglected is that it's considered "found fiction." Hemingway didn't actually write most of it. He merely tacked a paragraph on before the letter and two paragraphs on at the end.
And he changed the dateline of the letter from Harrisburg, Pa., to Roanoke, Virginia.
In his book, Smith argues that Hemingway made this last change after passing through the Star City.
It makes sense, too. At least if you're a serious Roanoker and take offense at anyone trying to slight our place in American literature.
In early January 1933, Hemingway left Piggott, Ark., hometown of his second wife, Pauline, to head to New York on business, according to Carlos Baker's 1969 biography, "Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story." On Jan. 7, he wired his editor, Max Perkins, from Knoxville, Tenn. That would probably put him in Roanoke later that day or on Jan. 8.
Elizabeth Bishop Hurd, archivist for the Virginia Museum of Transportation, figures Hemingway would have taken the New York, Chattanooga and New Orleans Limited to New York. He would have gone to the passenger train station on Shenendoah Avenue and hopped on Norfolk and Western train number 42 at 12:25 p.m.
About a month later, he returned, probably on N&W train number 41 at about 5:40 p.m. He picked up his car and drove on to Key West, Fla., to meet up with Pauline and his three sons, Jack, Patrick and Gregory.
In 1933, Hemingway was near the height of his fame.
"He was a very big shot," said Miriam Mandel, senior lecturer in the English department of Tel Aviv University in Israel, and author of "Reading Hemingway: The Facts in the Fictions." He had already published "The Sun Also Rises" to both critical and popular success. And "A Farewell to Arms" had earned him "tons of money and vied with Eric Maria Remarque's `All Quiet on the Western Front' as the most important novel about World War I," said Mandel.
Strangely, as big as Hemingway was, in both physical and literary stature, his visit to Roanoke went unnoticed by Roanokers. At least it didn't make the papers.
The Roanoke World-News and The Roanoke Times printed items on such noteworthy occurences as the amputation of Mrs. N.P. Gillispie's little finger at Lewis-Gale hospital and the defeat of the Hot Heads by the Wild Men in the Times bowling circuit. But Hemingway slipped through town twice unnoticed.
Perhaps if he'd rolled a gutter ball in the 10th frame against the Hot Heads.
But even if Roanoke didn't notice him, he noticed us.
And our place in American literature is secure forever.
No, we'll never be to Papa what Key West is, but so what.
Our expert Smith thinks that would be a blessing.
"I'd suggest an annual 'Non-Hemingway Day,''' he said. "With readings and discussions of any author but him. And ending it with a Hemingway Look-Unalike contest."
by CNB