Chekhov's Mistress
And the Envelope Please
Stewart | Pappa
In a positively Plimptonian experience, Donald Ogden Stewart found himself after days of being “excited, drunk, hot, hungover” in Pamplona, Spain in 1924, in a bull ring, being tossed about by the bull, thus earning his machismo credit with Ernest Hemingway.
In his 1975 autobiography, “By a Stroke of Luck!,” Stewart recalled spending days “excited, drunk, hot, hungover” in Pamplona. At one point, he wrote, he was helped into a bullring and handed a red cloak. “I found myself standing alone in the midst of an audience of thousands with the bull glaring at me from a distance of six feet,’’ Stewart wrote.
Twice the bull tossed him. “I had been hit by a bull, and it was nothing,’’ he wrote. “I had shown that I could take it. Ernest clapped me on the back, and I felt as though I had scored a winning touchdown.’’
According the the New York Times article from which this story comes, Hemingway wrote about the 1924 episode and Stewart tucked it away in an envelope.
Sounds like a great story and it would be fun to read Hemingway’s version of events. But, as these things happen, Stewart’s heirs want to make Hemingway’s story public and Papa’s heirs are fighting it. Stewart’s heirs are now selling the story and an accompanying letter for $12 – 18,000. Guess I’ll have to wait for the paperback.
Read widely, think well, and write often.
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: September 27, 2004
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:0
- Links to this Post: Technorati
