A Closer Look at Hemingway's Friend Mike Ward
2014; Oxford University Press; Volume: 61; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/notesj/gju154
ISSN1471-6941
Autores Tópico(s)Adventure Sports and Sensation Seeking
ResumoSPEAKING with A. E. Hotchner in 1950 about the 1929 Paris Six-Day Bicycle Race, Ernest Hemingway related an anecdote concerning one of his best friends in Paris, Mike Ward. When Ward arrived at the Vélodrome d’Hiver one night, according to Papa Hemingway, his hand was swollen into the shape of a prize squash. Ward said he had punched out a guy the previous night at Harry’s Bar on the rue Danou. Bellying up to the bar, he had overheard a man talking about Hemingway but could not make out exactly what he was saying. ‘Are you a friend of Ernie’s?’ Ward asked. When the man said no, Ward slugged him. ‘I figure he’s got no right talkin’ about you if he ain’t your friend’, Ward told Hemingway. ‘But maybe I did wrong, huh, Ernie?’1 As authoritative as it looks on the printed page of Papa Hemingway, this episode did not occur around the time of the 1929 Paris Six-Day. Two years earlier, Hemingway had related the same story to Scott Fitzgerald. In a letter dated 15 December 1927, Hemingway told Fitzgerald that the incident took place the ‘other night’ at the Club Danou, also located on the rue Danou, two doors down from Harry’s.2 It was easy for Hemingway to change the location as he retold the story. By the time he spoke with Hotchner, the Club Danou was long forgotten while Harry’s Bar had achieved near mythic status as a gathering place for Americans in Paris. Perhaps Hemingway shifted the episode to the time of the Paris Six-Day because he associated his friend with bicycle racing: Mike Ward was the one who introduced him to the sport.3
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