The ancient Egyptians, writers, artists, philosophers, culture vultures of all stripes… the admirers of cats are legion. I leave you with a thought from the photography book, Vavra’s Cats. A beautiful tabby cat gazes into the darkness, her jewel eyes ringed with cobalt blue make-up that matches the jewels which drape her head and neck.
She spoke of Egypt, and a white temple… against night she smiled with clicking teeth and said, that the dead were never dead; said old emperors hung like bats… but empresses come back as cats. — William Rose Benét
To learn more, visit the official website of the Hemingway Home and Museum.
Article comments
1 - Jean Naimard
You obviously don’t know what Socialism is.
It certainly is not nitpicking regulation like you demonstrate being done in the least socialist country in the world, the United States of America.
2 - Douglas Mays
Socialism, schmocialism...an ideal or is it function? I dunno. My cat will deal with it.
I am definately a cat person. I think a few cats need to be on the board of directors...
3 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
This cat-love seems to contradict the report - perhaps apocryphal? - that the random assassination of a cat in Salinger's "For Esmé - with Love and Squalor," was based on an encounter with Hemingway. Apparently, in order to demonstrate to Salinger that he was a hard man, Hemingway picked up his pistol and blew the brains out of an innocent kitty. Salinger was revolted.
I'd love to have this story proved fictional - I'm fond of Hemingway (although I value Salinger more). Please, someone: demonstrate to me that this is libel.
4 - Ashtoreth
That is an interesting story.
I suspect that Hemingway may have been trying to prove in a macho sense how 'hard' ergo 'what a man' he was by symbolically murdering what in his consciousness embodied his feminine or anima; the blasted softness which he dearly loved and needed, but which he was somehow ashamed and afraid of as something he could not control or tame.
The act was not something he would have done alone, I don't think. Sadly, it was all about the reflected shock and horror on the face of Salinger which was the pay-off. It was murder as theater.
It is also a paradox that he loved cats, but hunted lions. The little cat is reflected in the big cat and the big cat in the little cat. But then he had a pattern of pitting himself against the elements and trying to challenge the gods to prove his manhood. The 'Old Man and the Sea' was him.
Sad as this story is (if it is true) it would point to his deep insecurity and splintering from his inner feminine. Note how he kept bonding to and then betraying, symbolically murdering, and splintering from his four wives - again needing to merge with, and needing to dominate and execute the feminine whose power he secretly longed for, feared, and envied. A gun blast fixes everything in the 'two year old' narcissistic mind.
His murder of the cat before an audience showed great narcissism. The cat did not matter, his illusions of 'male hardness' did. How embarrassing for him. It would suggest pathological insecurity in his furious need to 'prove' he was the icon of masculinity he so desperately needed to see himself as, project out to the world, and have reflected back at him; even if an innocent animal had to die to make this statement.
And then he left the house to the cats. Maybe because the independent little beasts loved him best and simply, and because in the end, he could never tame them without killing them, and came to admire and identify with them. As I said, we can only aspire to be as cool as cats. :)
Thank you for your most interesting comment.
5 - Victor Lana
Lots of Hemingway stories are false, even those told by Hemingway himself. I doubt Hemingway would have shot a cat, especially one of his own.
Salinger could have been embellishing or maybe even retelling a story Hemingway told. Remember, Hem was prone to taking a truth (he was an ambulance driver who was wounded delivering chocolate to the troops and it became that he was something of a war hero) and spinning it for all it was worth.
Hemingway shooting a little kitty? Yes, just what those who hated (or envied him) would love us to think. I've been to Key West and even had dinner once at the old homestead, and those cats belong there for all time as per Papa's wish.
6 - Ashtoreth
Jean, jean, I think we area all too aware what socialism is and represents. And for your information, bureaucratic nitpicking is its hallmark.
7 - Douglas Mays
you appreciate something just for 'being'. Very nice words.
I, having about 42 years of cat experience (i was 7 getting my first cat), sometimes have to educate newer cat owners about being a cat. Some folks just don't get it. Amazing, majestic creatures. I do cherish their existance.
Their job of doing nothing? Humans should heed to their actions. Allow yourself to 'be'. Charles Atlas (98 lbs weakling? Old Timers will remember) developed his 'dynamic tension' exersices based on the fact that cats, even though they meditate a lot, are also in very good condition. He watched cats stretch (then jump up on a fence or something) and thought there was something to it.
Anyway, let the cats be!!!!!
best,
DM
8 - Douglas Mays
Douglas A Cooper, nice mention of Salingers "For Esme-With Love and Squalor".
I am familiar. Good of you to bring it up.
9 - Marg Terriode
As it's told by Salinger's biographer, Hemingway shot a chicken, not a cat, to demonstrate the accuracy of a particular breed of handgun he was expounding on. Salinger found it disturbing enough to adapt it for one of his stories, evidently.
10 - Ashtoreth
Hi Marge,
Well, I hope that's true. I'd certainly would rather think he executed a chicken than a cat.
*looks both ways for Vegans with torches and spears - runs* ;)