I Still Don’t Know For Whom the Bell Tolls

Travel Stories: In Florida's Key West, land of tropical cocktails, Doug Mack went to Ernest Hemingway's house looking for inspiration. He found some, but not the kind he hoped.

11.29.06 | 7:49 AM ET

key west, hemingway's housePhoto of Ernest Hemingway’s Key West house by pumpkinoodle, via Flickr.

I did not go to Florida’s Key West solely to find a ghost. But since I was there and it was there, supposedly, I thought I’d try to make contact. 

It’s not that I make a habit of such paranormal endeavors. I can’t get through a palm reading without bursting with laughter at the absurdity of the premise. I even resisted the whole “Ghostbusters” phenomenon, even though it occurred at a time in my life when I believed social status was attained through the accumulation of official studio-licensed action figures and underwear.

But searching for this particular ghost seemed far more interesting than simply sticking to the usual tourist itinerary, which in Key West runs something like this: Eat as much Key lime pie as possible. Attend the talent/freak show known as the Sunset Celebration. Drink copious amounts of tropical cocktails. Hear the song “Margaritaville” performed on every conceivable instrument and sung in every possible accent, until you’re ready to immerse your head in a bucket of said beverage for just a moment of quiet. 

For the record, I did make a good-faith effort to conform to expectations and partake of these activities. Purely out to a sense of duty, of course. 

Specter-hunting, for all of its inherent ridiculousness, appealed to me in a different way: no hangover the next morning and, more to the point, a potential if indirect route to literary fame and everlasting fortune. Because this wasn’t just any old ghost I sought. It was the incorporeal being of one Ernest Hemingway. And given Papa’s larger-than-life status—his works, his Nobel, his enduring place in the American psyche and on the syllabi of college English courses everywhere—surely, I thought, something of his greatness must linger on in his house.

Even if no spirits appeared, perhaps merely by exploring his abode and considering his life and works, I would gain some sense of his spirit and brilliance—in other words, inspiration. 

Then, on the plane ride home to Minnesota, I would begin to write the Great American Novel. Shortly thereafter: bestseller lists, late-night talk show appearances, critical acclaim. Fame. Fortune. 

It must be noted that the Ernest Hemingway home is not exactly off the beaten path in Key West; it is a tourist cliché. But for most visitors, it seems to offer not just history or the potential for inspiration but absolution: to pass through the manor is to obtain some sort of moral and intellectual forgiveness for partying a bit too hard at the Green Parrot Bar (“A Sunny Place for Shady People”) or purchasing a tacky T-shirt (among the more family-friendly offerings at one shop: “It’s not a beer belly, it’s a fuel tank for a sex machine”). 

I, of course, was above all that—I was a soul-searching scribe, not just some sunburned tourist. Having established this moral high ground, I felt certain that while the other visitors took their snapshots and bought their trinkets, I would leave with something more profound: a budding muse.

I happened upon the house more or less by accident the morning after I arrived in Key West, as I strolled back to my guest house after a foray to a bakery.  I was happily munching on a croissant, enjoying the warm weather and beautiful architecture when, suddenly, I found myself in front of large house with lush grounds. It was obviously some sort of landmark, but it took me a few moments to realize that this was it, this was Hemingway’s Haunted House. 

I hastily consumed the last few bites of croissant—it seemed a bit déclassé to enter a home of such renown while still eating breakfast—and brushed the crumbs from my chin, then paid the $11 admission and entered the sacred grounds. I was ready to find ethereal beings and to absorb, through paranormal osmosis, Papa Hemingway’s brilliance. Would it be a shivery, creepy feeling that served notice that I had made contact? A deep, abiding calmness? Or a spontaneous generation of brilliant ideas and achingly beautiful prose, flowing through the ether as I whipped the tiny spiral-bound notebook from my back pocket and collected them for the beginnings of a Pulitzer-winning novel? 

Next Page »



No comments for I Still Don’t Know For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.