One True Podcast continues our summer book club on The Purple Land, the 1885 novel written by W.H. Hudson and read and re-read by Robert Cohn.

In this episode, we explore Chapters 12-20. We revisit the picaresque plot structure, discuss how the narrative moves between romance and revolution, explore how Hudson takes up the question of cultural relativism, and draw connections to The Sun Also Rises.

We hope you’ll join us in this close read of The Purple Land. We are using the handsome University of Wisconsin Press edition with an Introduction written by former One True Podcast guest, our friend Ilan Stavans.

Thank you as always for your support of One True Podcast!

On the happy occasion of Mark’s new Norton Library edition of A Farewell to Arms, One True Podcast goes deep into its vault. We are at last releasing to the general public one of our seldom-heard Patreon episodes, an exploration of the final chapter of A Farewell to Arms, the epic and heart-wrenching chapter 41.

We discuss Catherine’s behavior, the narrative’s disproportionate focus on Frederic as a witness, his eating and drinking, the medical staff, a couple of one true sentences, the ethics of reading someone else’s newspaper, and the notion that the ending of this novel may or may not represent Hemingway’s worldview.

After the unearthed Patreon episode, we continue the discussion, exploring Hemingway’s alternate endings and what that tells us about Hemingway’s artistic process.

We hope you’ll enjoy this wide-ranging discussion, ideally in the rain.

One True Podcast ushers in the summer by reading a book that is not by Hemingway, but is Hemingway-relevant: W.H. Hudson’s The Purple Land, the 1885 novel that Jake Barnes name-drops in The Sun Also Rises and then weaponizes to criticize Robert Cohn.

This episode covers the first 11 chapters, where we discuss the Hemingway-Hudson connection, this novel’s picaresque structure, the dramatic situation, the setting, and the various adventures that our hero experiences, including the problematic nature of his “intensely amorous” inclinations.

We hope you’ll join us in this slow read of The Purple Land. We are using the handsome University of Wisconsin Press edition with an Introduction written by former One True Podcast guest, our friend Ilan Stavans.

Thank you as always for your support of One True Podcast!

One True Podcast again toasts to the centenary of Hemingway’s In Our Time by examining “Cat in the Rain,” one of its so-called “marriage tales.” 

We welcome John Beall to discuss the story’s setting, its composition, the dynamic of the marriage, its autobiographical inspiration, and how this story fits in to Hemingway’s other “frosty” marriages. We explore the symbolism of the cat, the omnipresence of the rain, repetition in the story… and we even wonder: what the heck is that guy reading that’s so interesting?

John Beall – author of the new book Hemingway’s Art of Revision: The Making of the Short Fiction – expertly guides us through the ambiguities of this tense, elliptical story. Thanks for listening! 

“Who Murdered the Vets?” is one of the most important non-fiction pieces Hemingway ever wrote. This 1935 article for New Masses excoriated the Roosevelt administration’s careless supervision of World War I veterans who died during the Labor Day hurricane while they were living in workcamps along the Keys. Stationed there to help to build the overseas highway, more than 250 died as victims of the cataclysmic storm.

Hemingway wrote what he called his “2800 words of dynamite” in a frothing rage, furious at the irresponsibility of the government, shocked at what he had witnessed firsthand, and grieving for the veterans who survived the Great War, only to lose their lives at home. 

To discuss this explosive article and its crucial context, we welcome James H. Meredith, the former President of the Hemingway Society. Jim’s perspective walks us through Hemingway’s approach to this tragedy and how he composed such a vivid, emotional polemic. 

She called him “the most fascinating man I know.” He called her “the Kraut.”  Hemingway’s relationship with the iconic entertainer Marlene Dietrich has been an intriguing wrinkle to both of their careers and lives. To separate myth from fact, and to allow us to learn more about Miss Dietrich and her singular accomplishments in song and cinema, we welcome Peter Riva, the grandson of the legendary actress.

In this episode, we explore how they met, why they clicked so powerfully, why they remained platonic, how she felt about his writing, and how he felt about her film performances. Peter Riva is a candid, generous guest who provides a unique perspective to Dietrich as a grandma and Hemingway as a memorable houseguest.

Join us for this discussion about the Hemingway-Dietrich relationship… and stay tuned for some surprise outro music! 

After Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, became aware of his extramarital affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, she became resigned to the end of their marriage. Before she agreed to the divorce, however, she issued an extraordinary provision to Hemingway and Pauline: that they spend one hundred days apart! If they still wanted to stay together after those hundred days, Hadley would consent to the divorce.

To explore this bizarre episode in Hemingway’s life, we welcome Gioia Diliberto, biographer of Hadley Richardson, and Adam Long, director of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum, the family home of Pauline Pfeiffer. Diliberto and Long each share details about all the members of this messy love triangle and how it forms the legacy of the phase of Hemingway’s life that would inspire A Moveable Feast.

We discuss who these people were in 1926 and what they wanted, what motivated this 100-Day Challenge, all of its implications, and its outcome.

The great Italian scholar Martina Mastandrea, who spoke with us in 2023 to discuss "In Another Country," joins us again to talk about another Hemingway tale: "Out of Season."

After Mastandrea treats us to an Italian rendition of the opening to "Out of Season," we explore many aspects of the story, including its biographical inspiration, connections to other Hemingway texts (like "Cat in the Rain" and "Hills Like White Elephants"), the role Cortina plays as a setting, and ways to read the famous ending.  

This celebrated story is always in-season, so please join us as Martina Mastandrea guides us through it!

When Ernest Hemingway was interviewed by George Plimpton in 1958, he listed Johann Sebastian Bach fourth among those forebears he learned the most from. “I should think,” he told Plimpton, “what one learns from composers and from the study of harmony and counterpoint would be obvious.” It isn’t. 

So, to help us understand how Bach influenced Hemingway's writing – in particular the first page of A Farewell to Arms – we welcome organist and Bach scholar, David Yearsley.

With an expert to guide us, we explore Bach's biography and connections between these two artistic titans, discussing which of Bach's works Hemingway responded to most powerfully and how the music of “Mr. Johann” finds its way into Hemingway’s WWI novel as well as other writings, such as To Have and Have Not. 

We are also privileged that David Yearsley agreed to play some Bach for us to illustrate counterpoint and other related ideas, so we hope you enjoy this special show!

Join us as Carl Eby takes us into the nooks and crannies of the Hemingway archives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. We will discuss the legendary JFK #112 and JFK #113, two discarded and highly provocative chapters from Hemingway’s posthumous novel Islands in the Stream.

We explore where the discarded material in the JFK Library fits into Islands in the Stream, who cut it and why, and how Hemingway studies would have been different if the novel had included this charged material. We also closely examine certain words from these files, such as "perversions" and "surprize" and “devil.” 

Eby is President of the Hemingway Society and has focused much of his research on Hemingway's posthumous work. Recently, he published Reading Hemingway's The Garden of Eden for Kent State University Press’s Reading Hemingway series. Eby has joined us previously for an episode on The Garden of Eden manuscripts, and he also inaugurated our One True Sentence series with One True Sentence #1, a discussion of Hemingway's "Paris 1922" sketches. 

Thanks for your continued support of One True Podcast!