By: Aurel Plasari
In the summer of 1948, at his Finca Vigia mansion in Francisco de Paula, Cuba, Ernest Hemingway set about writing a preface for the next reprint of his novel A Farewell to Arms, first published almost 20 years earlier, in 1929. The preface, to be honest, seems like a hastily written text, perhaps to fulfill a publisher's request. But in fact, it has its "tail behind it."
The writer lists the places where he wrote the first draft of the novel, then the second draft, then the final draft, in Paris nearby, saying that the novel could not have been completed anywhere else. He writes about work unrelated to the novel. He remembers friends who died in 1929. He recounts a meeting with Miss Bergman, who he seems to have cut short by claiming that he could not go into detail because he had “a very limited knowledge of the English language and a defective pronunciation”, this is Ernest Hemingway!
Finally, he hits where he has the greatest concern, where he hurts, what seems to be not simply related to the novel, nor to be a matter of literature. Despite this, he firmly asserts that a writer must deal with “that constant, arrogant, criminal, dirty crime that is war”. The writer who has been a participant in two wars makes a surprising statement this time: “wars are fought by the most beautiful people in the world”. And, the reader cannot help but underline such a statement and cannot help but be reminded of the martyrs of the wars he has known or read about. But, even if the most beautiful people are not those who fight the wars, Hemingway explains, let's say that, the closer you get to the place where the fighting is taking place, the more beautiful the people you encounter. While wars are actually made, provoked and initiated by meticulous economic rivalries and by pigs who aim to profit from them, the writer accuses, adding: "I am convinced that all the people who aim to profit from wars and help provoke them will have to be shot the very day they start acting as accredited representatives of the loyal citizens who will fight those wars."
It is precisely for this mission that the writer volunteered, promising that, if legally delegated by those fighting, he would carry out the task himself with complete correctness and humanity, taking care that all the corpses were buried in a dignified manner: "We could even bury them in cellophane or in one of the most modern plastic materials." In the end, if there was any evidence that he himself had provoked the new war in some way or had not properly carried out the assigned task, the writer offered - even with joy! - to be shot by the same firing squad and buried with or without cellophane, if only they would leave his naked corpse on top of a hill. And he signed it: June 30, 1948.
This is how rereadings of beloved authors, in different times and situations, transform into new readings.
