WINE, WOMEN, AND SCHLONG

*sigh* Well, at least my liver still works perfectly.

Ernest Hemingway is a polarizing writer, but those who call him overrated are wrong. You can’t be overrated when you changed the DNA of prose in the English language. There was a style of popular writing that was dominant before Hemingway, and a style that became dominant afterward, with the shift entirely of his doing. The Sun Also Rises originally appeared in hardback in 1926, and this Bantam paperback edition is from 1949. The cover looks a hell of a lot like the work of Ed Paulsen, who painted this cover for Bantam in 1949 featuring a man with a near identical face. But officially, this was painted by Ken Riley, who was also working with Bantam in 1949. It’s a pretty nice piece, establishing definitively three main characteristics of Hemingway’s writing—booze, women, and anguish, with the latter deriving in this case from the ex-soldier protagonist having had his penis shot off or rendered non-functional, yet being in love with the beautiful Lady Brett Ashley. The problem is infinitely compounded by the fact that she loves him too, but must seek physical pleasures from other men. If you know any iconoclasts who’ve told you this book isn’t worth your time, we suggest you ignore them. The Sun Also Rises is a tough, affecting, unforgettable read.

Bantam Books, Ernest Hemingway, Ken Riley, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 8

1966—Star Trek Airs for First Time

Star Trek, an American television series set in the twenty-third century and promoting socialist utopian ideals, premieres on NBC. The series is cancelled after three seasons without much fanfare, but in syndication becomes one of the most beloved television shows of all time.

September 8

1974—Ford Pardons Nixon

U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office, which coincidentally happen to include all those associated with the Watergate scandal.

September 7

1978—Giorgi Markov Assassinated

Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov is assassinated in a scene right out of a spy novel. As he’s waiting at a bus stop near Waterloo Bridge in London, he’s jabbed in the calf with an umbrella. The man holding the umbrella apologizes and walks away, but he is in reality a Bulgarian hired killer who has just injected a ricin pellet into Markov, who develops a high fever and dies three days later.

September 6

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

September 5

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

September 5

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.