Hemingway comes to life in three-part TV biography

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick took on the full life of successful writer Ernest Hemingway for their extremely detailed documentary that’s being played on television.

He became the favorite writer for millions, including me, when I was a teenager.

In his review of the TV show, Richard Roeper tried to summarize Hemingway with a string of 23 appropriate words:

“Great writer, war wounds, Toxic masculinity, Nobel

Prize, hunter, fisher, boxer, four wives, punchy sentences, alcoholic, macho persona, plane crashes, barroom storyteller, suicide.

Some of his most important books were “A Farewell to Arms,” “The Sun Also Rises” and “For Whom the

Bell Tolls.”

My dad tried to warn me that the last book was full of sex. But it actually played a minor role.

Hemingway’s wives, in order, were Hadley, Pauline, Martha and Mary. His residencies included Oak Park; Kansas City; Paris;, Key West; Cuba and Sun Valley, Idaho.

He urged writers to follow the advice of the Kansas City Star, which I try to live up to: “Use short sentences, use short first paragraphs, use vigorous English, be positive, not negative and watch your sequences of tenses.”

The handsome Hemingway used both handwritten and typewriter words to develop his unique style.

Episode one covers his first 30 years, including his childhood in Oak Park, and his work as a cub reporter on the Kansas City Star.

Episode two explores the period from 1929 to 1944 as Hemingway became the most famous and successful author in America.

Episode three “The Blank

Page” chronicles his final two decades, in which he suffered a series of physical injuries, drank ever more heavily and battled depression so severe he checked into the Mayo Clinic for treatment more than once.

In explaining his work life, he wrote, “You write until you come to a place where you still have your voice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.”

His quotes often reveal his surprising word use.

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “We could have had such a damned good time together.”

“Yes” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”

And “I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”

And “If he wrote it he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.”

Hemingway took his own life in 1961, as his father had before him, some 33 years earlier.