Ernest Hemingway’s Short Stories: Vol I
“I had to leave…”
The Old Man at the Bridge
A Short Story from 1938
“Did you leave the cage door open?”
Over the last years I have written a good many pieces about Ernest Hemingway, including a play, and will never grow tired of doing so, for I believe him to be at the very heart of American culture: with his short stories, like Louis Armstrong’s solos from the 1920s, a constant reminder of where the beat lives.
Hemingway’s 1938 collection of stories, and a play, The Fifth Column: which is a much better play than first thought, and it must be remembered it was written during the worst of the Spanish Civil War. And as I’ve written in a previous piece, the:
… excellent response Hemingway and Ivens had received for their film, The Spanish Earth, must also have encouraged Hemingway to consider writing for the stage, where he could again, hopefully, bask in the glow of a collective, and, in part, emotionally driven adulation, which is something the novelist — being read alone by an individual — seldom, if ever, experiences.
A Broadway play can also earn large financial rewards for its author, and Hemingway was always drawn to making money, therefore the chance to make even more must have been hard to resist…
