Ernest Hemingway – The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech 1954

Ernest Hemingway – Second Poem To Mary Written 1944

Caedmon’s Ernest Hemingway Reading LP sounds an awful lot like Colonel Walter E. Kurtz’ recordings in Apocalypse Now. The gatefold sleeve contains extensive notes on the recordings, written by Mary Hemingway and Hemingway’s biographer A.E. Hotchner (subject of the film King Of The Hill). Unlike almost all Caedmon records which are of superb sound quality, this LP contains home recordings. A.E. Hotchner writes:

One of Ernest Hemingway’s deadliest enemies was The Microphone. The Camera ran it a close second, but The Microphone was the blackest villain that stalked his life, and despite the persistent blandishments of radio stations, television producers and record companies, he successfully fended off all efforts to put him in the grips of The Demon Mike.
But Over the years, under special circumstances, Ernest did record a few things for me on an old Webster wire recorder the he kept in his finca in Cuba, and on a transistorized pocket recorder called a Midgetape which we took on our travels. These wires and tapes, imperfect though they are, are virtually the only record we have of his voice. (The one exception is his acceptance of the Nobel Prize which was recorded by a Havana radio station.) This album contains, in addition to the Nobel acceptance, five recordings made during 1948-1961, which was the span of time I knew him.

The homemade feeling of the record carries over to the sleeve, with cover photo taken by Mary Hemingway and the candid picture of the couple attending a bullfight in Pamploma. This record is strangely personal and a bit disturbing but I guess that fits the profile we have of Hemingway. Regardless of his opposition to microphones he has a real character and presence when reading his work, something many authors that record profusely lack entirely. If he hadn’t terminated himself (with extreme prejudice) at 61 we might have heard more from him.

It doesn’t seem to be available on CD at all, the tapes belonging to Hotchner rather than Caedmon’s now parent company Harper Audio, but copies do pop up on Musicstack and Amazon sellers from time to time.
Recommended.