I tried to kick up some dust
in Hemingway’s hotel room today, but it had been cleaned, meticulously. It was
sterile in the most counterfeit of ways, replicated ineffectually with
museum-esque forgery. Hemingway might have stood here once, but the aura is
gone now, and all that remains is the perfume of a tour guide.
* * *
I’ve been in a handful of
gift shops recently and I’ve noticed an abundance of Hemingway memorabilia in
each one of them. This is tourism at its most recognizable; it happens
everywhere and Cuba is not immune: the commodification of some regionally
important (insert noun here). In this case it’s Hemingway’s aura that is being
commodified. This is sort of another glimpse into capitalism, which is, I
opine, even more ironic in a country
like Cuba because it reveals another basic human characteristic: the desire to
be profitable. Hemingway has been idealized and commodified in Cuba, which is
no doubt something that he would have hated, (though he also would have
probably predicted with a superb fatalism). As I pick up a postcard with
Hemingway’s bearded face on the front, a woman behind me says “one CUC.” That’s
expensive for a postcard.
I buy it anyway.
It’s still sort of magical, though. That is,
Hemingway’s aura. At least it felt that way when we visited his house in Finca Vigia. I gazed into his
extra-organized house and noticed it was eerily well kept. Thousands of books were
aligned perfectly on shelves and bookcases, which is curious to me when I think
about it now because Hemingway was a
writer, and writers tend to have books scattered everywhere; it’s almost policy.
I wonder what he would think about what they’ve done to his hotel room, his
house, and his beloved Pilar. I
stared in through an open window: a military uniform was positioned just so,
and a half dozen decapitated and taxidermied heads overlooked the hotel-like-made-up-beds
and the ghosts of Hemingway’s cats. It cost five CUC. That’s cheap for aura.
No comments:
Post a Comment