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Redefining remate: Hemingway's professed approach to writing A Moveable Feast.

Article Excerpt
For nearly fifty years, Hemingway scholars have used the term remate to describe Hemingway's approach to writing A Moveable Feast. This essay traces the critical consensus that remate is a jai alai term that means a two-wall shot or a shot "by reflection" to a probable mistranslation of the word by Mary Hemingway and invites critics to consider how the correct definition of remate, which literally means to "re-kill"--it also has specialized meaning as a "kill shot" in jai alai and a "finishing pass" in bullfighting-might change the way we study, teach, and write about A Moveable Feast.

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FOR NEARLY FIFTY YEARS, Hemingway scholars have used the term remate to describe Hemingway's unique approach to autobiography and memoir. Their use of this term is traceable toga 10 May 1964 article by Mary Hemingway in The New York Times Book Review, where she discusses the "conception" and "construction" of her husband's posthumously published memoir, A Moveable Feast. Mary recounts a conversation with Ernest about the genre of Feast, prompted by her complaint as she was preparing the typescript that: "It's not much about you.... I thought it was going to be autobiography?' She recalls Hemingway's response: "It's biography by remate" and goes on to gloss his meaning, "Remate idiomatically is used to mean a two-wall shot in jai alai. By reflection" This exchange is noteworthy for two reasons: first, according to Mary, Ernest changed her designation of Feast's genre from "autobiography" to "biography" in his response to her, and second, her translation of remate as a jai alai term that means "by reflection" is not accurate or complete.

It is impossible to know what exactly Hemingway said, although clearly "biography by remate" would mean something different from "autobiography by remate?' In Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (1972), Carlos Baker identified this subtle shift in genre in Mary's statement but chalks it up as a mistake and tries to settle the issue when he writes in a footnote: "[Hemingway] was doing autobiography rather than biography [in Feast]" (375). Since that time, most critics have followed Baker's lead and referred to Feast almost exclusively as "autobiography" and Hemingway's method of writing as "autobiography by remate." (1) Although there is probably more to say on this topic, the focus of my discussion will be Mary's use of the term remate.

Since Mary made this claim, the notion that Hemingway was working...

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