Hemingway's Chair -
by Michael Palin

This is a short presentation of Michael Palin's book "Hemingway's Chair". Marco Mueller and I presented his book and his life in our English course. We think that Michael did a marvelous job and we'd like you to read our article and finally his book. It's great fun!! Enjoy!

• Biography
• Major Works
• Summary
• The Book

Biography

Michael Palin was born on May 5^th 1943, a beautiful springday. His father was an Engineer, his mother wasn't. Already in his early years he played in a school production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, where he fell off the stage.

He appeared in several theatres, mainly playing in comedies. He studied at the Oxford University and received a 2^nd Class Degree in Modern History. In April 1966 he got married to Helen Gibbins. In the same year he wrote with Terry Jones (a future Monty Python member) for various BBC comedy shows. In 1967 in the age of 24, he won the Prix Jeunesse at the Munich TV Festival.
May 1969 he joined up with Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Terry Jones for the first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Already 1970 the first MP movie was screened (And Now For Something Completely Different).

During 1970 and today he has written for and performed in numerous successful films and television series, including MP's Monty Python and The Holy Grail, Life Of Brian and The Meaning Of Life, Time Bandits and an award-wining performance as the hapless Ken in A Fish Called Wanda and the sequel Fierce Creatures. He also wrote several children books and travel reports. Michael's first stage play, The Weekend, opened on March 15^th 1994. Hemingway's Chair was his first novel, published in April 1995.

To mention is also that Michael is president of Transport 2000, an environmental lobby group aiming to improve transport in Britain.

Today Michael lives in North London with his wife Helen.

• Biography
• Major Works
• Summary
• The Book

MAJOR WORKS

• Dr Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls (1974; with Terry Jones)
• Ripping Yarns (1978)
• More Ripping Yarns (1979)
• Dr Fegg's Encyclopaedia of All World Knowledge (1984; with Terry Jones)
• Around the World in Eighty Days (1989)
• Pole to Pole (1992; Publishing News Best Travel Writer Award)
• The Weekend (1994)
• Full Circle (1997)
• several children's books
• and much more

Around the World in Eighty Days, Pole To Pole and Full Circle were produced for BBC and are available as books and VHS.

• Biography
• Major Works
• Summary
• The Book

SUMMARY

Martin and Elaine are both working at Theston post office. They have strong feelings for each other, in fact they are in love, but both of them are quite shy and do not show emotions in the public.
At Theston post office everyone is waiting for Ernie Padgett's retirement as post master, and everybody thinks of Martin as the new post master. Instead, with Nick Marshall a new post manager is transferred to Theston post office; he has privatisation plans and wants to reorganize everything, including transforming the traditional post office, which was built in the 1930s, into a full-automated, hyper-modern post shop.

In his disappointment, Martin flees to his dream world, in which he thinks to be Ernest Hemingway. He has an exceptionally strong obsession with the American author: he has read all the books of him and knows all the dialogues of all Hemingway-novels by heart, his room is full of posters and objects from "Papa", as he calls Hemingway, and he is collecting everything that has any relation to Ernest Hemingway... and sometimes he is Ernest Hemingway!

One day, Martin meets Ruth Kohler. She is American and has come to Theston for one year to write a book about Hemingway and his women. At first, Martin and Ruth can't stand each other, but with their common interest in Ernest Hemingway they get closer and become friends.

In the meanwhile, Nick Marshall has begun to reorganize the post office by stronger rules for stuff and costumers, by security boxes and security screens - and by the dismissing of John Parr and Arthur Gillies, who were - in Marshall's opinion - too old for the job. Elaine is more and more disappointed of Nick Marshall and also of Martin; so one evening she says to him: "Marshall throws the ball and you fetch it for him!". From that day on, the relation between Elaine and Martin completely changes and they only talk together when they have to, usually at work.

One day in January, Ruth Kohler appears at the post office and shows Martin an announce for a chair, which was used by Ernest Hemingway during making the film "The Old Man and the Sea" in April 1956. Martin is excited about that offer, but he hasn't got the £ 750 he would need to buy "Hemingway's Chair". From now on, his only aim in live is to get the money for that chair. At the same time his relationship with Ruth gets closer and more intimate.

Nick Marshall's new plan is to make of Theston post office a new transmission centre, and to achieve that, he needs Martin's help, for what he would pay him £ 1000 - so Martin doesn't know what he should do: If he accepted, he would have to collaborate with Marshall - if not, he couldn't buy the chair. In his obsession to Hemingway, he takes the money, and his new dream is to sit in Hemingway's Chair on a big boat out in the sea.

In case of cheaper rent, the post office has been dislocated in the meanwhile to Randall's, a confectioner's house in the City. Because of that, Martin starts a campaign to get the post office back to the North Square. When Nick Marshall finds out that Martin was the head of this campaign, he fires Martin without notice, and Martin has lost the job he did for more than 16 years from one day to the other. Martin swears revenge...

• Biography
• Major Works
• Summary
• The Book

The Book

Michael Palin's bestselling comic novel "Hemingsway's Chair" was first published in Great Britain in 1995 by Methuen London.

The paperback edition was published by Mandarin Paperbacks (ISBN 0-7493-1930-5).

To order the book via Internet contact the Internet Bookshop in the UK.