by city dweller

The Globe, a magazine published by the Institute of Alcohol Studies, passed through my hands but before it went out of sight I read an interesting review by Andrew Valley of Scott Donaldson’s "Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald - the Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship".

It begins with an anecdote about Sinclair Lewis. How he ‘once staggered onto the podium at Harvard to give a lecture. "How many of you want to be writers?" he said. Nearly all the students present raised their hands eagerly. "Then why the hell aren’t you at home writing?" And he staggered out.’

‘So many writers, so many drunks. The combination is not obligatory, but at times, especially in the USA, it may seem so: Dos Passos, Steinbeck, Cheever, O’Neill, Falkner, and, pre-eminently, Ernest Hemingway and Scot Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald once challenged someone to name an American writer, part from Henry James, who had not died of drink!’

The choice of the title of the book ‘implies a contest between the two men and certainly that was how Hemingway saw their relationship: though, to be fair, the same applied to virtually all his human contacts.’

‘No-one who drank with Hemingway could be in any doubt that they were engaged in a serious competition. It may have been a puerile course of behaviour but it was a symbol of how Hemingway regarded the business of being a man. If he ever saw Fitzgerald as a potential companion in heavy drinking bouts, he was doomed to disappointment. Like many alcoholics, Fitzgerald had a weak head. He quickly became drunk and would pass out on what Hemingway regarded as pitifully small quantities (several bottles of Macon and a few large whiskies, as described in Moveable feast). Hemingway could take his drink, keep going during lengthy binges, and appear to many observers to be functioning reasonably normally. They were both typical alcoholics, although their drinking and their attitudes to it differed almost completely. One small point of similarity was in their denial. Hemingway imagined himself to be in control - anything else would have been unmanly - and was never able to admit that he was in the power of alcohol.’

Andrew Valley’s review goes further: ‘Fitzgerald had the ready-made excuse that it was his wife Zelda’s problem, not his; that she was not only the one with the serious alcohol problem, but also mentally unbalanced. In discussion with a series of specialists, he argued that to cut back on his own drinking (which in these circumstances, surprisingly, he tended to minimise) would be to admit that he was the source of their marital problems. It was clear to Scott that his drinking had become excessive (and perhaps of a different nature) because of his wife’s madness. To be fair, Zelda blamed her condition on his drinking. Zelda and Scott were co-dependent. Ernest Hemingway led a much more adventurous sexual life than his friend - that’s what a real man does, after all - but, one of the things he admired in a woman was an ability to match him drink for drink and his relationship with Martha Gelhorn bears this out.’

‘If rivalry and over-sensitivity poisoned their relationship, as Mr. Donaldson contends, then drink played it part in the breach. It certainly damaged both men’s work.’

Those snippets from Valley’s review should make you want to dash straight to a book stand and buy a copy of Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald. Good luck!

What could be the plague is the spread of alcohol abuse. ‘It’s a bigger health threat than tobacco’, says the Globe. Just a few statistics will shake you. Alcohol is responsible for 3.5 % of global death and disability. Tobacco-related illness accounts for only 2.7 %, while illegal drugs cause only 0.6%. Alcohol use and health-related problems have tended to be highest in developed countries and the countries of the former Soviet Union. However, rapidly developing countries are now catching up - and that’s us in Sri Lanka!

The finger is pointing at Sri Lanka, while consumption of alcohol declines in developed countries, particularly France and Italy.

Who is producing alcohol? The developing countries, of course. Beer and distilled spirits are in the hands of a few large corporations. These producers spend heavily on marketing to stimulate demand for their products. Particularly in developing countries and markets in transition, alcohol’s revenue-enhancing potential is seen but not its costs. At the same time, public health-related technologies to reduce demand for alcohol are more prevalent in developed than in developing countries - that’s us in Sri Lanka, again!

What are prevention technologies? Alcohol taxation, licensing systems and other limits on alcohol availability, laws regarding drink-driving, and limits on promotion and accessibility to young people.

Alcohol is more and more linked to family violence? Violent offences within the family trace to alcohol abuse. The terrifying thing is that alcohol increases the risk of family violence. Many men and women while under the influence of alcohol choose victims who are either family or friends. Just ask around and you will find that this is true. Nasty incidents are well covered up by family, relations and friends.

Alcohol removes inhibitions, it is said. That could mean that men or women who are finding it difficult to have sex with a partner, dive for the bottle first. Or have I got it all wrong? Many psychologists may like to add that this is mostly in the area of male needs. How many women are told by their GP or best friend ‘relax, have a shot or two before you go to bed and hey presto, the job is done’! A little Dutch courage?

A study recently done in Germany and Spain says ‘family violence is overwhelmingly against women. Even when women are violent, this is simply in reaction to violence directed against them. Not only that, there are occasions when women are unaware of being the victims of violence. This is when a woman’s understanding of the word violence differs from that of whoever is doing the research and they fail to "interpret the disrespectful and abusing behaviour of the partner" correctly. You can find this report in Family Violence and Alcohol: insights and recommendations for professionals working with victims and batterers, Institute and Health Research, Kiel, and Fundacio Salut I Comunitat, Barcelona.

We began with discussing a book on the friendship between two giant winters: Fitzgerald and Hemingway. How many other friendships between two people in Sri Lanka have wrecked the families of those two families respectively? Must we wait until one or other dies, to publish the real story and how their women were slowly destroyed? It is long overdue taking our heads out of the sand on the subject of family violence. If you know it’s happening, do something.

Incidentaly, I need not remind you that the season of good cheer is upon us and it won’t be long before many a home will be opening its doors to crates of whisky, beer and arrack, and young executives will be competing with wine and women at baila competitions. Take some care over the next few months. You are~ lucky to have made it this far, not everyone has had your luck, however. Those in Sri Lanka who have died of alcohol related illnesses in 1999 and 2000 not being prolific writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald left their story instead in a grubby old mortuary where the bell does not toll.