martha gellhorn

ok, so...salon.com has a nice piece about the recently edited book of martha gellhorn's letters.....for those who don't recognize the name instantly, martha gellhorn was the the woman for which ernest hemingway dumped his 2nd wife pauline...she had come to france in the early thirties as a newspaper correspondent....first having an extended affair with a relative of one of colette's ex-husbands.......and having liasons with scores of well-knowns over the years.....the list included rockefellers, generals......and the like.......these are some of my favorite quotes from the article.....written in 1972....."I started living outside the sexual conventions long before anyone did such dangerous stuff and I may say hell broke loose and everyone thought unbridled sexual passion was the excuse. Whereas I didn't like sex at all ... all my life idiotically, I thought sex seemed to matter so desperately to the man who wanted it that to withhold was like withholding bread, an act of selfishness ... what has always really absorbed me in life is what is happening outside. I accompanied men and was accompanied in action, in the extrovert part of life; I plunged into that; that was something altogether to be shared. But not sex; that seemed to be their delight and all I got was a pleasure of being wanted, I suppose, and the sort of tenderness (not nearly enough) that a man gives when he is satisfied. I daresay I was the worst bed partner in five continents."

After her inevitable breakup with her second husband, Gellhorn remained in London, which was to be her home until her death in 1998, though she also spent time at her houses in Kenya and Wales. Late middle age was tough on her, as she watched her looks and energy fade at just the time her professional star dimmed. "I have always looked forward to my old age," she wrote in 1960, "being more and more convinced that it would be far funnier than this neither fish-nor-fowl period of middle age, which I am bound to admit bores me."

The one quality she did not lose was her anger, which only seemed to increase as she got older, allowing her to become the sort of feisty grand dame who always seems to be surrounded by a coterie of younger artists and intellectuals. "I never for a moment feared Communism in the U.S. but have always feared Fascism; it's a real American trait," she wrote after observing Barry Goldwater in 1964. She was particularly incensed by the Vietnam War. "I cannot endure this hideous wicked stupidity; to be at once cruel and a failure is too much," she wrote about Lyndon Johnson. "Our President is a disaster and will get worse; never trust a Texan farther than you can throw a rhino.".........for clarification, i am certain she meant political texans........not all texans......