Hemingway/Heringway?

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's latest PBS project, "Hemingway," has renewed interest in the legendary writer. One important facet of his personality that the series reportedly brings out (full disclosure: I haven't yet watched it) is that despite his carefully cultivated reputation for machismo, Hemingway insisted that all four of his wives keep their hair cut short and dominate him in bed. (This kink may well have been at least partly the legacy of his domineering mother's insistence on dressing Ernest and his sister identically until their teens.)

The question of Hemingway's potential bisexuality had already surfaced in his incomplete novel, The Garden of Eden, posthumously published in 1986. In it, a young American writer, David Bourne, and his glamorous wife, Catherine, fall in love with the same woman. But I was not aware, until BookMen member Richard Schaefers brought it to my attention (thanks!), that the series also references his 1927 short story, "A Simple Enquiry" (sic). Here is a synopsis (adapted from Wikipedia): "Three Italian soldiers are snowbound. The senior officer, the Major, calls a 19-year-old orderly into his room and asks him whether he has ever loved a woman. Most critics interpret the ensuing conversation as the major propositioning the orderly. When his questions are rebuffed, the major dismisses the orderly on the understanding that he will not report the matter."

Richard also notes another Hemingway story, "The Sea Change," in which a man and his female partner, who is having an affair with another woman, discuss the situation.