Suzanne del Gizzo on "The Blind Man's Christmas Eve"

Happy holidays from One True Podcast, and it wouldn’t be the holiday season without Suzanne del Gizzo—the celebrated editor of The Hemingway Review—here to discuss another one of Hemingway’s seasonally appropriate works. In previous years, we have talked together about “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” “Christmas on the Roof of the World,” “The Christmas Gift,” and “A North of Italy Christmas.” This year, we explore “The Blind Man’s Christmas Eve,” an article Hemingway wrote for The Toronto Star in December 1923.

With Suzanne, we place the story in its historical and biographical contexts, delve into the relationship between the main character and the curious narrative perspective, examine how physical and metaphorical blindness works in the story, and connect the story to other Hemingway works such as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "Get a Seeing-Eyed Dog," and Islands in the Stream. We also think about the importance of the song “My Old Kentucky Home,” which the main character hears an Italian organ grinder play.

As a special gift to our listeners, we begin the episode with a reading of “The Blind Man’s Christmas Eve” by former guest Mackenzie Astin, star of The Facts of Life, The Magicians, and In Love and War, where he played the young Henry Villard opposite Chris O’Donnell’s Hemingway and Sandra Bullock’s Agnes von Kurowsky. We also end the episode with another treat--a moving rendition of "My Old Kentucky Home" by Hemingway scholar Michael Kim Roos, who appeared as a guest on one of our previous shows on A Farewell to Arms.

Thanks for another great year, everybody. Enjoy!