Product Description

THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR

In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (55)

Awful binding
The hefty paperback had what I thought was an insert in its opening cover, but it was the first several pages of my favorite short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber."In trying to read other stories I found the print fine and a real struggle to hold the book without stretching the pages too much for fear of more sections breaking loose and falling out.

NOBODY WRITES LIKE PAPA HEMINGWAY
Many of us read Ernest Hemingway's novels in high school and on our own, so we know he's one of the grand masters of long fiction, but you don't get to know Hemingway until you read his short stories.I believe The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway would be the other book, besides the Bible, I take with me on a desert island.The reader gets the finest of entertainment, and the writer, professional and aspiring, get lessons in fiction you won't learn in school.Buy a copy.See exactly what it is I am trying to tell you.

Salvatore Buttaci, author of FLASHING MY SHORTS

CHRISTMAS GIFT
BOOK IN EXCELLANT CONDITION AND RECEIVED QUICKLY. SON WAS EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH FIRST EDITION GIFT FOR CHRISTMAS!

Library Binding edition incomplete
Please read the Library Journal review under "Editorial Reviews" above. The "Library Binding" version is incomplete.
Amazon has mixed together all the user reviews of the different editions. Pay close attention to reviews that discuss the quality of a specific version. Sometimes it is hard to know which version is being described.

Glad that I read the whole volume-- a very good collection.
I have read most of the big Hemingway novels-- For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises (my favorite), The Old Man and The Sea. I had limited exposure to the short stories, having only read "The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Honestly, I didn't like those two very much-- they seemed to distill the elements of Hemingway's prose of which I am least fond. I decided to buy this book since I have been spending more time lately on the structure of the short story-- and Hemingway is a master of prose.

I am actually glad that I read the whole collection. It is a pretty big pill to swallow, and there were moments when I got a little bit tired of it. But to read all of his short stories gives a much more nuanced sense of his approach to topics like blood sports, war, and masculinity then you get from just reading the handful of famous stories. I liked him and his narrative voice much better for reading the whole thing. My favorites were some of the smaller pieces midway through the volume: "The Killers" and "A Day's Wait" were personal favorites, for example.

If you have an interest in Hemingway and would like to read further in his work than just the major novels, then I would certainly recommend the collection. ... Read more

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The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth centuryAmazon.com Review
The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it'sas fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway'sfamously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry:"Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater anda tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She startedall that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brettand her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy PrincetonJewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are asfamiliar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder thisquintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generationsof imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.

Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that hasleft him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett,the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour ofnatural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War Ianomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Pariscafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town ofPamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett,with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all arounduntil she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter PedroRomero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I wouldlove to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." Whereupon the party disbands.

But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-freestyle. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one ofthem, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how youfeel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be ableto resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to itsreputation. --David Laskin ... Read more

Customer Reviews (542)

The Sun Also Rises: Book Review
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is a book that everyone should read. In it, Hemingway focuses on the concept of love but in a very unique way. Hemingway uses his characters to portray love as a scary thing. He strongly supports his notions regarding love throughout the book.

The book takes place in Paris and Spain. A group of friends travel to a small Spanish town for a fishing trip and to participate in the annual grand fiesta. The group consists of four men and one women. The women, named Brett, had some interesting ideas towards relationships. She creates conflict between the men and even between some newly found Spanish friends. It appears Brett creates conflict to avoid getting close to people. The drinking is endless, creating even more conflict between friends. Many relationships are ruined in a period of only a few days.

The book is told from the first person perspective of a well off American writer named Jake, who lives and works in Paris. Hemingway uses Jake to tell the story of how some people lived during the early 1900's. I think Hemingway wrote this book to give a good, entertaining look into the lives of Europeans in the early 1900's. I also think something in his own life gave him the idea to write this book. He spent a portion of his life living in Paris; his experiences there could have contributed to the portrayal of events in The Sun Also Rises.

Hemingway's style of writing through the dialogue of his characters makes this book suitable for all teens and adults. Hemingway never overstates conversation. There is a purpose in every word he writes, and it sounds like you could actually be talking to the character. Hemingway's idea of love was intriguing in that he describes it as complicated and unforgiving. In the future, this Hemingway presentation of love could change my opinions of other characters in other books.

I would highly recommend this book to others for several reasons. First, I think everyone needs to read Hemingway to experience his unique writing style. It is brilliantly simple. Second, the ideas presented regarding love are intriguing. For example, Hemingway focuses on fear of love and suggests people don't always end up with their true love. Hemingway's portrayal of people's fear of relationships may help explain some reasons for divorce. For example, fi people tend to avoid the most meaningful relationships, the "lesser" relationships may be more likely to end in failure. Third, this book remains contemporary. Everyone who reads this book can find a connection to themselves or a family member. Indeed, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises focuses on the many layered connections of his characters--I think those connections made this book easier and more fun to read.-By Hannah Hunsaker

Expected Better from Hemingway
Not such a great book.Boring, characters not well developed.Plot not so great.I expected much more from Hemingway.Much better book by Hemingway is, "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

Loved It!
The Sun Also Risesis a fascinating novel. I can't believe I hadn't read it years earlier. The protagonist, Jake Barnes, is a tragic hero of sorts. He was wounded in WW1 and his injuries rendered him impotent.His injury deeply affected his psyche, and he is insecure about his masculinity as a result. The love of Jake's life is the beautiful Lady Brett Ashley, who cared for him during the war when he was wounded. She is a shallow woman, who cares for Jake, but will not commit to him because sex is very important to her. Instead Lady Brett spends her time with a variety of men. Jake, on the other hand, spends much of his time in Paris with his buddies, each drinking in cafes and wasting their lives.

The activities that Jake and his buddies engaged in were really quite sad.They seemed like they never grew up, but instead their behavior was reflective of their wish to forget the horrors of the war.They wandered rather aimlessly, a highlight being the fiesta and bullfights in Pamplona where the group engages in more drinking, dancing and debauchery.

This book was originally published in 1926, and its strength is definitely the style in which it was written. Hemingway's writing is sharp and insightful, and you feel every detail: the sight, sounds, the place. The characters, although flawed were sympathetic. I loved how he got into the psyche of the characters, helping the reader feel what their life was like, and why they made some of the decisions they did.I thought it was rather ironic that the title, "The Sun Also Rises", which to me symbolizes a new dawn, a new day, really had no significance for Jake and the other characters in this novel. Rather they never moved on with their lives, stuck in time, as a result of the past. Hemingway seemed to truly understand the struggles and challenges that life handed his characters, and for that matter -- each of us. Some individuals are made stronger by adversity, but others are not. In the end though,we rarely get everything we want in life-- do we?

A Brilliant novel - Don't Miss It!

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
I never really read much Hemmingway. Sure, Old Man And The Sea (Scribner Classics), my Dad had it lying around when I was a kid. A month long vacation traveling through Spain seemed like a perfect opportunity to get started.

It's a great description of "the expat life" and the Basque country was not so very different when I first traveled there in the early nineties. When I was last there in 2007 it had fast forwarded into what seemed like the 1980s. Shame.

Two very memorable characters in Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley, forever battling the wound that will never heal. They and their motley crew have "a wonderful nightmare" at the Pamplona fiesta. I'm not going to give away the plot here but my thinking is that all of the male characters (Cohn, Bill and Mike) represent different aspects of Jake's personality that he is either suppressing (Cohn and Mike) or aspiring to (Bill). Even the great Pedro Romero - Pedro loving and Pedro fighting both bulls and men seems to represent Jake's not so subconscious. That doesn't give away the story line but see if you don't agree after reading.

The Pamplona fiesta is mostly foreign turistas and creeps now. If you would still like to see a more authentic fiesta complete with bullfighting (though no "bull-running") try Ronda in September. Ronda is the birthplace of both bullfighting and Pedro Romero and is also featured in Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (Paperback). People travel from all over southern Spain for the fiesta. The point though, is that they are Spanish not skipping classes at Penn State.

Pointless

After reading the first couple of chapters of boring conversations I was still waiting for something interesting to develop. But there was nothing, so I started skipping pages, finally skipping to the end. This book is rated as one of the finest novels ever, but I don't see that at all. It is a total bore. ... Read more

Product Description

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. This collection, The Short Stories, originally published in 1938, is definitive. Among these forty-nine short stories are Hemingway's earliest efforts, written when he was a young foreign correspondent in Paris, and such masterpieces as "Hills Like White Elephants," "The Killers," "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style -- from the plain, bald language of his first story, "Up in Michigan," to the seamless prose and spare, eloquent pathos of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" to the expansive solitude of the Big Two-Hearted River stories. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Form, Function and Lenght
The standard refrain is that Hemingway was a master of short fiction.There is something about the minimalism of his style, and the short format, that create a happy marriage of form, substance, and length.

That is certainly shown in this collection of stories, which feature some of his most well-known works.Coming back to these stories after a few years, one is struck by the geograpical span of the works.This quintessential American writer was at home in the world.The stories take place in Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Switzerland, Africa, the American West, and Upper Michigan.Hemingway was reaping the benefit of America's expansion after the Great War.He could go anywhere, do anything, and from that experience, distill these gem-like stories.

In exploring the world, he found uniquely American stories to tell.

American Classic
What can one say, this is the classic collection the way Hemingway intended it to be.A great book for taking on vacation or to keep on the nightstand when a short story or two can be just the thing.

Excellent Collection
I got this book a while back for a college course where we were to pick an author and write about him/her. I randomly picked Hemingway...I had no idea that this random act would lead me into a fantastic world of fine literature.

This book contains the first 49 short stories Hemingway wrote. There are stories from Africa, from Spain, and from America. There are stories about love, life, and death.

You really have to read Hemingway to understand why so many love his writing...at least, it is not something I can really describe...you just have to read his work.

Since reading this collection, I have bought several other Hemingway works...I have yet to be disappointed with a Hemingway novel.

For those who have read his work but don't have this book, I recommend this book. I also recommend The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition - though I do not own it, it contains all of Hemingway's short stories...

5/5

A review of the CD set, not the author's work
There is little that I could say about Hemingway's short stories that hasn't been said before. But while Ernest Hemingway had magic with the written word, his old recordings of reading his own stories on tape are not good. Instead of sounding like how I would expect the story to be told (out loud), the author's voice is shrill and, in places, sounds more like an impression of Mark Twain. Stacy Keach is hands down the ideal voice of Hemingway's short stories (although I give four stars to Charleton Heston). His readings are straightforward, he employs accents where applicable, and minimizes the "he said" and "she said" words, making them place holders rather than part of the story itself. Based on the three volumes of Hemingway short stories, I am sufficiently enamored of Keach's readings to make me delve into other works of fiction that Keach has recorded on CD.

Experience is Everything...
Ernest Hemingway was one of the first celebrity writers.In fact, his life was so interesting that, for a time, it looked like he was more interesting than what he wrote.While I read A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises relatively early in life, I remember really getting into Carlos Baker's biography of the "larger than life" author. At first, I steered clear of Hemingway's short stories; on the whole, I am not a big fan of short stories.They're over too fast, for one thing, and add to this a professor I had along the way who likened every short story to the archetypical story of Adam and Eve, and my interest in the short story form evaporated like yesterday's rainwater.Then in the 70's I saw a Hollywood adaptation of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories (and especially after seeing Paul Newman play the washed up boxer in "The Battler"), I dusted off my copy of EH's short stories, and read them all over the course of a couple of days and was blown away by them.Later, when I taught "Big Two-Hearted River" and "My Old Man" to the American Authors class in a local high school, I had some of the most soul-searching discussions with the students. Often, I would read one of the stories aloud to them and then we'd talk about it.What was there about these stories that brought the classalive and soopen to discussion?One reason might be thatthey are written so simply and, yet, pack such an emotional punch the reader hardly sees it coming.In "Big Two-Hearted River", for example, he's not just telling about a fishing expedition, catching and cleaning fish, packing them up for the trip home;he's got that bit about the ants on the burning log which transfers quite nicely as an allegory for human existence.In his laconic, yet sophisticated style--unparalleled by any author before or since, Hemingway creates a visceral reaction in the reader; the reader, without a lot of fancy footwork, EXPERIENCES what the first breakup feels like ( "The End of Something"), or how it feels to get drunk for the first time ("The Three Day Blow").The plight of the returning soldier ("A Soldier's Home"), and the desperation of the dispossessed (Old Man on a Bridge) are unearthed in the reader as though he is returning home or sitting alone at the bridge during wartime.We all know, that in life Hemingway was all for grace under pressure andpossessed an almost manic push to experience everything. In his short stories, especially, we can truly experience what it really feels like to be alive and never have to leave our recliner.Heartfelt thanks for that, Ernest.
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The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.Amazon.com Review
Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honor to the author.In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway's career,which was foundering under the weight of such postwar stinkers as Across the River and into theTrees. It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in1954 (an award Hemingway gladly accepted, despite his earlier observationthat "no son of a bitch that ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anythingworth reading afterwards"). A half century later, it's still easy to seewhy. This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (orhand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway's favoritemotifs of physical and moral challenge. Yet Santiago is too old and infirmto partake of the gun-toting machismo that disfigured much of the author'slater work: "The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sunbrings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. Theblotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had thedeep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords." Hemingway'sstyle, too, reverts to those superb snapshots of perception that won himhis initial fame:

Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weedthat heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making lovewith something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by adolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the lastof the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.

Customer Reviews (762)

Ernest Hemingway Novel
This novel was the first piece of literature that I enjoyed reading. I was in 9th grade when I read it for the first time. The novel can be summarized in one sentence: It is about a man struggling to catch a fish and eventually failing. The true meaning of the novel goes so much deeper than that though. This novel taught me not to judge a book by it's cover. Since reading this novel, I have read several other pieces of literature by Ernest Hemingway and he has become one of my favorite authors. I strongly recommend taking the time to read this novel.

Papa, what were you thinking?
I read this book in high school, and decided to see what I'd think of it now (trying to keep the image of Spencer Tracy out of my head).Well, this is one very bad novel.What happened?The two main characters are so stereotyped and the writing is so 'precious' (almost as though Hemingway had been inhaling some VERY mellow stuff) that it seems as though it were done by a ghostwriter.I've read that the book is a metaphor for the negative responses Hemingway's later work was given by reviewers, hence the old man is Hemingway, and the sharks are the critics, but that doesn't relieve the bad writing of its 'badness.'It seems hard to believe that a writer that could capture so accurately the culture and world views of Spaniards, French, Italians, ex-pat Americans could depict Cubans as though they were cartoon characters, but that's what seems to be the case here.I'm guessing Hemingway was trying something 'experimental.' That's fine.It's fine if the experiment isn't a success. But with the books celebrity comes its use in curricula across the land, and it would be a lot better to introduce students, at least, to the Hemingway of the Nick Adams stories, which are accessible as well, but not to the point of such goofiness.However, I hear that 'A Rose for Emily' is still used in high school and colleges as a Faulkner introduction, so either the same teachers who assign both these 'losers' have no taste or they are getting even for the misery they experienced in grad school.

My favorite Hermingway Novel!!!!
This the best book about a fish getting away that I have ever read. Every time I read it I wonder again if the fish is going to get away this time. And it always does. But that's the sign of a genius (Hermingway); when you read a book and think maybe it will end different each time. Personally I really like fish. Old men, not so much. But together, old men + fish makes for some good reading. Final score: Fish: 1. Old Man: 0. And it's really short!!

Exceeded expectations
I was very interested in, what on the surface sounds like a plain story, that I finished it in one day.Typically I am a slow reader, so finishing anything in one day is rare for me.

I liked the clear and concise details and descriptions.Just enough to let the reader imagine the scene without belaboring the story.

The story itself had me wondering what would come next for Santiago and how he would handle it.

A fair story
When I ordered it I had no idea it was so short (its only about 90 pages).
I read this book for school and it wasn't bad, it was a good story, but I felt the book ended to fast, like the writer gave up at in end. ;) ... Read more

Product Description

THIS COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND VIGNETTES MARKED ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S AMERICAN DEBUT AND MADE HIM FAMOUS

When In Our Time was published in 1925, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein among the most promising American writers of that period. In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The Three Day Blow," and "The Battler," and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose -- enlivened by an car for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic that suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of heart.

Now recognized as one of the most original short story collections intwentieth-century literature, In Our Time provides a key to Hemingway's later works.Amazon.com Review
No writer has been more efficiently overshadowed by his imitators thanErnest Hemingway. From the moment he unleashed his stripped-down,declarative sentences on the world, he began breeding entire generations ofminiature Hemingways, who latched on to his subtractive style without everwondering what he'd removed, or why. And his tendency to lapse intoself-parody during the latter half of his career didn't help matters. ButIn Our Time, which Hemingway published in 1925, reminds us of justhow fresh and accomplished his writing could be--and gives at least aninkling of why Ezra Pound could call him the finest prose stylist in the world.

In his first commercially published book (following the small-pressappearance of Three Storiesand Ten Poems in 1924), Hemingway was still wearing his influenceson his sleeve. The vignettes between each story smack of Gertrude Stein,whose minimalist punctuation and clodhopping rhythms he was happy toborrow. "My Old Man" sounds like Huck Finn on the Grand Tour: "Well, wewent to live at Maisons-Lafitte, where just about everybody lives exceptthe gang at Chantilly, with a Mrs. Meyers that runs a boarding house.Maisons is about the swellest place to live I've ever seen in all my life."But in the "The Battler" or "Indian Camp" or "Big Two-Hearted River,"Hemingway finds his own voice, shunning the least hint of rhetoricalinflation and sticking to just the facts, ma'am. His reluctance to trafficin high-flown abstraction has often been chalked up to postwardisillusion--as though he were too much of a simpleton to make deliberatestylistic decisions. Still, nobody can read "Soldier's Home" withoutdrawing a certain connection between the two. Returning home to Oklahoma,the hero finds that his tales of combat are now a bankrupt genre:

Even his lies were not sensational at the pool room. His acquaintances, whohad heard detailed accounts of German women found chained to machine gunsin the Argonne forest and who could not comprehend, or were barred by theirpatriotism from interest in, any German machine gunners who were notchained, were not thrilled by his stories.

Customer Reviews (54)

Best short story ever in here!
Short stories are beautiful bedtime reading, enough to slow your thoughts and remove you from the stresses of the day. This collection is Hemingway's very best, his American debut from 1925. The stories are concise, yet rich with detail and feeling. My personal favorite, "A Very Short Story," is less than two pages, but it expresses everything it needs to. As is Hemingway's style, he doesn't hand stories to the reader. You jump in head first and have to figure out where you are and what you're doing there. Each one of these tales is truly an adventure not to be missed.

A series of short-stories during and around WWII
In 1925, a relatively unknown World War I veteran named Ernest Hemingway released a collection of short stories entitled In Our Time. This new author was a treat to the readers, as he wrote with a style very different than what the readers were accustomed to. Instead of long, flowing prose, Hemingway's stories were written in short, declarative sentences, with an oblique style of emotions for the characters. This new minimalist approach to literature would become one of the greatest changes in literary style, influencing the entire literary scene until - and much past - World War II.

The book consists of many short stories, separated by short vignettes. Many of the short stories contain the character Nick Adams, initially a young boy learning about death in the company of his father who is a doctor. Then, he begins growing up. He has relationships with young women and great friends. These stories are divided by very short vignettes portraying the violence and emotions suffered in World War I. Very notable is Chapter VII,

...he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you'll only keep me from getting killed I'll do anything you say...Please please dear jesus...The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa about Jesus. And he never told anybody.

The Nick Adams stories come to a close at the end of the book with the two part Big Two-Hearted River, which shows an older, more mature Nick Adams, returned from the war and returning to the calming lifestyle of his youth by camping and fly-fishing in an amazingly described river and meadow.

In Our Time set the stage for Ernest Hemingway to become one of the most influential writers (some would argue he was the most influential) of the twentieth century. His short, terse, masculine prose would set the literary world on fire and paved the way for Hemingway's other masterpieces, including The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls,and The Old Man and the Sea. In Our Time is an excellent introductory work to the writing of Hemingway and is a classic sure to be enjoyed by many.

EARLY WRITINGS - ERNEST
Published in 1925, it is an early collection of Hemingway's short stories and the establishment of his clean, precise and simple style of writing. I like his clearcut style and entertaining way of writing - he makes the pages come alive, especially with his Nick Adams stories.His insights also have historical value in his observations of life in the earlier 20th Century, colloquially and culturally.A fast read and a nice way to catch up on the classics.

Very Good
The book arrived in a timely manner and is in excellent condition.I am quite satisfied.

The Book that Horrified Hemingway's Old Man
The story goes, that when Ernest Hemingway's parents first received copies of In Our Time, they were horrified and furious. His old man sent the books back to the publisher. A year later, in a letter to his father, Hemingway explained to his father what it was he was attempting as a young writer: "You see I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life - or criticize it - but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful."

We know Hemingway more for his off-the-page exploits than those he published, but in these short pieces, peppered with very short (mostly one page) pieces, Hemingway first introduces his hard-boiled style to an American audience. An earlier, much shorter version of this book was published the year before in Paris. Hemingway expects something of his readers. Much remembered for his belief that a good writer can say much more by employing omission than by saying too much, he leaves the job of applying sentiment and emotion to the reader.
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Product Description
SynopsisThe preeminent writer of his time, Ernest Hemingway wrote emotionally resonant fiction steeped in the experiences of the "lost generation" that came of age during World War I. His tales of American expatriates aimlessly adrift in postwar Europe and people struggling with dignity to persevere in a world marked by violence, cruelty, and senseless death capture the disillusionment and cynicism that were part of the spirit of the age. This literary omnibus collects Hemingway's four best-known novels - The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea. Written with Hemingway's trademark economy of style, but evocative in their delineations of individuals seeking purpose in lives shaped by futility and frustration, these tales pay tribute to a writer who changed the way fiction was written and read in the twentieth century. Ernest Hemingway: Four Novels is part of Barnes & Noble's Library of Essential Writers. Each title in the series presents the finest works - complete and unabridged - from one of the greatest writers in literature in magnificent, elegantly designed hardback editions. Every volume also includes an original introduction that provides the reader with enlightening information on the writer's life and works.BiographyThe winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature, Ernest Hemingway is one of the true giants of modern American literature. Hemingway's punchy, pared-down style and ability to zero in on the perfect characterizing detail of a person or scene has influenced every serious novelist of the second half of the 20th century. Everyone reads him at one time or another. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Just as promised; delivered sooner than expected!
The book is brand new. It arrived in perfect condition and was an excellent value and I was pleasantly surprised that it arrived within a week after I ordered.Very pleased.

Hemingway
If you are into Hemingway or you've never read his work before, this is the book to read. These are his four greatest novels rolled into one. If you want to be able to hold your own in a conversation about Hemingway, read these four books and you will know what his style is all about!

Four of the best books you'll ever read
It does not get much better than these four great novels by the 20th century's best writer of men and war - be it war with a woman, with an enemy or with the elements.For Whom the Bell Tolls is the finaest political novel ever written and you will not find a better story of the sea than The Old Man and the Sea.So read these books and see why Papa was the champ.

Affordable and handsome edition of Hemingway's four major novels
"The Library of Essential Writers" series of books are affordable and beautiful editions, not to mention sturdy [they are all in hardcover] and number about 31 works in all. In this collection of Ernest Hemingway's 4 novels, the works are "The Sun Also Rises", "A Farewell to Arms", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "The Old Man and the Sea". The works are preceded by a brief introduction by Eric Carl Link, the author of "The Vast and Terrible Drama: American Literary Naturalism in the Late Nineteenth Century".

This edition is complemented by "The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition".

The real deal
Let's cut straight to the chase: these are the four best longer-form stories from Hemingway, far and away. All in a single book, what a treat! Maybe technically the Pullitzer-prize winning "The Old Man and the Sea' is a novella, but it really doesn't matter: these are the 4 wonderful fiction books he wrote. If you have these novels plus the "Complete Short Stories" book you will be well-stocked with Hemingway magic. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experiences came A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway's description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer and the men and women he meets in Italy with total conviction. But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war. In it Hemingway has also created a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.Amazon.com Review
As a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War.Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined the ambulance corpsinstead and was sent to France. Then he transferred to Italy where he becamethe first American wounded in that country during World War I. Hemingwaycame out of the European battlefields with a medal for valor and a wealthof experience that he would, 10 years later, spin into literary gold withA Farewell to Arms. This is the story of Lieutenant Henry, an American,and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. The two meet in Italy, and almostimmediately Hemingway sets up the central tension of the novel: the tenuousnature of love in a time of war. During their first encounter, Catherinetells Henry about her fiancé of eight years who had been killed the yearbefore in the Somme. Explaining why she hadn't married him, she says shewas afraid marriage would be bad for him, then admits:

I wanted to do something for him. You see, I didn't care about the otherthing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted ifI would have known. I would have married him or anything. I know all aboutit now. But then he wanted to go to war and I didn't know.

Hemingway was not known for either unbridled optimism or happy endings, andA Farewell to Arms, like his other novels (For Whom the Bell Tolls,The Sun Also Rises,and To Have and HaveNot), offers neither. What it does provide is an unblinkingportrayal of men and women behaving with grace under pressure, bothphysical and psychological, and somehow finding the courage to go on in theface of certain loss. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (402)

Who would know without this novel?
As The Great War recedes into history, not many people recall it as more recent conflicts.A Farwell to Arms provides a vital service in reminding Americans that there was such a thing as World War I, and it was a costly and tragic event.Hemingway has also left us a vital and unusual bit of that war: Italy's involvement.Few Americans realize that Italy was an ally during The Great War; nor do they realize how different in quality this part of the war was from the Western Front.Hemingway has left us something unique: a marker post for a forgotten history.People still read this book today.Only Hemingway could have pulled this off.

But these are simply the social and historical reasons for reading this novel.The novel itself is a clear, precise, exciting, exactingly written, and largely free of anti-war statements (there are a few).Hemingway lets the plot and action carry the day, avoiding the pitfalls of the "protest novel."There is probably no better piece of writing in 20th century American fiction that the description of the retreat at Caporetto.Moments like these can help offset the terrible characterization of Catherine Barkley, probably one of Hemingway's most embarrassing heroines.She is weak and ineffectual; one sided and not fully fleshed out.This is the cliché expectation of a Hemingway female character, and unfortunately we find it here in spades.

Worth reading
A great story that captures the true brutality and unforgivingness of war, as well as finding love in the middle of one. This book has a good mix of simplicity and complexity, in terms of the plot and Hemingway's symbols and metaphors. It is an overall good book, and one worth reading.

Too much boring dialogue.
I am highly disappointed with this highly touted novel. The dialogue is very boring and repetitive, the descriptive material is dry. I gave up after two chapters.

Hemingway matures, gains strength
Ernest Hemingway gained fame in 1926, with the release of his first novel "The Sun Also Rises". Taken from the Bible, the title is a catchy phrase and one that has an allure all to itself. Considering that Hemingway was only 27 when it came out, the book shows the promise of a young writer struggling to find his niche. The story involves a group of American expatriates in Europe who are all heavily involved in drinking, eating, arguing and sleeping with each other's best friends- and drinking some more. If it were written today, with its' lack of any real "action" scenes and relatively weak plot, the novel would have trouble gaining the attention of any major publishing house.

The one redeeming quality of Hemingway shown in this book which comes out clearly is that he describes scenes, writes dialogue and sketches the "landscape" in a way which other writers were not doing at the time. His approach is fresh, bold- sometimes shockingly annoying, but obviously different- which sets him apart from his contemporaries. His verbal interactions with others are couched in a style which would be foreign to most people today- and perhaps many of those in his day...but that's part of what makes his writing so interesting. My views are perhaps somewhat clouded, as I am a true Hemingway fan- but for a lot of other reasons and mostly for his other novels, including the under-rated and not widely covered "Islands in the Stream", which is one of his very finest works.

"The Sun Also Rises" was a good start for Hemingway- but he shows his talent more strongly in the following novel released a few years later- "A Farewell to Arms". His descriptions of his inner psyche, the thoughts of others, their interactions in this later book are signs of the maturing Hemingway, a young man in "The Sun Also Rises"...growing to a man in "A Farewell to Arms"- with a greater depth of character, a more worldly view...and many more stories to tell...

-Gene Pisasale
Author- "Lafayette's Gold- The Lost Brandywine Treasure"

Thought Provoking
This book was first published in 1929- Having written about my own experiences I found this to be a very touching and romantic view of the horror and unpredictablity of war..... IF you have been on active service and have a wife or girlfriend its well worth a read- "great book "

Simon Bywater Forced Out ... Read more

Product Description

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.Amazon.com Review
For Whom the Bell Tolls begins and ends in a pine-scented forest,somewhere in Spain. The year is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in fullswing. Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert attached to the InternationalBrigades, lies "flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, hischin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of thepine trees." The sylvan setting, however, is at sharp odds with the reasonJordan is there: he has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of theantifascist guerrilla forces. He hopes he'll be able to rely on their localleader, Pablo, to help carry out the mission, but upon meeting him,Jordanhas his doubts: "I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness isbad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray.That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out." For Pablo, it seems,has had enough of the war. He has amassed for himself a small herd ofhorses and wants only to stay quietly in the hills and attract as littleattention as possible. Jordan's arrival--and his mission--have seriouslyalarmed him.

"I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow abridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for uswith planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, theywill find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turnedto Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tellme what I must do?"

For Whom the Bell Tolls combines two of the author's recurringobsessions: war and personal honor. The pivotal battle scene involving ElSordo's last stand is a showcase for Hemingway's narrative powers, but thequieter, ongoing conflict within Robert Jordan as he struggles to fulfillhis mission perhaps at the cost of his own life is a testament to hiscreator's psychological acuity.By turns brutal and compassionate, it isarguably Hemingway's most mature work and one of the best war novels of the20th century. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (300)

My Favorite Novel
I'm writing this review as the result of an experiment. I decided to test my theory that no matter how good a book or symphony or painting or aria or whatever have you, someone somewhere is going to think it is a piece of crap. I have observed this phenomenon in my one thousand plus speaking engagements where typically I will receive hundreds of glowing reviews and then there will be one disgruntled person who thinks I should be thrown out the window or fed to the alligators.

Here you have my favorite novel from a lifetime of reading voraciously -- Hemingway's FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. A novel that has it all: story, character, historical background, description, dialogue, love story, thematic subtext. And above all that, it is pure poetry. And yet in reading the reviews on Amazon, I see not merely one but several poor souls who just never got it. One lady had to keep a dictionary next to her to get through Hemingway's vocabulary. Too many syllables for her, I guess. (How many syllables are there in "ignoramus?") One example of how subjective it all is: Hemingway writes as though he is speaking Spanish even though he is writing in English. I am in awe of his ability to do this, and in fact one of the reviewers, a native Spanish speaker, confirms that Hemingway is perfectly accurate in his translation. Still, another brilliant reviewer doesn't get it, thinks that Hemingway must be illiterate.

Am I being a snob? I prefer not to think so. I just think it illustrates a wonderful quality of human beings, that they can and will disagree on just about anything. I simply want it to be known that this reviewer gives this book a ten-star review. More than any movie, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The reaction is visceral (look that up in your dictionary). If you have not read it, don't wait -- order the damn thing right away. It will enrich your life beyond description...or not!

Psychological Tale of War
I fell hard for Ernest Hemingway in high school.

I read A Farewell to Arms my sophomore year and fell in love with Hemingway and great literature. I read it over ever few years just because I can't get enough of the love story and Hemingway's gift for writing. Oh, he had a gift. I've also read The Sun Also Rises multiple times--sometimes because it was assigned and sometimes for fun. I've long heard that For Whom the Bell Tolls is supposed to be Hemingway's masterpiece and it's been on my to-read list for some time. (I have to admit that I have little to no desire to read about an old man in the sea. Sorry.)

In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Robert Jordan is an American supporting the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Jordan has been given the assignment to work with a small band of guerrillas to blow up a bridge at the moment of the Republic offensive. Over the three days he spends with the guerrillas the reader gets into his head and experiences the physical and psychological experience of being in war.

I sat in my car waiting to do a family photo session this morning and finished this fabulous novel. It is powerful and emotional and just confirmed my belief that Hemingway is one of the greatest writers. I'm gushing, I know. He's not for everyone. I've pushed my husband to read both A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises and he's not a fan. My husband thinks Hemingway is just an angry drunk. He might be right but I'm going to encourage him to give Hemingway another chance and read For Whom the Bell Tolls. I think he will be glad he did.

Great Read
One of my favorite books of all time.Granted, there are some dry parts in the book but other parts well make up for it.

A Masterpiece
I've probably read this book over 4 or 5 times throughout the years, first having read it as part of an assignment in a High School English class.This is my absolute favorite book, and I'll tell you why.As many reviewers have already pointed out, this book is enjoyable on so many levels: the characters are deep and complex; the questions about their purpose are deep.

As a native Spanish speaker, I truly enjoy this book much more because Hemingway's prose is an exact translation of how the characters would speak in their Spanish setting, which I only realize now living in Puerto Rico and re-reading this masterpiece after many years (and two war tours).The conversations, which may seem awkward to a non-Spanish speaker, are perfectly natural if translated into Spanish, adding to the realism of his tale.Chalk this up to Hemingway's genius and his ability to create realistic worlds in which his characters live and die.

For Whom the Bell Tolls
The book is fine enough though not what I had expected.Some of the wording in the description led me to expect something else.Also the interior of the package was absolutely filthy with something that appeared to be paper insulation.I got a face full of dust when I opened it.When I contacted the dealer about it he made excuses and said the package was clean when he shipped it.No it wasn't!The filth was INSIDE a sealed envelope.Really disappointing!!I expected better from Amazon.anza66, I won't buy from you again.I will look for other ways to purchase used reading material. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Concise YA Biography - 4.5/5 stars
I admit to knowing very little about Ernest Hemingway's life until I read this book, except that he was undoubtedly a talented writer and literary icon, and that he loved cats. In this 192 page biography with young adults as its targeted audience, that all changed for me. Each page was filled with interesting facts about Hemingway, as well as loads photographs at various stages of his life.Some of the facts I found interesting were: POSSIBLE SPOILERS....

He was born on July 21,1899 in Oak Park, Illinois.His writing always reflected what he was feeling. The Sun Also Rises, was inspired by bullfights he saw in Spain.A Farewell to Arms was based on his World War I adventures. In 1953 he won the Pulitzer Prize for An Old Man and the Sea, and in 1954 The Swedish Ambassador to Cuba awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature.Like his father, he committed suicide on July 2, 1961 in Ketchum, Idaho.His health was failing and he suffered from depression.Many of his books were published after his death. His house in Key West, Florida is a national historic landmark, and is open for tours.

MY THOUGHTS - In my opinion, this book is a great biography for anyone interested in a brief, yet well rounded book about one of the great writers of all time. RECOMMENDED

Un Generation Perdu
This book captures in pictures the corolaries between Hemingway's life and his fiction. You get a real sense of how his life influenced his art. How he was most concerned, not with plotting,characterization or the market, as other writers were, but with the capturing of real emotions on paper. I you are well read in hemmingway then every picture will bring back a moment in his fiction. This book is less a history and more an experience. ... Read more

Product Description

"There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things, and because it takes a man's life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave."

-- ERNEST HEMINGWAY

In the winter of 1933, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Pauline set out on a two-month safari in the big-game country of East Africa, camping out on the great Serengeti Plain at the foot of magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro. "I had quite a trip," the author told his friend Philip Percival, with characteristic understatement.

Green Hills of Africa is Hemingway's account of that expedition, of what it taught him about Africa and himself. Richly evocative of the region's natural beauty, tremendously alive to its character, culture, and customs, and pregnant with a hard-won wisdom gained from the extraordinary situations it describes, it is widely held to be one of the twentieth century's classic travelogues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (44)

Dated, Strange, with glimmers of interest
Green Hills of Africa is a repetitive narrative about big game hunting in Africa, with occasional swipes at other writers and critics, some now long forgotten.Occasionally Hemingway rises above the level of monotony of his "story," as he seems to contradict some of what he relates in the narrative.He has ambivalent feelings about the natives, and often expresses them (and in modern terms, this mars the book irrevocably).For instance Max Perkins would not allow this book to be published with certain expletives, but the N word abounds.

Some parts rise above the rest, offering some redemption.On page 284 of my text, Hemingway says that "[a] continent ages once we come.But the foreigner destroys, cuts down the trees, drains the water, so that the water supply is altered and in a short time the soil, once the sod is turned under, is cropped out and blown away as I had seen it start to blow in Canada.The earth gets tired of being exploited.A country wears out quickly unless man puts back all of his residue and that of the beasts...'

Sadly dated but hunters will love it
Hemingway is, of course, a great writer; therefore, in choosing to read this non-fiction account of his sojourns in Africa, I was expecting real insights into the country.I found myself sickened by his delight in killing the wild animals.Anyone who has been there and prefers 'shooting' from behind the camera will be as repulsed as I was. I realize that I am guilty of "presentism", viewing something from the lens of the present rather than of those from the time period in which it was written.Even so, I was expecting insights such as a great journalist such as Ryszard Kapusckinski provides.I found it very difficult to finish. Rather than Hemingway, I suggest The Shadow of the Sun by Kapusckinski.

Death is an old friend
Hemingway was a depressive who had a special relationship with death.His excellent--essentially true--tale, 'The Green Hills of Africa' highlights this relationship.No, not because it the killing integral to hunting but because it highlights disappointment and, to a certain extent, selfishness.Hemingway is altogether human.He doesn't always bag the best trophy.His trophies are smaller or 'uglier' than those of his friend.It is a source of personal disappointment.

Having hunted almost everwhere for almost everything, I know that luck is just that 'luck'.It bears no relationship to effort or even expertise.Sometimes the least likely hunter is blessed and the old pro, who knows all the tricks and kills himself with effort, goes off empty-handed or with a lesser animal.Actually this is exactly what keeps most of us hunting...the gamble.Like a gambling addict we keep at it because the highs and lows are just so compelling.Hemingway, in his own way, knew this and he recognized it's necessity and inevitability.Hemingway knew death and his disappointment was death in a very tight package.At age 61 he took a shotgun and blew his head off.No surprise and perhaps inevitable.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--'Skull Rack' and 'Hummingbird God'--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

An African hunter's first book
If you are planning a trip to Africa and don't read Hemingway you are doing yourself a great disservice.

Wonderful, classic read.
This is one of Ernest Hemingways' best!(And there were some of his I did not like at all) You Must read this! ... Read more

Product Description

"You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."

Begun in the autumn of 1957 and published posthumously in 1964, Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s. A correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe's cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist forms; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed Ulysses; Gertude Stein held court at 27 rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of rue génération perdue; and T. S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. It was during these years that the as-of-yet unpublished young writer gathered the material for his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, and the subsequent masterpieces that followed.

Among these small, reflective sketches are unforgettable encounters with the members of Hemingway's slightly rag-tag circle of artists and writers, some also fated to achieve fame and glory, others to fall into obscurity. Here, too, is an evocation of the Paris that Hemingway knew as a young man -- a map drawn in his distinct prose of the streets and cafés and bookshops that comprised the city in which he, as a young writer, sometimes struggling against the cold and hunger of near poverty, honed the skills of his craft.

A Moveable Feast is at once an elegy to the remarkable group of expatriates that gathered in Paris during the twenties and a testament to the risks and rewards of the writerly life.Amazon.com Review
In the preface to A Moveable Feast, Hemingway remarkscasually that "if the reader prefers, this book may be regarded asfiction"--and, indeed, fact or fiction, it doesn't matter, for hisslim memoir of Paris in the 1920s is as enchanting as anything made upand has become the stuff of legend. Paris in the '20s! Hemingway andhis first wife, Hadley, lived happily on $5 a day and still had moneyfor drinks at the Closerie des Lilas, skiing in the Alps, and fishingtrips to Spain. On every corner and at every café table, therewere the most extraordinary people living wonderful lives and tellingfantastic stories. GertrudeStein invited Hemingway to come every afternoon and sip "fragrant,colorless alcohols" and chat admid her great pictures. He taught Ezra Poundhow to box, gossiped with JamesJoyce, caroused with the fatally insecure ScottFitzgerald (the acid portraits of him and his wife, Zelda,are notorious). Meanwhile, Hemingway invented a new way of writingbased on this simple premise: "All you have to do is write one truesentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

Hemingway beautifully captures the fragile magic of a special time andplace, and he manages to be nostalgic without hitting any false notesof sentimentality. "This is how Paris was in the early days when wewere very poor and very happy," he concludes. Originally published in1964, three years after his suicide, A Moveable Feast was thefirst of his posthumous books and remains the best. --DavidLaskin ... Read more

Customer Reviews (164)

A Must Read for Any Author ... Truly
My God, if you're a writer or hoping to be -- you will love this book. A short time ago I was rereading this, and I'm just struck by how enjoyable it is. Maybe it's even one of the reasons I set out to be a writer in the first place.

These are sketches of Hemingway's early days in Paris as he joined other expatriate writers and artists living there. Need I say more? How about that he recalls meeting the likes of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald, and that the writing is quite beautifully understated and so easy to read.

What do I think of Hemingway, in general? In my opinion, he remains a model for that whole Raymond Chandler/James Cain school of noir writers.

Hemingway's short stories remain vital and are wonders of economy and understatement. If you pick up THE COLLECTED STORIES, here's a few I recommend:

"The Killers"

"A Clean, Well-lighted Place"

"Indian Camp"

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

Hemingway, more or less, invented "minimalism." Just remember that when you're reading Raymond Carver stories. Bukowski has said that Hemingway was his model, too (only that Buk's work is less crafted and more intentionally primitive -- and injected with more vulgarity and humor). That Hemingway-esque striped-down, simple use of language is something that we (as writers) should all try to go for. Simple is always better.

What's interesting about Hemingway is that his writing is minimal yet also concrete. He uses language to evoke the physical, tactile experience of his characters, which very unlike the work of most well-known minimalist writers like Chuck Palahniuk, whose work, in my opinion, is more sketchy, with characters who are less real and three-dimensional.

Hemingway's novels have aged less well, in my opinion. The descriptive parts in all his books remain beautiful, but the terse dialogue and macho posturing/simplicity has dated them. We hardly ever get inside the heads of the characters and are subjected to view them from the outside, understanding them only from their limited behavior and dialogue (like in a movie).

A nostalgic look back at happier times.
In 1961, Ernest Hemingway took his own life just as his father had many years before.A Moveable Feast is a book of memoirs he worked on between 1957 and 1960 right before he lost his battle with mental illness.It contains selected memories of the author's time spent in Paris in the early to mid 1920s.A time when he was poor but happy.A time when the artistic stimulation of the city and the closeness he shared with his wife and child made him feel as though he were the luckiest man on earth.Despite his subsequent fame, wealth and critical acclaim, he would never again enjoy the kind of unbridled happiness and personal satisfaction he experienced during those early years.

Each of A Moveable Feast's highly readable chapters can be viewed as a stand alone essay about the people, places and activities which together defined Hemingway's life during those years. The common thread which links each chapter with the others is the palpable affection the author held for that long ago time in his life.One gets the distinct impression Hemingway would have happily given up all worldly possessions, including his reputation as a literary legend for the chance to relive that magical time, if only for one day.A Moveable Feast is written from the heart and is devoid of phoniness.Highly recommended.

Hemingway's Squandered Gifts
I suppose A Moveable Feast could be called a `light' work by Hemingway, which is a rare thing indeed.Here he displays humor, both self-depreciating and humor (often cruel) cast on others.The work is also short; there is the impression that so much more could have been done with this work.

What strikes me on this read of A Moveable Feast is how weak Hemingway envisioned his creative gift.He sees any number of possible obstacles in his creative process:talking about it too much, drinking, bad wives, the rich.

Writers approach writing from different angles, of course.But it amazes how indistinct Hemingway's creative self was; compared to his macho public persona, his creative self was hanging by a thin thread indeed.

Transports You to Paris in the 1920s
After reading the first chapter or two of this memoir, I decided that I needed to savor it. In this book, Hemingway recounts some of his experiences living in Paris in the 1920s. Everytime I opened this book, I was transported there.

I found it most enjoyable to read when I was around town, in coffee shops, on a park bench, etc. There is something about reading Hemmingway's happy, poor man's view of Paris that made me want to be out and about, experiencing a different ambiance than the familiarity of home.

This book has quick chapters that jump a bit from person to person, activity to activity. Though some of the subject matter seems a bit scattered, the entire text feels real and it's easy to loose yourself in the time-period and location. I really enjoyed getting a feel for Hemmingway's writing process, and I loved his descriptions of food at the bars, cafes and restaurants he spent time in.

This is a book I will keep and read again and again.

Ernest Hemingway, A moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway was a fascinating man, therefore his memoirs from Paris in the twenties make for captivating reading. ... Read more

Product Description

To Have and Have Not is the dramatic, brutal story of Harry Morgan, an honest boat owner who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who swarm the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair.

In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the "haves" and the "have nots" and creates one of the most subtle and moving portraits of a love affair in his oeuvre. In turn funny and tragic, lively and poetic, remarkable in its emotional impact, To Have and Have Not takes literary high adventure to a new level. As the Times Literary Supplement observed, "Hemingway's gift for dialogue, for effective understatement, and for communicating such emotions the tough allow themselves, has never been more conspicuous."Amazon.com Review
First things first: readers coming to To Have and HaveNot after seeing the Bogart/Bacall film should be forewarned thatabout the only thing the two have in common is the title. The movieconcerns a brave fishing-boat captain in World War II-era Martiniquewho aids the French Resistance, battles the Nazis, and gets the girlin the end. The novel concerns a broke fishing-boat captain who agreesto carry contraband between Cuba and Florida in order to feed his wifeand daughters. Of the two, the novel is by far the darker, morecomplex work.

The first time we meet Harry Morgan, he is sitting in a Havana barwatching a gun battle raging out in the street. After seeing a Cubanget his head blown off with a Luger, Morgan reacts with typicalHemingway understatement: "I took a quick one out of the first bottleI saw open and I couldn't tell you yet what it was. The whole thingmade me feel pretty bad." Still feeling bad, Harry heads out in hisboat on a charter fishing expedition for which he is later stiffed bythe client. With not even enough money to fill his gas tanks, he isforced to agree to smuggle some illegal Chinese for the mysteriousMr. Sing. From there it's just a small step to carrying liquor--adisastrous run that ends when Harry loses an arm and his boat. OnceHarry gets mixed up in the brewing Cuban revolution, however, eventhose losses seem small compared to what's at stake now: his verylife.

Hemingway tells most of this story in the third person, but,significantly, he brackets the whole with a section at the beginningtold from Harry's perspective and a short, heart-wrenching chapter atthe end narrated by his wife, Marie. In between there is adventure,danger, betrayal, and death, but this novel begins and ends with thetough and tender portrait of a man who plays the cards that are dealthim with courage and dignity, long after hope is gone. --AlixWilber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (87)

Least favorite so far
Summary

Harry Morgan is a policeman-turned-fisherman down on his luck like so many others in the Depression-struck Florida Keys. To make ends meet, Harry begins engaging in increasingly dangerous illegal activities in the waters between the Keys and Cuba.

The book opens on Harry and several Cuban revolutionaries who want to pay Harry an exorbitant fee to transport them to the United States. Harry refuses, preferring to use his boat for legal activities, and as the revolutionaries leave, they are gunned down in the street.

However, after being tricked by a customer who charters the boat for three weeks and then vanishes without settling his account, Harry agrees to smuggle Chinese immigrants from Cuba to the mainland. Next, Harry begins running alcohol between the two countries, and a confrontation with Cuban customs lost Harry his arm and his boat. Undeterred, he signs to the next scheme he runs across: stealing a boat and ferrying Cubans involved in a bank robbery back to their homeland.

As he descends ever-deeper into desperation, Harry meets old friends and new faces. He has little patience for those who have not remained as resilient to the times as himself, and he has no patience for outsiders. Tensions mount between this hardscrabble jack-of-all-trades and several tourists who frequent his local bars.

One pair of tourists take special prominence in the book: Arthur, an unexceptional writer, and his beautiful, unhappy wife. When Arthur comes home one day after sleeping with yet another woman, his wife decides to leave him for another man, an alcoholic who has been seen sloshing around the bars as well.

Meanwhile, you are given a peek into the intimate details of Harry's relationship with his wife, Marie. The quiet desperation with which they cling to each other is meant as a justification for Harry's illegal maritime activity. Unfortunately, Harry does not return home after his trip with the Cuban bank-robbers, and Marie becomes yet another Depression-era woman left wringing her apron in desperation and rage.

Analysis

I'll be the first to admit that I have a bit of a Hemingway obsession. One of my literary goals is to read all of his books, and I'm not too far from the finish line. However, To Have and Have Not is my least favorite Hemingway book so far. Though Hemingway attempts to dissect grand social issues, such as troubled economic times and the relationship that exists between husband and wife, the entangled sub-plots and the erratic activities of the characters serve to distract from whatever statement Hemingway is trying to make.

The unexpected changes in viewpoints are disorienting, and the stories of other characters either stop abruptly or trail off seemingly without resolution. Harry remains the driving force of the novel, if there is one, even when the narrative meanders through the viewpoints of those who interact with him. Though his motivations inspire pity, his actions encourage judgment. Ultimately, I felt indifference toward him.

One aspect of the novel that I did enjoy, however, was the marine setting. I liked the descriptions of Harry's boat and the protective feelings that he felt for her. However, if you want good writing by Hemingway about the nautical life, read The Old Man and the Sea. In fact, skip this book and read Old Man anyway.

TOO MANY AT SLOPPY JOE'S?
This is nowhere as good as Islands in the Stream. The story is in the first 123 pages. Racist labelings apart, the prose is quite gripping up to that point. Then the protagonist Cap'n Harry Morgan gets forgotten and some drunk and not very interesting characters squabble in the bar and in the bedroom, who really have very little to do with the plot, except to justify the title (these are the Have's). Harry Morgan is basically a good, hard-livin' guy who likes to drink and fish (like Hemingway), but it's as though the author ran out of steam with him. A deeper plot, with less time gaps and jumping about between characters might have made this a much better novel, but you'll find trademark H. understatement and great descriptions of the sea, especially of a marlin jumping out of the water.

Review posted on The Literate Man [...] June 30, 2010
To Have and Have Not is the kind of book that you can barely believe was penned by Ernest Hemingway. This literary giant wrote many a beautiful thing in his day and no matter what terrible things he may have written between his several masterpieces the triumph of his genius cannot be erased. But this book comes as close as any will.

To Have and Have Not was Hemingway's most ambitious literary endeavor by a long-shot. And he fails spectacularly. It's a story about a smuggler and his family in Key West, which attempts to dissect the socio-economic injustices of Depression-era United States. This is no easy subject for certain, and his legacy would have been the better for not having attempting the feat. And yet, there is something admirable in Hemingway's attempt even if it does make for a miserable read.

The story is disjointed in terms of both time and structure. It's more a sequence of vignettes that fail to add up to a whole with a string of dead-end tangents around every page. When Hemingway broaches the greater social issues of the `haves and have-nots' as the title suggests, there's little point or connection to the plot. The examination is superficial, boring, and in the end sheds very light on the real issues. On top of that, it might just be the most extensive collection of awful metaphors ever published. Hardly a paragraph goes by without a clunker of a metaphor jumping off the page to stab the reader in his or her brain.

The most interesting parts of the story are the colorful scenes at various Key West watering holes, which Hemingway paints to perfection. These are no doubt well-researched, first-hand accounts of the Key West bar scene and its many colorful characters, but they serve no real purpose in the story other than to offer a break from the tired language of the rest of the book.

Worst of all, it's impossible to like any of the characters. It's almost as if Hemingway went out of his way to make his characters unappealing. And his attempts to add dimension to these figures simply gives the reader more reasons not to like them.

When Hemingway is at his best, he is king. When he's at his worst, his writing makes L. Ron Hubbard look like Shakespeare. And after reading To Have and Have Not, even a TV Guide will look like breathtaking literature. In short, To Have and Have Not read this book, I'd much rather have not.

If you do give it a read, try and forget about it quickly. Dwell instead on A Farewell to Armsor The Sun Also Rises . This is the Hemingway that we know and love.

That's Life
The first thing I thought upon finishing this novel was, wow, I'm glad that's over. What a gritty and dismal story! Poor Harry Morgan and his bad choices. He gets gypped by a rich wannabe fisherman, and is suddenly in need of some cash. What does he do? He gets himself an illegal job, takes advantage of the situation, shocks the heck out of me, and it's all down hill from there. The N word was used quite a bit here, too, which was another shocking point. I suppose that has something to do with the era this book was written in, but shocked me nonetheless. I'm thinking maybe Mr. Hemingway was a crude and unsavory man. Could just be his writing, I don't know. I don't remember watching the movie based on this book, but I believe that it is quite different. So, if you like gritty, hardcore, manly books, you may like this one. It is interesting enough until the last few chapters, which is why I gave it a 3 instead of a 2. The description mentions something about a love affair. Not sure where that was supposed to have taken place. I just remember lots of violence and trash talking.

Life requires courage
Harry owns a boat and he hires himself out to sportsmen who want to catch big fish. He is cheated by a client and short of money. He agrees to run contraband. He goes home to his wife. She fears something will go wrong. They make love. She worries that Harry wants more than she can offer. He reassures her: she's a fine woman.

The next day Harry goes on his trip. A young unsuccessful writer sits in a cafe and sees a fat old woman in a badly fitting dress running towards the docks; he imagines her to be late for work at a processing factory or some such thing and begins a short story based on her pathetic life. She is in fact Harry's wife. She just got a call from the police. The writer will never know of the passion she felt the night before. Or Harry's story.

Easily one of Hemingway's most depressing books, this dark and complex story shows bad things happening to good people. Take it as a warning. Life requires courage, or as Hemingway described it, grace under pressure.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo ... Read more

Product Description
Coinciding with the release of Papa starring Anthony Hopkins and Meg Ryan-the New York Times bestseller and classic portrait of one of America's greatest writers

Between 1948 and 1961, Ernest Hemingway and A. E. Hotchner traveled together from New York to Paris to Spain, fished the waters off Cuba, hunted in Idaho, ran with the bulls in Pamplona-and once Hotchner even masqueraded as a matador and Hemingway's manager in an actual bullfight. Everywhere they went, they talked. For fourteen years, Hotchner and Hemingway shared their thoughts and as Hemingway reminisced about his childhood, recalled the Paris literary scene of the twenties, and recounted the real events that lay behind his fiction, Hotchner took it all down. His notes on the many occasions he spent with his friend Papa-in Venice and Rome, in Key West, on the Riviera, and in Ketchum, Idaho, where Hemingway died by his own hand in 1961-provide the material for this utterly profound, and truthfully compassionate best-selling memoir about the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. With a new introduction by the author and with never before published photographs from his personal collection, Papa Hemingway is a mesmerizing portrait.Amazon.com Review
First published in 1966, this adulatory memoir made news by revealing that Ernest Hemingway's 1961 death was a suicide. It also provided the mythmaking, Nobel Prize-winning author with an opportunity to promulgate his preferred public persona from beyond the grave. Chronicling their friendship over the final 14 years of Hemingway's life, A.E. Hotchner vividly captured the writer's appeal as a man and his genius as a storyteller in extensive direct quotes. He draws from contemporary notes, tape recordings, and (he reveals in the foreword to this edition published for the Hemingway centennial) disguised excerpts from personal letters that Hemingway's widow, Mary, refused him permission to use. In conversation, Hemingway sounds like one of his own fictional heroes: terse, witty, profane, manly. Hotchner, in his mid-20s when they first met in 1948 and, he freely admits, "struck with an affliction common to my generation: Hemingway Awe," seldom evaluates either the veracity of or the motivations behind the writer's anecdotes. He makes no claim to be objective, which adds to the emotional force of the painful final chapters showing a desolate, depressed Hemingway convinced he could no longer write. By no means the whole truth, Hotchner's loving portrait shows Hemingway to readers as he wanted to be seen and as his most ardent admirers saw him. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

One of the Best!
I am so glad this book is still in print!I still have my 1966 hardbound copy and love rereading it every five years or so before delving back into Hemingway's works!If you are a Hemingway fan, you MUST read this memoir -- it is a sheer delight, and Hotchner makes you feel as if you knew Hemingway personally.Quite simply, a gem of a book!

Papa Never Gets Old
A.E. Hotchner, a gifted writer in his own right, provides a fascinating memoir of the last 13 years of Ernest Hemingway's life.As a close friend during the time period between 1948 and 1961, Hotchner provides an insider's glimpse of Hemingway's travels, friends, writing, and troubled personality. Hotchner manages to fill in most of Hemingway's personal and literary history before they met through a variety of stories told to him by the great writer and master story teller. Thus, the reader is transported to Spain and its bullfights and bullfighters, Paris, where Hemingway spent his twenties making his name in literature, and Hemingway's home near Havana where he lived, wrote, and fished on his boat, the Pilar. His last years are particularly tragic, as it seems pre-ordained that Hemingway will kill himself despite the best efforts of those who loved him.Hemingway, whose brilliant career was cut short by mental illness, left a legacy of magnificent short stories and novels written in his sparse, gritty style that still ring true fifty years after his death.

A Fine Introduction to the Hemingway Legend
For the longest time Hemingway's grinning, bearded face stared up at me from A.E. Hotchner's Hemingway memoir, "Papa Hemingway", so after what seemed like an eternity, I started reading my grandfather's copy of this book, a paperback edition from 1966.

I was immediately hooked.

The book has an impressive conversational tone and pace.Hotchner's been accused of quoting letters and making them into conversations, but who cares?This is captivating reading! When Hotchner first meets "Papa" in 1948 we are there to witness Hemingway downing vase-sized daiquiris, and we see Hemingway robustly swimming ashore with his shorts and shirt tied in a bundle with the German "Gott Mit Uns" belt, hand held over his head while swimming using only one arm.These vignettes captured my imagination and were about as ideal a Hemingway image as one could imagine! Hotchner captures Hemingway the wise philosopher, the hurt, angry writer whose 1950 novel, "Across the River and Into the Trees" is roundly rejected by the critics, and we ride high alongside Papa when he storms back to the top of the heap with "The Old Man and the Sea."Hotchner vividly recalls Cuba, Italy, and Spain as he accompanies Hemingway on his adventures.

After reading "Papa Hemingway", my enthusiasm took off and by the next year I had read and collected most of Hemingway's works as well as the numerous biographies about him. Hemingway was my portal to the first half of the 20th Century. Through "Papa Hemingway" I discovered many of the writers, artists, and political figures of his time and became fascinated with the 1920s and '30s."Papa Hemingway" might not be the ideal first book to discover Hemingway the writer, but it serves as a magnificent first book to anyone wanting to learn about Hemingway the raconteur, adventurer, and friend.

Papa Hemingway the Ecstasy and Sorrow
I am sure it is a great book, however it is not the book I received.I did not get the book I ordered, instead i received two copies of "Papa Hemingway, A Personal Memoir"

An excellent biography....,and biography
The reader is treated to a feast of biographical detail and insight. A rare and able biographer gives us a close-up and personal glimpse of a great man and character.What more can one ask for?In a league of its own! ... Read more

Product Description

From childhood on, Ernest Hemingway was a passionate fisherman. He fished the lakes and creeks near the family's summer home at Walloon Lake, Michigan, and his first stories and reportages were often about his favorite sport. Here, collected for the first time in one volume, are all of his great writings about the many kinds of fishing he did -- from trout in the rivers of northern Michigan to marlin in the Gulf Stream.

In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway speaks of sitting in a café in Paris and writing about what he knew best -- and when it came time to stop, he "did not want to leave the river." The story was the unforgettable classic, "Big Two-Hearted River," and from its first words we do not want to leave the river either. He also wrote articles for the Toronto Star on fishing in Canada and Europe and, later, articles for Esquire about his growing passion for big-game fishing. His last books, The Old Man and the Sea and Islands in the Stream, celebrate his vast knowledge of the ocean and his affection for its great denizens.

Hemingway on Fishing is an encompassing, diverse, and fascinating collection. From the early Nick Adams stories and the memorable chapters on fishing the Irati River in The Sun Also Rises to such late novels as Islands in the Stream, this collection traces the evolution of a great writer's passion; the range of his interests; the sure use he made of fishing, transforming it into the stuff of great literature.

Anglers and lovers of great writing alike will welcome this important collection.Amazon.com Review
When the taciturn hero of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River"returns from the Great War, he heads straight to the northern Michiganwoods to begin the process of healing. Camping along the river andfishing for trout, Nick Adams slowly retrieves the elements of a lifeinterrupted, allowing familiar sensations to wash over him:

He stepped into the stream. It was a shock. His trousersclung tightly to his legs. His shoes felt the gravel.... There was atug on the line. It was his first strike. Holding the now living rodacross the current, he brought in the line with his left hand. The rodbent in jerks, the trout pumping against the current.

By 1933, Hemingway was writing about histrue angling passion--deep-sea big-game fishing--for the likes ofEsquire and other large-circulation glossies. In "Marlin of theMorro: A Cuban Letter," he notes that when the northeast trade windsblow, the "marlin come to the top and cruise the wind." To catch afish, the saying goes, you must think like one--and Papa's perceptivedescriptions of piscine behavior show why he was considered one of thepremiere anglers of his day. It's true that Hemingway indulged hispassions in life and on the page, and that sometimes the former gothim into trouble. As for the latter, those of us who enjoy a good fishstory are the luckier for it. --Langdon Cook ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Great Collection of Stories
Perfect for anyone who enjoys Hemingway, fishing, and/or just reading about fishing.Some of the best pieces are from magazine articles he wrote about fishing in Europe and on the Gulf Stream.It is also nicely divided in to different sections, and it is not necessary to read from cover-to-cover.

Excellent collection of Hemingway's best at fishing...
Ernest Hemingway, beside being the premier American author of the twentieth century, also fished quite avidly. The assorted writings in "Hemingway on Fishing" range from articles written for magazines, to portions of books such as "The Sun Also Rises" and "Old Man and the Sea." One of the stories rivals the Old Man and the Sea when it comes to futility and heartbreak in fishing for marlin. Excellent book: if you enjoy Hemingway and the fish of the sea, get your hands on a copy.

Please -- no more literature critics....
This book is a "matter of fact" gathered from the thoughts of a fellow who enjoyed the outdoors more than his own life. Within the pages of this 'compilation' a person can understand a little more about a poet that was not revealed through many of the original passages. As I have personally read, many of Hemingway's articles, short stories and novels are written from hindsight and many personal experiences, albiet great compositions;there was a literate outcome and method.
Nick Lyons is a great writer on his own and he has had much of a collection to work with in preparing this book. His [Lyons] piecing of this puzzle has made good sense and his additions have overwhelmed the possibilities.

Hemingway on Fishing
This is an excellent collection of Hemingway's writings about fishing, each taken from a larger work. It is a great introduction to Hemingway if your new to him, and a great refresher to him if you've been away for awhile. Read this book and you won't be disappointed, but please do each work the respect of reading the book it came from, and experience each work in it's original context.

Gathers Hemingway's writings about angling
Hemingway On Fishing gathers Hemingway's writings about angling, and while it fits into our 'literature' section quite neatly with its flowing prose and evocative descriptions, it's the fisherman who will appreciate Hemingway's passion for the sport. Nick Lyons edits the presentation and provide an introduction, Jack Hemingway the foreword in this classic treatise. ... Read more

Product Description
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. There was an inner comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snotty to him . . . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Book
Very pleased with my book!It was as advertised, no problems with delivery.Would recommend this seller.

A true Hemingway classic
Read it first as a teenager, of course...then our book club decided we should sprinkle in a few classics, and this was the first of our selections.I had forgotten what a great writer Hemingway is, how clean, and spare, but still manages to paint a vivid picture of the characters and places he travels.Sublime, really, would read it again in a few years. ... Read more

Product Description

A sensational bestseller when it appeared in 1986, The Garden of Eden is the last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, which he worked on intermittently from 1946 until his death in 1961. Set on the Côte d'Azur in the 1920s, it is the story of a young American writer, David Bourne, his glamorous wife, Catherine, and the dangerous, erotic game they play when they fall in love with the same woman. "A lean, sensuous narrative...taut, chic, and strangely contemporary," The Garden of Eden represents vintage Hemingway, the master "doing what nobody did better" (R. Z. Sheppard, Time). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (87)

a dull book
I am not much of a reviewer, but I thought this book deserved more than one person writing a one-star review.I agree with the other one-star reviewer who titled their review "3 moronic people eat, drink, swim and make love" -- except I would change it to "3 moronic people eat, drink, swim, make love, and get their hair cut".Perhaps it is worthwhile to read if you are terribly interested in literature or want to read all of Hemingway's stuff.After reading it, I believe that there was a good reason why Hemingway did not have it published while he was alive.Good luck if you are reading this book or have to read it for a course.

The Promise of Post-War Hemingway
The Garden of Eden is both a frustrating and fascinating work.Part of Hemingway's posthumous, unpublished manuscripts, the work shows the late Hemingway fighting to redefine himself as an artist.This work deals with gender issues, the nature of creativity, colonialism and post-colonialism.These were all meaty topics for post-war writers, and here Hemingway led the pack.But his failing mental and physical health prevented him from completing this project.

This edition of The Garden of Eden is a significant reduction of the original manuscript.An entire parallel plot was eliminated; the editor decided to close the novel even though the manuscript continues for some 80 pages.

Yet even with its shortcomings, Eden is a surprising rich and nuanced narrative.It tackles big issues but keeps its eye on the important thing in the novel, the story.There is some of Hemingway at his best here, in flashes of exacting detail rendered with a few, decisive words.

A Joyous Discovery
After trying to muddle through "True at First Light" some years back I swore off posthumous Hemingway works, but ended up reading this one on an airplane and was pleasantly surprised.The writing is vintage Hemingway.The story begins with a young writer who finds himself married to an impetuous and immature woman.She is too much like people we've all known, like people who have led us astray and into temptation. Our senses are left with the warm sun and cool water of Southern France.Hemingway standards abound in this fanciful romp through the garden of flesh, and the reader is left wondering what calamity awaits.Unfortunately, Hemingway didn't have an ending for the story and never got there.The inane ending that gets tacked on leaves us wondering where he was ready to go with this story, which speaks of an intimacy that Hemingway rarely engaged.Up until that point, it is wonderful reading for a lifelong Hemingway fan like me and I recommend it highly.

The "Old Man" At The End
Recently, in a review of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first published novel, "This Side of Paradise" (1920), I mentioned that I thought his contemporary, friend, expatriate and fellow writer Ernest Hemingway had definitively won the battle for "number one" writer of their generation, variously named the post -World War I, "lost", or "Jazz Age" generation. Paying due respect to the greater literary merit of Fitzgerald `s "The Great Gatsby" as, perhaps, the best of the individual novels (or short stories) each produced the respective collective bodies of work of each gave the nod to the "Old Man". That conclusion, however, was premised on such Hemingway masterpieces as "Farewell To Arms", "The Sun Also Rises", and "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and his sparse, knife-like skill with descriptive language. It did not, could not and, unfortunately, does not, include the present book under review, "The Garden Of Eden".

Of course, as the Publisher's Note makes clear, this post-mortem find (Hemingway committed suicide in 1961), brought forth in a shopping bag (along with other manuscripts) to the publisher's office by Hemingway's widow, Mary, is certainly the stuff of legend, and a compelling reason for publication. However, beyond the seemingly modern trend to publish every bit of paper that a famous writer every put to pen, the hoopla seems entirely misplaced. I will chalk this one up to mere publishing "trade-puffing".

Why? Well, this is material, basically another tale from the vaults of that "lost" generation mentioned above, that was covered by Hemingway brilliantly at the time in such works as "The Sun Also Rises", his masterly effort to define that generation and it malaise (and perhaps, incidentally, his own). This book, or rather rolling "travelogue" from one European "hot spot" to another (in the off-season no less), complete with descriptions of an enormous amount of drinking, early and late, eating in that same condition, and going for the occasional swim should make bells ring in the heads of Hemingway aficionados that something very familiar is being reworked here.

Oh, the plot. Newlyweds, David and Catherine, he a writer and she a... well, whatever she is, are off on a seemingly endless trip around Europe after his recent completion of a successfully received book. After endless bouts of lovemaking, and the aforementioned eating and drinking, David itches to get back in harness and write again. Catherine, formally, at least, encourages that desire, and moves on to other pursuits in the sexual field, a girlfriend (Marita) for herself... and for David. The story line pushes along from there around this central entanglement and stalwart David's pressing need to write some tales of his youth in Africa as well as another novel. Needless to say, the wheels come off the cart in a somewhat unexpected way.

Despite various reviews of this book upon publication commenting on Hemingway's character development of Catherine to the contrary, he never really got his woman characters to be anything more than objects, beautiful, crazy or smart. That is certainly the case with the shallow, demonic Catherine, whatever charms she possessed for David, and Marita as well. As I read along I kept on saying Catherine why don't you go write a novel yourself. But apparently this sensible notion is too modern a conceit for those times. Still there is more than enough good, strong use of language that first attracted me to Hemingway to keep him up in that valued number one position. Just not off of this work though.

an intriguingnovelglad it was published
I am a big admirer of Ernest Hemingway as a writer even though he was arather lousy man in his personal life. I stayed away from The Garden Of Eden because of its posthumous nature but finally decided to read it recently. I am glad Idid. The novel is not one of his masterpieces at times the conversations thatdominate the book are banal but the setup of abored wo,man inviting another woman to enter into her marriage with her novelist husband is a winner. Catherine is clearlyjealous of beingthe wife ofa rising young novelist for she is a frustrated writer herself .She invites Marita into her life and the life of her husband to create excitement. As one might expect this unorthodox relationship inviting what amounts to a mistress almost a second wife into a new marriage creates disaster for that marriage.Catherines jealousy reaches its peak when she realizeds David has been writing stories specifically forMarita and she burns them destroying the marriage. In the end David is able to write the stories again this time better ones because of the experience and he marries Marita while Catrherine agrees to divorce and goes on her way.As a powerful analysis of the nature of love sexual temptation and how marriage shapes and reshapes ones idenity, it is quite good and the occassionally banal conversations keep the novel from greatness but dont destroy its core ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

PROBABLY THE BEST OF THE HEMINGWAY BIOGRAPHIES
I have read most of the major biographies concerning Hemingway..(I am more fastinated with Hemingway the man than his actual work, I have to admit).This is by far the best.Well written, well researched.I must admit to be a Baker fan, so perhaps my view my be slanted here.I do recommend the books reading, and do recommend you add this one to your collection.

Ultimate biography of Hemingway
Thoroughly traces Hemingway's whole life from birth to shotgun finale.Splendidly done by Baker.I am in agreement with the previous reviewer; this bio is up there with Manchester's bio of Winston Churchill.

A Superb Biography
Carlos Baker's biography of Hemingway reveals the life of Hemingway to be far more interesting and compelling than anything Hemingway wrote. Baker shows himself to have literary talent equal to that of his subject, and has written a thorough and thoroughly readable biography of Hemingway. Anyone who has enjoyed William Manchester's biography of Winston Churchill will be equally entertained and informed ... Read more