Product Description

Spanning the years 1920 to 1956, this priceless collection shows Hemingway's work as a reporter, from correspondent for the Toronto Star to contributor to Esquire, Colliers, and Look. As fledgling reporter, war correspondent, and seasoned journalist, Hemingway provides access to a range of experiences, including vivid eyewitness accounts of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. By-Line: Ernest Hemingway offers a glimpse into the world behind the popular fiction of one of America's greatest writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Hemingway's Days
Ernest Hemingway oftens gets a bum rap in literary circles. Sometimes it is at the hands of semi-clever critics whose only writing credits come from the venom they spew. A pity actually because if we latch on to the opinions of others without taking the time of forming our own then we just may miss out on more than discovery. So reviews, even this one, should be taken with a grain of salt.
BY-LINE HEMINGWAY is a good look at the early work of one of the icons in the American literary world. What you find here is some of his newspaper pieces as well as some later short magazine articles that span 30 years and a long lost era. Personally, I think it is one of the best introductions you'll find on the writer and his view of the times. Often, in less that 1,000 words, you'll get a glimpse of how he became one of the leading writers of his time and perhaps, like me, be impressed how well he did it. You'll also get to see the origins of his style and early character development.
In my semi-humble opinion (next to A MOVEABLE FEAST) this is my favorite Hemingway book. But hey, this is just one man's opinion. Buy the book, read it yourself, and then come back here and offer up your view.

A wonderful collection of Hemingway's journalism: A must-read for fans, journalists & bloggers
Even the most die-hard Hemingway fan has probably overlooked this invaluable collection of the famed author's work as a journalist. The articles, though decades old, still read quite modern. Thus is the genius of Hemingway.

I was a journalist for Hemingway's suggested "five years" (he advises writers to get out of the newspaper business after that period of time) and back at the start of my career, I first read a copy of this book when I was based in Tokyo. The style appealed to me with its short declarative sentences. Clear and to the point.

I lost that copy of the book when I moved back to the States and was delighted to rediscover it a few weeks ago on Amazon. I opted to go with a used "original" hard-cover edition vs. a new paperback.

"BY-LINE: ERNEST HEMINGWAY; Selected Articles and Dispaches of Four Decades" should be required reading by all students of journalism. I also recommend it for bloggers.

But this book will be most loved by Hemingway fans. It's a treasure trove of some of his finest writing.

A must-read that illuminates Hemingway's greatest classics
The review provided by Amazon is so comprehensive that I would urge anyone interested in the details to rather read that for an idea of what exactly to expect.I thought I'd just throw in another opinion to balance the others, that this book is essential reading in my opinion if you have any interest in Hemingway or his work.He himself used in his books many excerpts and ideas from his earlier journalistic work, and much that seems of his own creation had its roots in this early writing.I agree with critics of this book that not all pieces are of the same quality, and some of the really early ones are written in a different, almost youthful style (he was only 21 for the earliest pieces) that was not always easy reading for me either.But once you've gotten through these earlier ones, you can look forward to a fascinating collection of articles written with a great deal of insight into whatever he was writing about, be it Mussolini or fly-fishing.

Hemingway treasure trove
Although Hemingway is considered to be primarily a novelist, his non-fiction writing deserves more attention. This volume fills a serious vacuum. Ronald Frost, M.A.

a great book deserves a great production
Hemingway's work here is very valuable but the book has a small typeface and it is printed in grey rather than black, so it is awkward to read unless your eyes are perfect. Also the book is heavier than I think it needs to be. Among Hemingway's best work his short stories stand out most, and these articles are worth having along with them.My favourites are about skiing in Switzerland and also Christmas in Europe.The writing should have five stars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Authorized Biography
This is one of the earliest biographies of Hemingway, and it's among the best.Carlos Baker was a scholar and researcher who was chosen by the Hemingway family to write this biography.He knew Hemingway as well if not better than any of the recent biographers, and it shows.You'll find out everything you've wanted to know and more.

But that's not what makes this biography great.Baker has a clean style and descriptive eye that makes reading this book a pleasure.

I've taught American lit for 35 years, and this is the Hemingway biography I always recommend to my students.

hem- writer as artist
good general overview of hemingway's mindset, but no as detailedas a college lecture.more discussion of the h
hero and how they measure up to the code plus a more stringent analysis of symbolism and motifs and broder def of his weltshaung would be more enriching.

literary criticism
This is literary criticism and analysis, not biography - though there is some good biography in the first two chapters.For me, I was mistaken in thinking it was Baker's biography of H.

on target
well done. i don't usually care to read books by academics, but this is the exception to the rule. you get the full picture here about ernie, warts and all. you may not like some of the things you'll find out about the great novelist...but then, that's life. i say you'll still want to read ernie's books--because he was that good. ernie lives on!

Excellent
Insightful analysis of Hemingway's work for anyone who wants to get pastthe literal meanings to reach the symbolic. Reading Baker's book makesreading Hemingway an even more rewarding experience. ... Read more

Product Description

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this definitive audio collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style -- from the plain bold language of this first story to his mastery of seamless prose that contained a spare, eloquent pathos, as well as a sense of expansive solitude. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the twentieth century.

The Short Stories Volume III features Stacy Keach reading such favorites as: An Alpine Idyll, A Pursuit Race, Today is Friday, Banal Story, Now I Lay Me, After the Storm, A Clean, Well-lighted Place, The Light of the World, God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen, The Sea Change, A Way You'll Never Be, The Mother of the Queen, One Reader Writes, Homage to Switzerland, A Day's Wait, A Natural History of the Dead, Wine of Wyoming, The Gambler, The Nun, and the Radio, and Fathers and Sons.

ALL STORIES ARE UNABRIDGED ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Odd but Great
Hemingway has a powerful and commanding style.His stories often do not have a classical beginning, middle, and end.However, they are always quite moving.

A SONOROUS AND THOUGHTFUL READING
Acclaimed film actor Stacy Keach gives thoughtful and sonorous readingto the words of Ernest Hemingway in this the third volume of Hemingway's stories from Simon and Schuster Audio.For many listeners Keach, who has read the two earlier collections, has become the voice of the unforgettable author who seemed to be as large in life as he was in literature.The very timbre of Keach's voice can evoke the 1920s, the years that Hemingway chronicled so indelibly.

While many favorites are included in this collection, one is especially probing considering our world today - "A Clean, Well-lighted Place."First appearing in 1933, this is a brief, poignant account of an hour or so in a Spanish café.Two waiters, one older, one younger, serve a much older man who has become inebriated.The waiters discuss the older man's life, and seque into deeper opinions of the value of existence.

"After The Storm" is set in one of the author's favorite locations, the Florida Keys.It is the story of a sponge fisherman and the booty he almost commands.

Well chosen for their variety and reflections of Hemingway's style and ethos, the many tales included in this collection are well worth listening to again and again - especially when read by the estimable Keach.

- Gail Cooke ... Read more

Product Description
The 1999 Hemingway centennial marks the perfect time for the reevaluation of his position as America's premier modernist writer. These essays, all written specially for this collection, plumb unexplored historical details of Hemingway's life to illuminate new and often unexpected dimensions of the force of his literary accomplishment. Discussing biographical details of his personal and professional life along with the subtleties of his character, the text includes a number of fascinating photos and images. ... Read more

Product Description

An early gem from the greatest American writer of the twentieth century

First published in 1926, The Torrents of Spring is a hilarious parody of the Chicago school of literature. Poking fun at that "great race" of writers, it depicts a vogue that Hemingway himself refused to follow. In style and substance, The Torrents of Spring is a burlesque of Sherwood Anderson's Dark Laughter, but in the course of the narrative, other literary tendencies associated with American and British writers akin to Anderson -- such as D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and John Dos Passos -- come in for satirical comment. A highly entertaining story, The Torrents of Spring offers a rare glimpse into Hemingway's early career as a storyteller and stylist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Hemingway at His Humorous Best
I thought Hemingway was very humorous when reading A Movable Feast; the part with the touring he did with F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Torrents of Spring actually broke me up in places. How delightful to know that Earnest Hemingway had a good sense of humor. If you like the man, I recommend this read.

For Die-Hard Hemingway Fans Only
Hemingway was competitive, in everything.In his first novel (not the Sun Also Rises) he lampoons a literary style that was all the rage in his day. It's as if Hemingway were both taking an artistic stance and purging himself so he could get down to what would be the real business of writing The Sun Also Rises.

to fully enjoy the parody, read the object of the joke first
This isn't a novel that would be very enjoyable to someone who doesn't have much experience with other literary works of the 1920s.Read alone it is pretty silly and vulgar.Read -after- you have finished Sherwood Anderson's _Dark Laughter_, however, this book is very funny.Hemingway spoofs both Anderson's style and his silly plot.And throughout, EH offers a treatise on the art of parody.The book is very short, and tightly controlled by Hemingway (something Anderson didn't get right with Dark Laughther).The book is also interesting for those invested in the perennial Hemingway was/was not a racist argument.Read alone, the bits about Indians would be highly offensive, but read in light of Anderson's horrifying primitivism and liberal use of the N-word in Dark Laughter, Hemingway's depiction of the Indians is really a chastisement of Anderson's silly racist story.Hemingway's complex sense of humor, visible in his other novels under the surface, is fully on display here.Too bad time has eradicated a fuller understanding of all the jokes.I recommend this book for Hemingway aficionados and for students of modernism who need a wake-up call about Hemingway's place (and his understanding of that place) in the modernist canon.

When the torrent is a gentle chinook
The only other Hemingway novel I have read is 'Fiesta'. There is something about Hemingway that seems to be illusion for me - the ease of the reading, the detail of the observation. As if, perhaps, his works are more like viewing a painting rather than reading a novel.
When I first read 'Fiesta' I was linked with the book by an early reference in it to W H Hudson - one of my favourite writers. When I read 'Fiesta' a second time (and reviewed it for Amazon) I was intruiged by another literary reference that had meant nothing to me on my first reading - Ivan Turgenev. What intruiged me even more was that Hemingway had written this novel - 'The Torrents of Spring' - and Turgenev had written a novel called (in English translation)'Spring Torrents'.
But Hemingway is nothing like Turgenev, although the penultimate chapter did bring me some reminders. And then the literary references grabbed me again as Hemingway refers to Huysmans whose 'Against Nature' appealed to me greatly.

As Spring approaches in 'The Torrents of Spring'(firstly with a false chinook) changes occur in a number of character's lives - recoveries, disappointments, brief pleasures, radical - if temporary - alterations. Sometimes the changes are slow anddreaded, sometimes they are abrupt and unexpected. Whatever the case, life does go on - dreamily it seems to me. Turgenev's idea of a torrent much more closely matched my understanding of the word than Hemingway's.
Hemingway is easy to read. You will probably enjoy this light and amusing novel. I am less sure that it will be memorable. Not in the way Turgenev's 'Spring Torrents' is.

Interesting Early Hemingway
Torrents of Spring is a slim work, a short story--I guess. This early, almost experimental (but for the fact that it is a) satire takes to task a number of more verbose, stylistically florid contemporaries. The plot, if you called it that, is linear enough, and the characters are based more on a medley of ideas and events than any real people--displaced from the current of American history swirling around them. It's a nice short read and a must for any Hemingway fan looking for something different. ... Read more

Product Description
This evocative, sympathetic biography illuminates the events of Hemingway's vigorous life, his experiences in two World Wars and the Spanish Civil War, and his sudden fame and slow decline. 29 photos. 7 maps. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

I'm no Hemingway but ...
Now being well into my fifties, being in good health, and financially sound I have had the opportunity to study my favorite author. I have already traveled to his old haunts in Italy, London, and Paris (Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore) but I needed more in the way of in a truly great biography.

So I decided to buy the biography of EH by J. Meyers after this book was recommended to me by a EH scholar in Paris.

Anyway, what I wanted was a book that would give me insight into what kind man EH was all about. Where did he get his passion and his energy? Did he have a temper? What did he drink? What hours did he keep? Why did his love relationships fail? When did his health go bad? Why was he so prone to accidents?

This book that gave me more than his life's history and I think you will have a good read, too. BTW, Key West and having a go at deep sea fishing is next of my list of things to do. This is a buy!

"You'd better give me that other drink."
Jeffrey Meyers' eponymous biography of Ernest Hemingway is, as some have made it, a saltier companion to Carlos Baker's masterful 1969 definitive authorized biography. Meyers is not overly adoring of his subject and gives us a different view of Hemingway. Still, although Meyers is grittier than Baker and manages to dig deeper into Hemingway's complex and contradictory personality, he is not gritty enough nor does he dig deep enough to displace Baker as the biographer nonpareil.

And neither does he capture the reader's imagination. HEMINGWAY: A BIOGRAPHY presents Ernest Hemingway in surprisingly muted tones, especially considering the almost cartoonish excesses to which Hemingway could drive himself. This is a very competent and workmanlike biography. However, its pacing and voice are didactic and dry and its portrait of the artist lacks color. Like twenty other books about the man, HEMINGWAY: A BIOGRAPHY belongs on the shelf as part of a well-rounded collection, but can replace none of them.

Great find
Found this first edition at our annual library sale this year for $1. After reading the other review on Amazon I am anxious to read it.

Hemmingway, A biography
I'm going to return this book because the printing was so poor.The photographs are unrecognizable and the type is smearing and difficult to read.

There is no place in #1 for a 0 or minus rating, but this volume is unacceptable.

Close To Definitive
Carlos Baker is generally known as the founding father of Hemingway biographical studies. His 1969 biography, "Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story" is the so-called "authorized" Hemingway bio and it was the first book of its kind to explore the author's life. All subsequent biographers owe a great deal to Baker and the seven years he spent producing "Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story."

Calling Baker's bio the definitive bio of Ernest Hemingway is difficult though for several reasons. First of all, being published in 1969, the book is now outdated to a great degree. Second of all, a slew of other biographies have been published since 1969 and some are very formidable. Baker's book, in my humble opinion, is probably the most tediously researched biography of Hemingway. His "Notes" section is just over 100 pages.

If I had to recommend one standard Hemingway biography, I would likely choose "Hemingway: A Biography" by Jeffrey Meyers. I have read many Hemingway biographies and in comparing them, the work of Meyers does stand out. He offers details not present in other bios and provides fine commentary on EH's literature. Meyers gets as close to definitive as I think one can come in a single book. ... Read more

Product Description
For the new breed of vacationer who craves meaningful trips and unusual locales, the combination of reading and travel can be a heady mix—especially if you happen to be checking into Hemingway’s favorite hotel in Sun Valley, or strolling about Bath’s Royal Crescent while entertaining fantasies of Lizzie Bennett and her Mr. Darcy! Cue National Geographic’s Novel Destinations—a guide for bibliophiles to more than 500 literary sites across the United States and Europe.

The book begins with thematic chapters covering author houses and museums, literary festivals and walking tours. Then, in-depth explorations of author and places take readers roaming Franz Kafka’s Prague, James Joyce’s Dublin, Louisa May Alcott’s New England, and other locales. Peppered with great reading suggestions and little-known tales of literary gossip, Novel Destinations is a unique travel guide, an attractive gift book, and the ultimate browser’s delight. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Novel Destinations
This is an excellent book for anyone who likes to travel or read about traveling. I purchased four of them, one for my father in law and one for two girlfriends both of whom travel extensively and one for myself.

A Map To Jumping Into The Pages Of Your Favorite Books
I seriously wanted to crawl inside this book and go!I discovered this book on Amazon a while ago and had to have it.I was curious in my travels throughout the years might I have been unknowingly close to an incredible literary landmark?Might I have passed by where Walt Whitman once dined, or Ralph Waldo Emerson walked his dog (if he had a dog...). How about Checking into the actual hotel room at the Sun Valley Lodge in Idaho where Hemingway penned For Whom the Bell Tolls, or knocking back a "Papa Dobles" cocktail (invented by the writer himself) at Sloppy Joe's in Key West, FL?The thought of any of these gives my goose bumps!

I found the closest to me in this book would be Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald who was born on Summit Ave in St Paul, Minnesota.There is a walking tour of landmarks associated with the writer and his works.Sinclair Lewes was born in Sauk Centre MN where he wrote about his 1920 best seller, Main Street.

A Hemngway Hangout, Key West, Florida

This book covers final resting places, to the bars that the likes of Mark Twain hung out in.From childhood homes, to the big screen where a travel to England and see the Chateau House (where the exterior shots of the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice were shot) open daily mid March through December.

I adored everything about this book.I enjoyed reading it as informative as well as a road map to places to see!This one is a keeper, a must take along for road trips and beyond!

Great gift!
This was a Christmas gift to my daughter.She couldn't wait to start reading it!

Indispensible guide to literary hotspots
Novel Destinations is a uniquely wonderful idea for a book. The two authors, both huge literature fans, visit the places around the world associated with certain authors and detail their findings in a travel guide for fellow bibliophiles. At first I was a little disappointed, because I expected personal journal style escapades, but instead I was quickly pulled in to their descriptions of the museums devoted to Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Ernest Hemingway. They thoroughly cover each of the selected authors even including local pubs and restaurants that bestow honors. I was tickled to discover that there is a Stella Shouting contest in honor of A Streetcar Named Desire as well as a Papa Hemingway look-a-like contest. The book really shines in its focus in the back on very specific authors like Austen and Steinbeck. Short, concise biographies are given with detailed places to tour to get to know them better. It made me want to read those classics as well as biographies of their writers. This is one of the few books that I would actually want to own and keep on my shelf for future reference, because who would ever want to go on a vacation again without checking to see if a great literary spot is near by?

Oh What a Tangled Web!
This is a book in which literary travelers (armchair and otherwise) will lose themselves -- literally and figuratively. Literary history, criticism, geography, biography, anecdote, sidebars, and small but relevant photos are woven into this exploration of writers and their haunts. From Shakespeare to Dashiell Hammett, Robert Burns to Emily Dickinson, the authors visits graves, festivals, birthplaces, bars, libraries, cafes, gardens, hotels, cottages, meadows, and lanes.

The book seems to wander in time and place and in its focus and organization.This is both appealing and maddening.You will, for example, find Hemingway on more than 40 pages; first in a brief mention of a bar in Paris (the Dingo American Bar where he met F. Scott Fitzgerald), later in a 7-page biography, "Rugged Adventurer." Farther along is a 6-page feature on six Heminway watering holes (in France, Spain, and Cuba). Later still, there is a 14-page section on Hemingway in Key West -- more bars there as well.He is also found on other pages having to do with other locales (New Orleans, Venice) and various festivals -- Ketchum, Idaho; and Key West.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book (for reasons listed by other reviewers), a book to get lost in and with . . . in Harper Lee's Monroeville, Alabama; Steinbeck's Salinas Valley; Jane Austen's Bath, England; in Joyce's Dublin . . . jump in anywhere, and away you go.

Marsh Muirhead - author of "Key West Explained - a guide for the traveler." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A Moveable Dessert
On Paris is a slim volume of 71 pages consisting of 29 articles written by Hemingway for the Toronto Star from 1922-23 (not 1920-1924 as the book claims). As far as I can tell, all have been published previously, some several times. The unique contribution of this volume is that it brings together articles more or less about Paris. Indeed, the Paris of post-World War I--the food, the drinks, the cafes, the characters, the clothes, the politics (especially the politics and particularly the relations between France and Germany), the streets, the foreigners, and even the gargoyles--is brought to life as only Hemingway can do it. A book was apparently never Hemingway's intention, but On Paris holds up as a book rather than as a miscellany; when you are finished, you feel as if you have been to post-war Paris. Of course, that's the problem. Somebody, not Hemingway, conceived of this as a book. That person remains unknown. No editor is listed, not even a "selected by." It's all written beautifully in what has come to be known as the Hemingway style. If you've read the re-edited A Moveable Feast and are wondering what Hemingway thought of Paris while he actually lived there rather than what he thought 30 years later, then this book was conceived just for you--by some unknown editorial hand. It is paperbound, printed beautifully on good stock and bound and gathered, though in my copy the gatherings are not glued in properly and look to eventually separate from the cover. ... Read more

Product Description

The famous "Nick Adams" stories show a memorable character growing from child to adolescent to soldier, veteran, writer, and parent -- a sequence closely paralleling the events of Hemingway's life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Gee, the Swell Places

That's Nick Adams, in conversation with his friend George, in Cross Country Snow, one of the 24 short stories assembled for this collection of Hemmingway's shorter work. Written in the early part of the 20th century, these stories are pervaded by a wistful and romantic vintage feel.

Only 16 of the stories were published in Hemmingway's lifetime; the remaining eight were released posthumously and combined with their predecessors to make up a complete volume following the life of the Nick Adams character.

The stories chronicle a series of rites of passage, initiation, and comings of age. Nick's character clearly incorporates many autobiographical elements, and provides insight into the inner life of the author. The stories are grouped into sections: The Northern Woods, On His Own, War, A Soldier Home, and Company of Two. The actual stories present vignettes from early life in northern Michigan, adolescence and early independence, wartime injury, peacetime recovery, and the uncertain resolution of family.

My favorites are Indian Camp, The Last Good Country, and Big Two-Hearted River. In Indian Camp, Nick accompanies his father, a doctor, who delivers a baby by caesarian section in primitive conditions. The Last Good Country has him on the run from the law, and contrasts the corruption of civilization with the innocence and purity of the wild. Big Two-Hearted River is about recovery, healing, and cleansing, in the context of a solitary post war fishing trip.

This is the first of Hemmingway's fiction that I have read since the mandatory exposure of high school English, and I'm eager to go back after all these years.

Order Issues
I have always enjoyed the Nick Adams Stories, however I am not sure if we get the full context of the stories in the order they have been placed in this particular book.

Still, great stories and always worth reading.

book review
a compilation of Hemingways short stories.I would have enjoyed them more if the year they were written(each story) was include in the title of each short story.The style varies a little from story to story and I understand that the stories were not written in the order that Nick Adams ages.

must read for anyone interested in Hemingway
Lately I've been reading a lot of Jim Harrison who went to Michigan State and has written a lot about Michigan.This book anticipates a lot of Harrison's themes about Michigan, native Americans, the outdoors, fathers, etc.I like Harrison work, like Returning to Earth, better.

There are a lot of unfinished posthumous snippets that glue together the published stories.They provided interesting context, but some of them I felt like I just had to get through to get to the next 'real' story.Great read though.

Hemingway and northern Michigan
In the spring of 2008 the first Great Michigan Read was launched, a program which encouraged state residents to join in the reading and discussion of one book. The book chosen for this ambitious and worthy project was a classic: Ernest Hemingway's The Nick Adams Stories. Program coordinators throughout the state went to great pains to publish and distribute background information on the the book and on the Hemingway family connections to northern Michigan. Many readers were surprised to learn that Ernest Hemingway spent all the summers of his youth at the family cottage on Walloon Lake near Petoskey. That area and other northern Michigan towns provide the settings for most of the tales of young Nick Adams, often called Hemingway's fictional alter ego.
The Nick Adams Stories first appeared under that title in 1972, in an edition which attempted to chronologically arrange the tales and also added previously unpublished fragments found after Hemingway's death. Most of the original stories, however, were first published in 1925, when Hemingway was living in Paris, under the title, In Our Time.
I read this collection the first time in 1968, in an American Lit class at Central Michigan University. Our professor, Dr. John Hepler, spent much of our clast time explaining what he called the collection's centerpiece story, "Big Two-Hearted River." It depicted Nick Adams' solitary fishing trip to a river near Seney, in the Upper Peninsula. Dr. Hepler carefully pointed out to us the utterly peaceful setting of the forest and the river, the small simple pleasures of the details of making camp and the process of fishing itself. Then he made sure we knew, that although the war is never mentioned in the narrative, it is nevertheless clear that Nick had come to this place to try to recover, to heal from some traumatic event.
Hemingway himself was seriously wounded during his service in the First World War and spent several months recovering in a hospital in Italy, so the events of the war were still fresh in his mind when he wrote those first stories, set in upper Michigan. But Nick Adams stands for much more than just the author's own experiences. His character and the reaching out for healing represented a whole generation of young men damaged by war.
It was in that same CMU classroom that I also learned the source of that first story collection's original title, In Our Time. It was a line from the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer - "Give us peace in our time, O Lord."
Dr. Hepler drove this home to us, continuing, perhaps in his own paraphrasing: "We get not peace in our time, O Lord, But only violence and numbness."
I remembered all this as I re-read the stories with great interest this year, nearly forty years later. From March to May, I helped facilitate group discussions of the book at libraries in Osceola, Mecosta and Lake Counties. As we talked of Hemingway's life and his stories, and the pristine beauty of the rivers and forests of northern Michigan, the pleasures of fishing and the healing powers of nature, all agreed on one thing: we still get not "peace in our time.
Reflecting on these talks, I considered how this has been true in my own family. My mother was born in 1916, during the First World War. Her first four sons were all "war babies," born in the World War II years. I was the fourth, born in 1944. Her last two children were born during another war, Korea.
I served in the army from 1962 to 1965, during the Cold War, but it was also the Vietnam era. The first American casualty in Vietnam was in 1961.
My first son was born in 1969, the second in 1971. By those years hundreds of American soldiers were dying in Southeast Asia every week. Body counts and casualty figures were a staple on evening news broadcasts - "violence and numbness" prevailed.
My older son served in the army during the first Gulf war, a mercifully brief conflict which saw a limited number of American deaths. But Jeff, who was working as a "psych tech" in the psychiatric ward of Landstuhl Army Hospital at the time, told me some heartbreaking stories of a few patients, mostly officers and NCOs, brought in from the war zone who had simply cracked under the protracted pressure of responsibility and the tension of waiting, and wondering what would happen, and how they would respond - emotional casualties ofmodern warfare.
My first three grandchildren were born in 2004 and 2007 - "war babies" like their fathers, and like my mother and me. There are two more grandchildren due later this year in our family. It seems an inevitable given that these too will be children born under the shadow of war.
"We get not peace in our time, O Lord."
Sadly, I know that this pattern of birth and death and war that I find in my own family history is refelected and repeated endlessly in millions of families in this country and around the world, and is likely to continue.
Ernest Hemingway experienced firsthand the physical fear and pain and the emotional trauma that the violence of combat can bring. He managed to convey these feelings in his fiction - in those first stories of Nick Adams, and, later, in his classic and heartbreaking novel, A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway went on to a brilliant career in writing, but he always carried with him those psychic scars of war. In 1961 he took his own life. But his stories live on and can still teach us something. The Nick Adams Stories was an excellent book selection for the first Great Michigan Read. More than eighty years have passed since Hemingway wrote those stories, but they are still relevant. They still give us pause, make us think.
"Give us peace in our time, O Lord ..."
Please.

- Tim Bazzett, author of Soldier Boy and Love, War & Polio

... Read more

Product Description
Clear and to the point, Monarch Notes provide students and interested readers with an excellent supplement for the understanding and appreciation of the world's great writing. Each volume helps the reader to encounter the original more fully by placing it in historical context, focusing on the important aspects of the text and posing key questions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

Old man & the Sea
Too short a story but meaningful. A children's novel for sure.

Hemingway
The salmon is not unique in its struggle to survive as Hemingway illustrates in his captivating novel The Old Man and the Sea. The novel was Hemingway's best work and was most likely written during his less verbose alcoholic period.If the goal is to educate and enlighten as opposed to bore senseless one might consider The Old Man and the Sea for a novel study complete with similes, metaphors and symbolism.

The Old Man and the Sea
I read the book "Old Man and the Sea", the book is very good, it was so long, but it was interesting. I recommend this book for many people because it is worth reading this.

Excitement and boredom at the same time
The Old man and the sea was a decent book. The plot of this story was was about an old man who lived in his shack on the coastline in Cuba. Each day he went out to fish, but recently, he's been in a slump. Now it is theeighty-fifth day that he has not caught a fish. Will his luck change? Findout by reading this book. I gave this book four-stars because it was a goodbook, but, like all books, it had it's boring moments.

Excitement and boredom at the same time
The Old man and the sea was a decent book. The plot of this story was was about an old man who lived in his shack on the coastline in Cuba. Each day he went out to fish, but recently, he's been in a slump. Now it is theeighty-fifth day that he has not caught a fish. Will his luck change? Findout by reading this book. I gave this book four-stars because it was a goodbook, but, like all books, it had it's boring moments. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of the best Hemingway criticism of the last decade: Hemingway: Eight Decades of Criticism is the fourth collection of essays edited by Linda Wagner-Martin in this series that has become an essential guide to the best contemporary criticism re ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

most recent literary criticism on Hemingway
The 26 collected critiques extend to five the series started in 1974 with the title Five Decades of Hemingway criticism. The most recent one before this Eight Decades was the Seven Decades published in 1998. Like the previous collections, the essays in this volume are within the broad, seeming inexhaustible stream of Hemingway criticism in academia.

As with the previous volumes, this one includes research since the previous volume. Most of essays reflect particular interests of their time concerning Hemingway's writings and aspects of his life or contemporary movements in literary criticism. Hence in this volume, one finds critiques on the relationship between Hemingway's physical injuries as a reporter covering the Spanish Civil War and his themes of mourning and loss and studies women characters reflecting the field of gender studies. There are also essays taking a look at The Old Man and the Sea, a Hemingway work which has been drawing more interest in recent years. And this collection, like the earlier ones, gives attention to new scholars entering the field of Hemingway studies.

All the five volumes have been published by Michigan State University Press. With the diversity of the critiques ranging from highly-focused scholarship to topics involving popular culture, the volume holds something for anyone with an interest in Hemingway or American literature.
... Read more

Product Description
Hemingway's great achievement was to free the novel from all the languid decoration and cozy indirectness that was its early twentieth-century inheritance. His terse prose taught the writer to engage life to the fullest in order to write about it, and his own life was the perfect demonstration of that principle. Reissued to coincide with the centenary of Hemingway's birth, Anthony Burgess's insightful biography traces the rapidly changing scene from a happy, complacent childhood to the grim reality of the First World War and the vulgar unreality of the Second; from the Paris of the 1920s to the Spain of Civil War and the excitements of African safari to the somber last years in Cuba. Hemingway was rich and successful from an early age, yet public acclaim and even the Nobel Prize could not disguise the fact that he was a moody, suffering, and sometimes vicious figure--a man who was finally unable to live with his own image. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The importance of knowing the author as a person....
Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" allows the reader to experience life on the other side of the page, so to speak, the life of the authors. Recognizing the author as a person, as having gone through thehuman experience, is an important aspect of the reading experience. Itremoves the barrier between the reader and the author thus allowing abetter communication between the text and the reader. The author no longerseems distant and extraordinary, so the reader is able to absorb the bookon his own terms, as one discusses life with a respected friend.Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" is particularly well-written, forHemingway (as usual) does not talk down to the reader but rather includesthe reader in his life as a matter of course. A truly remarkable bit ofliterature...

A thorough analysis in quick step
The book provides excellent insight into Hemingway's life without wasting a word. Every Hemingway fan should read it. ... Read more

Product Description

A fascinating account of a dramatic, untold chapter in Ernest Hemingway's life -- his passionate pursuit of German U-boats during World War II

From the summer of 1942 until the end of 1943, Ernest Hemingway actively patrolled the Gulf Stream and the waters off Cuba's north shore in his wooden fishing boat, Pilar, looking for German submarines. His patrols were supervised by the U.S. Navy and served as a part of antisubmarine warfare at a time when U-boat attacks were decimating Allied merchant shipping in the region. The huge, long-distance subs ultimately sank hundreds of ships in the Atlantic theater, killing thousands of seamen. They were deadly and efficient, and to confront them in a small wooden fishing vessel was to court instant annihilation. Yet Hemingway and his crew of friends were prepared to do just that. Armed with only grenades and submachine guns, they planned to attack any U-boat they encountered.

While almost no attention has been paid to these patrols, other than casual mentions in standard biographies, they became the foundation of some of Hemingway's future work, especially The Old Man and the Sea and Islands in the Stream.

Onshore, the patrols were a source of mounting friction between Hemingway and his wife, the writer Martha Gellhorn, who was brilliant, difficult, and skeptical of Hemingway's pursuit. Martha was not particularly beautiful but possessed that certain something that drove men -- Hemingway included -- to distraction. He had divorced his second wife to marry Martha, and yet by the time he began patrolling in Pilar, the love affair was doomed, perhaps pushing him more intently toward a confrontation with the U-boats.

Terry Mort's incisive portrait of Hemingway is a combination of biography, military history, and literary commentary that draws not only from his work, letters, and wartime documents, but the unofficial yet highly revealing log of the Pilar, a calendar that Hemingway annotated with observations of tides, fishing successes, supply purchases, target practice, ship movements, and most crucially, his pursuit of what he suspected was a German U-boat secretly rendezvousing with a Spanish passenger ship.

Hemingway's patrols gave him the opportunity to exercise his well-known taste for bravado, tall tales, and male camaraderie. But he was at the top of his professional game when World War II began, a novelist with wealth, international acclaim, and many works ahead of him. Mort's provocative portrait of one of America's greatest writers reveals why he went to sea and courted death in the high season of his most remarkable life.Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2009: The plan was as reckless as it was implausible: lure a German U-Boat to the surface, lob grenades into opened hatches, and speed away into a hero's sunset. Most men would be mocked for such a scheme, but in the hands of Ernest Hemingway, it was just crazy enough to work. In The Hemingway Patrols, Terry Mort explores the motivation behind this fascinating chapter in Hemingway's life. Proudly manning the helm of his beloved yacht, El Pilar, the legendary writer stalked the waters off Cuba during the early 1940s in search of enemy submarines. To the casual observer, it would seem that the line between the real and fictionalized worlds of Ernest Hemingway had become blurry (one can easily imagine Robert Jordan or Harry Morgan in the same role). Yet according to Mort, long-shot odds are precisely what fueled these missions. "Maybe the patrols were quixotic," he explains, "but that was part of their appeal--that and the sense of doing something useful and of being in command." The inherent dangers in hunting U-boats with a forty-foot yacht were inconsequential--what truly mattered was the adventure at hand. -- Dave Callanan ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Not Quite What I Expected, But Worth The Read
Rather than being a book about Ernest Hemingway's adventures as part of the "Hooligan Navy" of civilian sub-spotters during the U-boat crisis off of U.S. shores in 1942, this book is more about why and how Hemingway came to volunteer for this thankless, dangerous, and yet likely excruciatingly boring task - cruising the Florida Strait in a 38-foot wooden fishing boat, "Pilar", armed only with light weapons and ant-personnel grenades (which were probably more dangerous to have aboard than if they had gone out unarmed) to spot German submarines.

If you get into this book looking for details of the exploits of Hemingway and his crew (friends and local fisherman hired on for the task) while they plied the Gulf Stream on the lookout for tell-tale signs of the German U-boats which were preying nearly unabated on Allied shipping in the area - the faint trace of a periscope's wake, the far-off outline of a surfaced submarine silhouetted against the sky - you will be disappointed. The log Hemingway kept of the "Pilar"'s patrols is, in the author's words, "a mess". Few details survive, and given that they made only one relatively concrete sighting in the many days spent at sea patrolling, there probably isn't much to tell in that regard.

This book's strength lies in the insights it gives into how Hemingway came to be the type of man who would volunteer for duty like this; how his background and his life's experiences (especially the time he spent in Spain during that country's civil war) led him to choose this manner in which to contribute, while a man in his early 40s, to the world-wide fight against Fascism.

So, this slim volume is more appropriate for an English Lit classroom than a History classroom (except as "Additional Reading", perhaps), but it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in a glimpse of the man behind "The Old Man and the Sea", "Islands in the Stream" (which owes much to the patrols of the "Pilar") and "For Whom The Bell Tolls".

Good reading --- for the English major
Terry Mort, in "the Hemingway Patrols" gives us the historical background as why Hemingway, and other private boat owners, put to sea in a desperate attempt to hunt for, and even possibly engage, German U-boats.

However, there was simply too little drama about the "hunt" itself for the author to fill an entire book.To fill this void, Terry Mort does a good job of describing the military situation Hemingway found himself, but even with this background information, there was not enough material to fill a book.

To merit an entire book, Mort, by necessity, gives us Hemingway the man, his failed marriages, his adventures in the Spanish Civil War, and of course, Hemingway, the author.

If enjoy reading Hemingway, you will appreiciate Mort's literary references.However, this reviewer's experience with Hemingway consists of having read The Old Man and the Sea in high school.The author's literary references and quotes from Hemingway's writings, and especially his references to Hemingway's contemporaries in the literary world, were, to this reviewer, so much wasted effort.Former English majors might find such literary comparasions enjoyable reading, but this former Political Science major, like in high school years before, was left with the feeling of, "so what?"

Mort's reporting of Hemingway's failed marriages was interesting, if "gossipy."The recounting of the adventures in the Civil War was moderately interesting, but only tangentially related to the hunt for U-boats.

Mort deserves five stars for trying to get this reviewer to "appreciate literature" and Hemingway the man, but for this student of history, we are still left with a three star book.

Incredible Research Slightly Marred By Intense Hero Worship
Terry Mort's research into German U-Boats, the Nazi spy situation in Cuba, the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, and the life and career of Ernest Hemingway's third wife Martha Gellhorn, all make this book incredibly fascinating. He really fills in the background on so many fascinating issues Hemingway only briefly touches on in his writing.

The only problem is that the research Mort does really works against his hero. Once the real U-Boat menace is described, both the deadly attacks and the dangers faced by the U-Boats themselves, Papa and his drinking buddies on the little fishing boat just look like amateurs playing at war. Terry Mort takes just about everything Hemingway ever did and said at face value -- even when the man was plainly drunk and making up excuses not to write. Make nomistake, however. When he did write to the best of his abilities, Hemingway was as good as the best. Just read a five page story like "A Clean Well Lighted Place" and you'll see what I mean.

But by the time this story begins, Hemingway had already begun the long, slow slide into alcoholism and suicidal despair. There's a rot, a softness in later books like FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS that Terry Mort either misses or chooses to ignore. He writes so well about subjects like navigation, the sea, and sailing basics, but when the subject is Hemingway's writing he sees nothing but good, better, best.

The real tragedy of Hemingway's life is that he became an alcoholic. And the truth Terry Mort avoids throughout the book is that in the end an alcoholic's first loyalty is to his disease. Hemingway had the raw materials of greatness in many fields. Early in his life he made successful gestures as a husband, a father, a literary man, and a military man, but by the time of this book his gestures were secondary to his main occupation, drinking.

My personal theory is that Hemingway was making semi-conscious attempts to commit suicide going back at least as far as the Twenties. And that his U-Boat patrols were a sort of half-hearted attempt to opt out of life by getting wiped out in "heroic" fashion. Mort admits his attack plan was "suicidal" but doesn't see the real meaning of that description. I'm not saying any of this to bring anybody down, and certainly not to demean Hemingway's greatest work. And I'm very well aware that it was only after all this was over that he wrote his final masterpiece, THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, a book I really love. That book could certainly not have been written without the thousands of hours Hemingway spent in the Gulf. But the tragic side of his life, which only makes his literary achievements more admirable, is rigorously excluded from this book.

Naked on an Open Sea
If I hadn't just finished reading Mark Ott's so-called "eco-biography," A Sea of Change: Ernest Hemingway and the Gulf Stream--a Contextual Biography, then possibly I would have given Terry Mort's very similar book a higher review.

It actually has more biographical juice in it than the literary criticism of Ott, but both writers point to a Hemingway strangely similar to the John Steinbeck who was so fascinated with Doc Ricketts and the Sea of Cortez.That two of the great US novelists cared so much about the oceans and about undersea life is an odd coincidence, or maybe not a coincidence, for both men studied Thoreau and the proto-ecological movements of the previous century.Ott makes better use of the log Hemingway kept for the Pilar, showing how their formal qualities--the fragmentary denotation of nouns and adjectives as the watchers spotted a dolphin, for example, or encountered heavy rain--led to later changes in Hemingway's style--not all of them for the better.But here Mort is much mor knowledgeable about German U Boats and the dangers they posed to the Atlantic seaboard and to US naval efforts in general.

Almost as a subplot we have Martha Gellhorn and her bemused attitude towards Hemingway's defense action.She wrote, "Loving is a habit like another and requires something nearby for daily practice."Hemingway would have loved it if Martha had accompanied him on his U Boat expeditions, and maybe their marriage would have lasted longer if she wasn't so skeptical, but as Mort points out, Hemingway expected his disciples to toe the line 100 percent on all points or face his wrath, and Martha Gellhorn just wasn't built that way.Was she a careerist as some have charged?Certainly her alliance with Hemingway raised her profile no end, and she knew it.

Finally, Mort does expand our sense of Hemingway's quarrel with "honor."On the one hand he saw it as an antiquated concept responsible for the worst carnages of World War I; on the other, says Mort, he believed in T E Lawrence's line about "there could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat."

Great Read !
As much WWII history - some with new information such as the 2002 discovery of the sunken U166 German submarine - as the weaving of literary criticism, the contexts of Hemingway's life and his hunt for U-boats.Was impressed that Scribner is the publisher - and could see why after reading it. As an amateur student of WW II's "Pacific War" and the air wars of Europe, I started to grasp a new understanding of WWII's merchant marine strategy and Atlantic submarine battle.The author's naval and Caribbean narratives were fresh, most readable and understandable. As a reader of Hemingway's novels with modest short story experience, I was fascinated how the author moved through Hemingway's early years, Paris and Spain to the Gulf Stream, Fifth Columns and the author's own takes on Hemingway. Most enjoyable - and informative. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Reviewing El Viejo Y El Mar
I want to thank Amazon and all other parites involved in one way or another for making this book readily available. It was a good book, in pristine condition and was delivered in reasonable time. Thank you.

Excelente narrativa
Hemingway nos da un rrecorrido por el interesante mundo de "la mar" haciendonos identificar con el personaje principal y su pasion por la pesca, quiza esta es una manera de expresar una de las pasiones del escritor e introducirnos a un mundo que puede ser desconocido al principio pero del cual muchos terminamos entendiendo mas al final de la historia. La hisoria de Santiago puede ser la historia de todos nosotros que dia con dia luchamos por aquello que creemos aun cuando parezca que perdemos la batalla en el camino.

BONITA HISTORIA
Se las recomiendo como su nombre lo indica, es una historia muy bella...

Una novela sencilla e interesante, para todo lector
Ésta es una novela corta, cuya narración se mete en los detalles de las situaciones, pero no aburre al lector, por el contrario lo hace interesarse en la historia.

La historia es sobre un viejo pescador que está en un periodo de mala suerte y sale a pescar. Durante el tiempo que dura la pesca muestra las bellezas y peligros del mar, reflexiona sobre el hombre y su parecido y diferencias con criaturas marinas, enseña que cada persona es producto de su pasado y así sucesivamente.

Es una novela sin sobresaltos, para que chicos y grandes la disfruten.

un cuento hermoso
un cuento hermoso, escrito con la parquedad de palabras que caracteriza a Hemingway, con sus oraciones cortas y concisas, con su estilo de periodista puesto al servicio de la novelistica. este cuento trata sobre la busqueda, esa interna busqueda del ser humano, esa agonia por poseer, conquistar,domar, por no ser vencido por el inexorable paso de los anos y la muerte.esto es lo que impulsa a santiago a la pesca todos los dias. no se porque,pero esta historia me recuerda mucho a moby dick, aunque aqui la busquedasea diferente muy recomendado. LUIS MENDEZ ... Read more

Product Description

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess. A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the worldweary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War. Hemingway's last full-length novel published in his lifetime, it moved John O'Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him "the most important author since Shakespeare." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (56)

A Troubling Work
With an omniscient narrator that seems merged with the voice of the main character, Richard Cantrell, it is perhaps almost too easy to assume that this is another blustering book about macho soldiers and not, at bottom, the anti-war novel it is. And that's too bad. In the broken, cynical Colonel Cantrell, who has much realism about war and great soldiers, and who is dying of a bad heart, the consequences of a military life are fully realized. Certainly another theme involves the very transitory nature of life.

The trouble is that the heavy consequences of a life at war are fully realized in the context of the novel's love story. Those scenes in which Cantrell's complex and intelligent character is revealed, in his rants against war, those generals held up as heroes after the second World War, and other generals in history, are also the love scenes with the 19 year old Renata, whom he calls "Daughter." I find it problematic that the complexity of Cantrell can only be expressed to a woman in long drinking and dining scenes. In one chapter toward the middle of the book, the talking about the past goes on so long that the need for some present tension beyond the colonel's bad heart seems necessary. Of course, even with added tension, it would still be hard to conceal that these lovers tend toward narcissism at its worst.

There might have been more characters here also, other than waiters, servers, hotel keepers, and Cantrell's chauffeur. But this novel's trajectory is trained on the lovers and their last Friday and Saturday together.

So there seems a flatness and a claustrophobia here. And though I'm suspicious that perhaps this was the intended effect, I still find it hard to read. The colonel repeats several times in the first half of the book that he is "half a century" old, as well as the phrase "in our time." What we seem to be seeing in this novel is the loss of the younger world, an encroaching darkness, a shrinking of possibilities that must accompany late middle age and death. It is very telling that I actually felt some relief when the colonel went his own way and left Renata for the evening. But even this relief was temporary.

Touching tale but audiobook leaves much to be desired
"Across the River and into the Woods" is one of the least known of Hemingway's works. Considering the fact that it is far from his best this is understandable. Although the book is no Old Man and the Sea or For Whom the Bell Tolls it is still quite touching. It is set in post-war Northern Italy and tells the tale of a terminally ill American colonel and his last days. It follows him in his passionate hobby of duck hunting, eating, his relationship with an attractive 19 year old Italian and his many cynical views towards war and many of his fellow officers, especially those that did not actually fight. Quite touching and moving, although, again, definitely not an Old Man and the Sea or For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Despite the fact that the book is fairly good (would give it a four star rating) the audiobook, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. The main reason for this is the voice of the Colonel's 19 year old mistress. The audiobook makes her sound like a transvestite or a very old women instead. This greatly detracts from the pleasure of listening to the audiobook. Considering that a good deal of the book is in regards to the relationship between them, this is more than a minor nuisance (hence only a 2 star rating for the audio).

perhaps Hemingway's weakest novel
I am abig fan of the writing of Ernest Hemingway and if you asked me to name his weakest novel, I would probably say Across The River And Into The Trees.The novelhas some strong points like the narrative style and the descriptions of Venice but the heart of the book is the love affair between Richard Cantwell a 50 year old American army colonel with a bad heart and a 19 year old Venetian countess named Renata. Their love affair is uncompelling with stitled dialogue dominating. Renata seems so airheaded it is hared to imagine a hardnosed man like Cantwell being interested in her.Cantwell saves the book from being awful. The characters sense of his decline in health and other ways makes me think he might bewhat Hemingway might have thought of himself at this time. In the end Across the Riverisjust an OK novel and considerably below par for the great Hemingway Iiis for people like me who want to read all of Hemingway regardless of how good it may be.

This is a review of the Kindle edition of this book.
I really liked reading this book.It is about a man who has spent all of his adult life in the service.He has survived wars, both on the battlefield and on personal levels.This story takes place during a car ride when the main character, Richard, is under a great deal of stress and in pain from a heart condition.He is recalling the previousdays that he spent with a young woman that he loves. He shares his thoughts and feeling, memories of how the weekend events occurred with the reader.Richard is the only point of view the reader has, and he is in pain, fearing his impending death, so the reader has apointed (and restricted) view. He is facing the idea that the chronic heart problems he has will probably end his life, and he is recalling many of his regrets, both professional and personal,to the female character and the reader.The reader gets more information than does his lover because we have some insight into what he thinks, but isn't saying.The female character seems flat, but really I think that is just because she is seen through his eyes, and he is under a lot of stress.I really liked this book.It is Hemingway, his writing is emotional and detailed.It provokes thought about myself and how do I affect the people around me.What are they going through that I'm not aware of?
The Kindle edition of this book is formatted without issue and all the chapter links work.

Worth reading
I just finished listening to this novel in an audio book format.Although several scenes felt overlong and slightly ludicrous, there are other passages that are as well written and moving as anything Hemingway wrote.In different spots I choked up while driving, particularly during the description of Hurtgen (sp?) forest, etc.The description of the Venetian marketplace was superb and rivaled James's Venice from The Aspern Papers.I loved the underlying wit and self-entertainment that permeated much of the dialogue and interior monologues.Renata, too good to be true?Sometimes cloyingly so, but at other times the way she manages the sensibilities and ego of her twilight lover was quite touching.I also appreciated the Colonel's cynical attitude toward politics, military bureaucracy, etc.

I can see being frustrated by this novel in print; it's imperfect as a work of art and objectionably melodramatic at times; still, I love Venice and Hemingway, and, yes, this book also. ... Read more

Product Description
Award-winning author Mellow offers a thorough reassessment of a man who was both a literary giant and an icon for his age. Uncovering new material, Mellow reveals aspects of the writer's life unexplored by previous biographers. "The best work done on the writer to date."--New York Times. Photos.Amazon.com Review
Early in Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences,biographer James R. Mellow recounts an episode from the writer'sapprentice years in which the then young journalist kept KansasCity Star colleague Ted Brumback awake for the better part of thenight with drunken readings from Robert Browning. When Brumback wokeup at four the next morning, Hemingway was still talking, but sailedthrough the work day that followed with seemingly no illeffects. "Sometimes I think that's the outstanding characteristic ofgenius," Brumback said later, "boundless energy." It was this vitalenergy and its subsequent translation into fiction that distinguishesHemingway from his illustrious contemporaries. Perhaps no other writerin this century has so deliberately, and so successfully, pursued sucha variety of experiences for source material.

Just recounting the significant events in Hemingway's life--the warexperiences, the literary feuds, the safaris, the wives--is a majorendeavor, and Mellow's ability to do so fluently and concisely in thisrelatively compact work, and with depth of analysis, is one of thebook's outstanding qualities. Mellow's extensive experience withHemingway's contemporaries (having written both Charmed Circle:Gertrude Stein & Company and a biography of F. Scott and ZeldaFitzgerald, Invented Lives) proves invaluable to him in thisproject. He has the background both to cover the Paris of the 1920s,where Hemingway honed his craft, and to make the necessary criticalassessment of the writer's time-line, which Hemingway conflated andre-created repeatedly in later life. Mellow's sensitive appreciationof Hemingway's prose doesn't blind him to a clear-sighted assessmentof the writer's literary weaknesses and failures. Nor does his evidentaffection for his subject hinder him from detailing the manipulations,grudges, and breaches of faith that Hemingway was capable of in hisambitious drive to be the Great American Writer. Mellow isparticularly good at demonstrating how Hemingway's life, as much ashis fiction, was a conscious creation. The title of this biography is,we discover, largely an ironic one, as the writer's tendency to mixtruth and fantasy in his writing and his own life was to have vastconsequences, for his friends and lovers, for himself, and mosttragically, for the literary genius that was far too often squanderedin his later years. --John Longenbaugh ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

quite possibly the worst thing I've ever tried to read
I had a great interest in learning more about Hemingway. The home in Key West, the love of fishing, the adventures -- someone so notable must surely have stories to captivate a willing reader.

This book was an effort to get through the first 200 pages, and when I slowed down to a painful page a day, I had to call it quits.

The author attempts to take people and events from Hemingway's life and piece together who they ended up as in Hemingway's writings. And......well, that's pretty much it. I felt compelled to write a review to warn others -- it's just that bad.

I closed the book well before the last page bored and unmoved.

The Artist as Macho
Another book about Hemingway? Amazingly, perhaps, this is the best one yet. Papa with all his flaws and all his gifts, X-rayed, dissected, analyzed, and left with his compromised humanity intact as an awesome, if not a sympathetic, character. What I came away with from this rivetting biography is an appreciation of Hemingway the Artist. We already knew that he was a great writer, and a mythic figure, created at least halfway by himself. Mr. Mellows shows that typewriters and words were only the most obvious media that Hemingway used, and that from the time he left home, and probably before, he was using the people who showed up in his life as ruthlessly as he used language. Hemingway's greatest contribution to writing may be the savage way he trimmed style and excess from sentences until they were as spare as could be, leaving the pure idea without any affected embellishment whatever. He did the same thing with the people in his life, wives included, reworking them to fit his narratives, and discarding them when they either failed to conform, or worse, did something by word or deed that bruised his insanely touchy feelings. Sexual ambiguity is everywhere in Hemingway's life, and he himself put it there by embracing a macho pole of identity while containing all the while certain feminine charcteristics such as extreme sensitivity and receptivity. He needed these qualities to be the artist he was, but he eschewed them in his active daily life. No wonder he shot himself. Read this book.

A SEMESTER OF ENGLISH
THIS BOOK COVERS NOT ONLY HEMINGWAY BUT MOST OF THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH WRITERS OF THE TIME. AFTER READING IT I LEARNED TO DESPISE HIM AS A PERSON BUT RESPECT HIS WORKS EVEN MORE. A MUST FOR HEMINGWAY FANS.

OK STARTER KIT ON HEMINGWAY - WITH RESERVATIONS
I enjoyed this work.The author did give a different slant to Hemingway the man, and indeed, the works of Hemingway.I cannot say for a second that I agreed with the author much over 25 percent of the time, but hey, Mellow has his opinion, I have mine.I did feel that Mellow beat the "gay" thing into the ground (as like in "Who Cares?") and did feel that the author did not have a good grasp of the works of his subject, i.e. Hemingway and his writing.Again though, it was nice getting another opinion and did leave me with some food for thought.This in no way compares with the work of Carlos Baker and his ilk, but, again, gives us just another view...always a nice thing. I do hope though, that the reader of this work reads some other biographies on Hemingway and do hope they actually read some of Hemingways work.On the other hand, I am a big Hemingway fan and my view, I am sure, is a bit slanted.

don't do it
I was quite disappointed with this book.The author divides his time between 1) relating events of Hem's life (ok), 2) attacking Hem's character and endlessly trying to prove he was gay (?), and 3) attempts at 'literary criticism' of Hem's work (bad).

Almost from the outset, I got the feeling James Mellow didn't understand much about Hemingway's stories.His criticisms seemed trite or misguided.But when I got to page 521 I was quite sure he understood very little indeed.Summarizing For Whom The Bell Tolls, he writes, "Robert Jordan, on the last night before the dynamiting of the bridge, is forced to write his letter to General Golz suggesting that the attack be called off because of Pablo's treachery and the destruction of El Sordo's guerrilla band."Evidently Mr. Mellow didn't read the part where Jordan observes the enemy's massive defensive buildup just prior to the 'surprise offensive', which would render the offensive useless and costly.We're talking about a major troop movement with thousands of pieces of equipment, where El Sordo's band figures little, and it is beyond me to understand how this understanding of the situation could be lost on the critic / biographer.

I was glad to read the basic outline of Hemingway's life story, but didn't care for the sermonizing judgements of Hem's lifestyle and weak criticisms of his work. ... Read more

Product Description

In the fourteen years that A. E. Hotchner traveled with Ernest Hemingway, he collected a lifetime's worth of Hemingway's experiences, anecdotes, and observations on the backs of matchbooks, napkins, and slips of paper. Speaking on everything from war to women to writing, Hemingway's words are at turns funny and poignant, revealing a rich portrait of the American literary giant and the world he took by storm.

Customer Reviews (7)

keep this book nearby
For necessary attitude adjustments. I keep mine bedside to straighten how all the BS that's accumulated in my head after work, etc. Mr. Hemingway had great perspective.

Fine Introduction to Hemingway
It's a fair question about Hemingway: Where does one start to learn about him?

This book is as good a place as any. It's well designed, easy to read, and nicely illustrated.

If you're a Hemingway afficianado, you're unlikely to learn much that's new, though you may enjoy the presentation.

If you're new to Hemingway--or just wondered who was this legendary writer who made his life a work of performance art--you may find this book fun and informative.

Having read as much of and about Hemingway as I could get my hands on, I just enjoy dipping into this now and again. It brings a smile to me and seems to bring pleasure to others, as well.

The Good Life
I'll be honest with you, I'm a fan of Hemingway and his work, so it won't come as a surprise that I like this book.I read "The Good Life According to Hemingway," as soon as it arrived in the mail.Three times. I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to anyone.The anecdotes are as interesting and engaging as the photos.

Some Hype for Hotchner
I just received Hotchner's book, The Good Life According toHemingway...and although I have a collection of 16 books already on Hemingway, including Hotchner's Papa Hemingway, this collection is by far the most readable, the most enjoyable, and worth every penney. I have read over and over again Hemingway's famous quotes, "a moveable feast" and
the rest, but some of his quotes herein are some I have never encountered:
"I know I wear a beard, but if you look closely, I'm no Santa Claus." This would make a splendid gift for the "uninitiated" in the life of Hemingway.

The Good Life According to Hemingway


Everything in this book, with the exception of some photos, was taken from Hotchner's Papa Hemingway. So there is no original input here. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (63)

Not Hemingway's finest
I am a huge Hemingway fan, but I did not like this one very much.In truth it is very well written, as are most of his books.He does a wonderful job of illustrating the landscape, the weather, and parts of the people, but this book is way too formulaic and ends up with a lot of loose ends.We learn about Thomas' friend Roger, who later just up and vanishes.It seemed like all the character development that goes into his background, his history as a writer, a fighter and a fisherman seem pretty useless when he's gone halfway through the book.Roger, and Thomas, are both classic Hemingway figures.They are manly men, they drink a ton, they are really good at outdoors-ish things, they score with all the fine women - yet true love escapes them, and they are rich and artistic.Some of Hemingway's characters have really connected with me, but Thomas was not one of them.Again, it's a well written entertaining book, but I think the characters end up being a little fake and over-the-top.

Remains of the UR Text
Islands is part of Hemingway's posthumous body of work, published in 1970 under the auspices of his last wife, Mary Hemingway.It was carved out of the UR text that Hemingway worked on after the war, which ultimately produced (or spawned) The Old Man and the Sea, The Garden of Eden, this work, and by extension, A Moveable Feast.

Islands is a compelling novel, and in terms of structure and action, the best of the posthumous works.It drags a bit on dialogue; there are times when the reader feels he has read parts already.But beyond that, the novel stands on its own as a work, and also provides glimpses into Hemingway's post-war preoccupations.There are long mediations on the nature of art, productivity, and the act of expression.There is a longing look cast backward, toward Paris, which found greater expression in A Moveable Feast.

The novel is also unremittingly dark.We get a glimpse into the Hemingway in his declining years, as his power receded, and his depression and anxiety rose.

Great Hemingway atmosphere
I loved this book.I read it while I was at the Gulf Coast and I could really come to terms with the imagery of the white sand and the sea breeze from Bimini and Cuba.The book is divided into three sections and each has its own tone but they are all Hemingway and give one a wistful feeling of the atmosphere that he provided in his other books.I could see the main character (who is obviously Hemingway) clearly going about his days drinking, carrousing, reminiscing, and feeling without showing.I loved the discussions about James Joyce!The book has a couple of shocks and surprises which give the novel its increasingly melancholy tone.I found that while I was at the Gulf Coast I could not put this book down.I carried it everywhere and could not pull myself away from it.I have enjoyed several Hemingway novels but this has to be one of my favorites.Truly a book for those who love to read Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway audio
The audio arrive in record time and in the conditiion the seller describe it. There is some trouble with receipt of payment, but I found it's an administrative error not intentional. . Overall I'm very satisfied with this seller and the product and would be happy to do business again.
The book itself take a little patience to get into. It is seperated into three parts and the third and last has to be the more exciting and attention keeping.

Best Hemingway Novel I Have Read
The first time I read 'Islands in the Stream' I just could not get into it. The first part was wonderful, the second part was bland, and I didn't even finish the last part. Looking back on it, I read the book too fast and looked over important dialogue that makes this story great.

The other night I picked this book off my bookshelf on a whim. I started reading it and could not put it down...I looked up at the clock and two hours had gone by in a flash.

The novel starts out in Bimini where painter Thomas Hudson lives. He leads a very simple/enjoyable life. Towards the end of part one, a tragic event occurs which changes Hudson's life dramatically. The second part deals with love and loss. The last part is about Hudson's secret anti-submarine mission off the coast of Cuba.

The story is very well rounded. It has many three-dimensional characters that stay with you. The imagery makes you feel like you are right there.

There is a reason that this book has so many high ratings on amazon: It is, in my opinion, one of Hemingway's finest works.

5/5 ... Read more

Product Description
Still the most popular of Hemingway's books, The Sun also Rises captures the quintessential romance of the expatriate Americans and Britons in Paris after World War I. The text provides a way for discussions of war, sexuality, personal angst, and national identity to be linked inextricably with the stylistic traits of modern writing. This Casebook, edited by one of Hemingway's most eminent scholars, presents the best critical essays on the novel to be published in the last half century. These essays address topics as diverse as sexuality, religion, alcoholism, gender, Spanish culture, economics, and humor. The volume also includes an interview with Hemingway conducted by George Plimpton. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

hemingway
Actually wanted the book not the case study. My bad.
Guess I should sell it on Amazon.
Seller was fine! ... Read more