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The Garden of Eden

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 7,261 ratings · 509 reviews

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

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Hardcover, 250 pages

Published May 1st 1986 by Scribner Book Company (first published January 1st 1985)

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Jul 23, 2007 Sylvia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: youwillshiverandweepandfallinlove

this is one of hemingway's most fascinating character studies, and like all his heroines in all of his books, i sort of fell in love with her. how i feel about this book is complicated and not for the faint of heart -- i love it, yes. but i almost feel a little invaded ... i had this idea in my head of this summer on the mediterranean when i was like, 14, and then to read this book ... well, it was wonderful and shocking in its truthfulness.

i still sometimes want to escape to live in this painfu...more

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Oct 04, 2007 Scott rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can understand why many readers, especially Hemingway fans, would find this book (as well as Islands in the Stream, for that matter) to be a pointless slog through the authors psyche. The story is kind of weird, there isn't any action to speak of, the girlfriend swap is Hemingway at his most mysoginistic, and the book is unfinished, but Hemingway's beautiful portrayals of the people and places are what make Garden of Eden my most favorite book. I know this is the cheeziest line of all time (bu...more

13 likes · like · see review

Jan 29, 2009 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read_in_college, fiction, classics

I read this book for a college course and was dreading it. I thought - here we go - another book with manly hunter Hemingway about war and bullfighting and all things manly. Ugh! Oh but it was not to be. This book turned me around on Hemingway and made me see the genius that he is. Sadly the book is published posthumously and it is questionable how much Hemingway is in this book - but when I read this I did not know there was a lot of controversy surrounding this and just enjoyed it for what it...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Stan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'd never read Hemingway before this book. In fact, I haven't read him since (though it has only been a couple of months, at present, since I read "Garden"). Truth be told, while the book is on my "Read" shelf, I didn't get around to finishing it. No, actually, I actively *stopped* reading it, only a few chapters in.

I picked the book up thinking to read one of the classic masters of literature. Indeed, Hemingway is a very skilled author, in my estimation. His attention to detail is stunning, and...more I'd never read Hemingway before this book. In fact, I haven't read him since (though it has only been a couple of months, at present, since I read "Garden"). Truth be told, while the book is on my "Read" shelf, I didn't get around to finishing it. No, actually, I actively *stopped* reading it, only a few chapters in.

I picked the book up thinking to read one of the classic masters of literature. Indeed, Hemingway is a very skilled author, in my estimation. His attention to detail is stunning, and almost a fault (please, I really don't need to know everything this young couple had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

The dialogue was simple, but elegant--almost like a good stage play, as it were, and definitely a contrast to Orson Scott Card's more "here and now" speech. That made it easy to get lost in the world of the book, because it really did have the feel of a place to escape to. And isn't that often the point of reading fiction?

In any case, I stopped reading "Garden of Eden" not because the writing was poor (though I never got far enough to discern any real plot)--quite the contrary, the writing was excellent. No, I stopped reading because to me, this was literary porn.

The story is about newlyweds who are honeymooning in Southern Europe. The wife (most frequently referred to as "The Girl," at least in the chapters I got through) has some very left-field ideas about romantic love. She, essentially, wants to take the male role in the marriage--or at least in bed--and tries persuading her new husband to play the female. She straight out tells him, "No, *you* are Kate. I am Peter." (at least, I think she said Peter; I've forgotten.) Though Hemingway doesn't get hard-core graphic, he leaves little to the imagination at times (yes, Kate has breasts; thank you for reminding us that adult women are thus equipped). By the time I quit, things really looked to be taking a rather kinky bent, as the husband, willing to please his wife, despite the inherent strangeness of her behaviour, begins surrendering his manhood (the back cover actually speak of him trying to recover it; I'm sure that figures into plot tension later on). Kate, "The Girl" really seemed eager to explore the role reversal, and Hemingway didn't seem too shy about filling the reader in on how she planned to go about doing that.

I'm sure the book makes some very interesting social commentary on gender roles, but I guess I'll never know.

Perhaps my judgment is hasty, because I only got three or four chapters into the book? But then, I'm reading it with my set of morals, and the book offended them enough that I'd rather just not finish it, and recognise that I have, more or less, judged a book by its cover.(less)

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Dec 09, 2007 Kaarin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm guessing that I came at Hemingway in a completely different way from most readers in that this posthumously published book was one of the first things that I ever read by him. And it was sort of an "a-ha" moment; so *this* is what they mean by the clean and lean Hemingway style... I fell into this book effortlessly, read it quickly, and was very affected (and impressed)by it. I know it's considered one of his inferior works, but who cares. I loved it.

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Jan 04, 2009 rachelm rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This unfinished, posthumously published work continued my love/hate relationship with Hemingway. I love the characteristically strong and lovely prose and understated emotional subtext. I hate the fact that the character described on the back cover as Hemingway's most complex female character is a mentally ill and destructive woman deeply jealous of her husband's writing career, and that a relationship between two women is at one point described as something "women do when they don't have any be...more

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Mar 31, 2008 Karl rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not my favorite Hemingway, though I understand why it was recommended to me: there is a lot of drinking in it. I think my problem with the book was that it kind of wanders around not really getting to the point, which is probably a result of the book being released posthumously. The book revolves around a newly wed couple vacationing in France/Spain in the late 1920's. The couple gets up every morning, goes for a swim, wanders the countryside, and drinks in the cafes. I did really enjoy the way...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hemingway seemed to be exploring his own moral boundaries with this work. Posthumously published it created quite the "buzz" in the 1980's when it became a bestseller. The title works.
A young married couple vacations in the South of France (Eden?) They don't work (he writes) but just live in the moment, socializing in cafes, drinking wine and smoking. They seem to have no worries.
Over time they both become attracted to the same woman. The wife compulsively sits in the sun tanning, getting dar...more

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Aug 22, 2008 Danny Peck rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: romantics

I was at a used bookstore the other day when I decided to text as many people as possible asking them what their favorite books were. One of the titles I got back was "The Garden of Eden" by Hemmingway. I had never read a Hemmingway novel, so it sounded very appealing to me.

The book is gorgeously written. Beautiful and wrenching is this story of two lovers. I enjoyed the development of the characters. I chuckled to myself as David would roll out of bed and make himself a drink. I've never seen s...more

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Feb 03, 2009 Jessie added it · review of another edition

I could read this over and over and never get tired of it. It has been at the top of my favorite books list for a very long time. It's simple andIt's sparse and yet it speaks volumes about love and sex and men and women and our humanity and our imperfection. It's posthumous and even though it's different from everything else he wrote, it's still Papa.

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Nov 02, 2008 Logan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Logan by: Stacie Sather

Shelves: classics, fiction, white_whine

If I take anything away from this book, it should be the opening into understanding Hemingway's style that was written as clearly as anything else he's ever written:

"Be careful, he said to himself, it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply. Do you suppose the Grau du Roi time was all simple because you could write a little of it simply?"

I'm sure I'll have more to say lat...more

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Oct 05, 2008 Laurann rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't finish reading this book. I didn't like it...I expected something completely different. I had never read hemmingway before and wanted to give it a try. The book is choppy and hard to follow. I could never figure out the story line or point it was boring and after months and months of forcing myself to read one page at a time I gave up. I am embarrased to say. I gave up.. i disagreed with a lot of the principles he wrote about in the book. And although i realize it is important to have t...more

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Nov 08, 2007 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people interested in relationships

Shelves: recommended

I love this book. I know a lot of people tend to bash it because it was released posthumously, in edited form, but I think it's brilliant as-is. The beginning of the book in particular, I like. Hemingway's simple description of eating eggs for breakfast makes me feel as if I'm at the table as well. It really paints a picture for me. To me, it seems that Hemingway probably never released this book more because of the subject matter than because of any writing flaws. In short, a tale of innocence...more

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Feb 27, 2009 Djrmel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, romance, audiobook

audiobook read by Patrick Wilson - This book was published, unfinished, after Hemingway's death. As such, it would be unfair to criticize it as a finished novel. It's more like a third or fourth draft - still full of holes in some parts, over written in other places. The story follows a recently married couple through their several honeymoon in Europe, while at the same time the husband attempts to work as a novelist. The character of the husband voices what must have been some of Hemingway's th...more

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Feb 21, 2009 Ann rated it 2 of 5 stars

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me through the first hundred or so pages of this book. Suddenly I realized – Garden of Eden is terrible. Just awful! Let me explain.

I adore the Hemingway canon top to bottom, even those weirdo bullfighting stories in Death in the Afternoon, and long ago came to terms with his manifold flaws as a person. But flaws outweigh brilliance here: the thing feels like it was written through a mist of fear and anger (towards women, fathers, homosexualit...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night, Hemingway wrote to Fitzgerald, a letter criticizing him on his failure as a writer. Here are a few select excerpts from that letter:

"Goddamn it you took liberties with people's pasts and futures that produced not people but damned marvellously faked case histories."

"...I've always claimed that you can't think."

"Invention is the finest thing but you cant invent something that would not actually happen."

"Of all people on earth...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Newlyweds Catherine and David are enjoying an extended honeymoon while he tries to write his next book. As Catherine putters around the coastal town she begins to change both her appearance and her attitude towards her husband. Then everything in their relationship changes when she makes friends with a woman named Marita.

Such a strange book, published posthumously, and one that I never would have guessed was written by Hemingway. It contains his clean prose, but his characters are wildly differ...more Newlyweds Catherine and David are enjoying an extended honeymoon while he tries to write his next book. As Catherine putters around the coastal town she begins to change both her appearance and her attitude towards her husband. Then everything in their relationship changes when she makes friends with a woman named Marita.

Such a strange book, published posthumously, and one that I never would have guessed was written by Hemingway. It contains his clean prose, but his characters are wildly different from anything else I’ve read of his. After A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and other big Hemingway novels I thought I know what to expect from his writing. If it’s fiction there is usually a badly drawn female willing to do whatever the hero wants. This book is the polar opposite of that assumption. It makes me wonder if he only wanted to publish the incredibly masculine novels he wrote during his lifetime.

While Catherine and David are still attempting to find their footing as a couple, Marita’s presence throws them off kilter. They begin to reevaluate their roles in the relationship. Catherine carefully pushes and prods until David accepts Marita as a friend and then as a lover. The ménage à trois relationship sneaks slowly into their lives until it’s hard to remember what they were like as a twosome.

After reading The Paris Wife last year it made me wonder how much of this book was inspired by bits and pieces of Hemingway’s own life. His first marriage ended when a close female friend (Pauline Pfeiffer) slowly worked her way into the lives of both Hemingway and his wife Hadley. There are even some parallels with destroyed manuscripts, though in the novel it’s a malicious act and in real life the manuscripts were stolen while in Hadley’s possession.

BOTTOM LINE: A strange look inside one couple’s marriage. A crucial book to read if you think you really know Hemingway’s work, but not a must for those who just want a taste. I’d highly recommend his nonfiction book, A Moveable Feast, about his time in Paris to provide another aspect of his writing style.
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Feb 17, 2013 Kayleone rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Admittedly this was the first Hemingway I've ever read, as something to dip my feet into. But what I have to say about the book is that it is an enjoyable, subdued, and sensual experience, and it is an experience added to by Hemingway's signature minimalism. There were times I didn't want to put it down, and the vivid, summer world created in the work was one I wanted to stay in. It made me feel warm in winter.

The only downfall for Eden is the fact that it is an uncompleted work, and what happen...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Iceman rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hemingway é considerado, e justamente, como um dos monstros sagrados da literatura universal. Pese embora eu não seja um grande admirador da sua obra, admito que tem um dom maravilhoso, pois através da escrita consegue fazer passar a sua visão das coisas, ou seja, tal como o nosso Eça, consegue descrever na perfeição objectos, cores, sabores e cheiros. No entanto, "O jardim do Éden" fica muito aquém das suas melhores obras.

Baseado em factos reais acontecidos com o próprio Hemingway na Riviera f...more Hemingway é considerado, e justamente, como um dos monstros sagrados da literatura universal. Pese embora eu não seja um grande admirador da sua obra, admito que tem um dom maravilhoso, pois através da escrita consegue fazer passar a sua visão das coisas, ou seja, tal como o nosso Eça, consegue descrever na perfeição objectos, cores, sabores e cheiros. No entanto, "O jardim do Éden" fica muito aquém das suas melhores obras.

Baseado em factos reais acontecidos com o próprio Hemingway na Riviera francesa em 1926, quando, com a sua mulher Hadley, aí passou o Verão na companhia da amiga comum Pauline, conta-nos uma história esquisita e surreal passada em França, envolvendo um casal e uma outra mulher que entra de uma forma repentina nas suas vidas.

Romance póstumo publicado em 1986 cerca de 25 anos após o suicídio de Hemingway, desde logo esta obra ficou imersa em controvérsia dada a forma como foi terminada e posteriormente editada e publicada. Sabe-se que Hemingway trabalhou cerca de 15 anos nesta obra, tendo escrito 200.000 palavras. Colocou-o de lado para escrever outros romances, no entanto, o certo é que nunca o terminou e, aquando da sua morte, esta foi uma das várias obras que deixou por terminar. Já nos anos 80, Tom Jenks (penso que o seu editor), atirou-se ao trabalho de revisão e, quando terminou, o livro continha as 70.000 palavras hoje compõem o romance. Podemos então questionar, será mesmo a obra que Hemingway idealizou, pese embora Jenks tenha vindo a público jurar que se limitou a cortar e a rearranjar?

Em todo o caso, seja esta obra inteiramente Hemingway ou não, o certo é que não gostei. O sentido descritivo continua vivo e intacto e até entendo que o autor quis construir o romance baseado na sua vivência pessoal nos turbulentos anos 20, no entanto, as descrições não têm grande interesse, as situações são enfadonhas e os diálogos são demasiado surreais para o meu gosto, parecendo tudo fazer parte de um sonho. Das várias obras que li de Hemingway, esta foi a que menos gostei e a que menos saudade me deixou.(less)

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Dec 12, 2012 Mina rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Garden of Eden takes place prior to the Great Depression, during the Jazz age, following a successful young American writer, David Bourne, and his new bride, Catherine, a rich heiress, who are on an extended honeymoon in Europe. During the honeymoon, Catherine starts to get restless and begins playing bizarre mind games with David, testing his devotion. To David's discomfort, she persuades him to role play in the bedroom, with her as the boy and him as the girl. Things get stranger when Catheri...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Carol added it · review of another edition

A young wealthy couple honeymoons on the Mediterranean coast. The husband is a writer. The wife is jealous of the time he spends writing and appears to be slipping into an unidentified mental illness. She's aware of her mental state and try's to prepare the way for her husband to live without her. Part of this includes finding a new wife. She is preoccupied with her hair, getting one boyish cut after another and dying it lighter and lighter as a way of being androgynous and as an outward label f...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Stan Crowe rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

** spoiler alert ** I'd never read Hemingway before this book. In fact, I haven't read him since (though it has only been a couple of months, at present, since I read "Garden"). Truth be told, while the book is on my "Read" shelf, I didn't get around to finishing it. No, actually, I actively *stopped* reading it, only a few chapters in.

I picked the book up thinking to read one of the classic masters of literature. Indeed, Hemingway is a very skilled author, in my estimation. His attention to det...more ** spoiler alert ** I'd never read Hemingway before this book. In fact, I haven't read him since (though it has only been a couple of months, at present, since I read "Garden"). Truth be told, while the book is on my "Read" shelf, I didn't get around to finishing it. No, actually, I actively *stopped* reading it, only a few chapters in.

I picked the book up thinking to read one of the classic masters of literature. Indeed, Hemingway is a very skilled author, in my estimation. His attention to detail is stunning, and almost a fault (please, I really don't need to know everything this young couple had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

The dialogue was simple, but elegant--almost like a good stage play, as it were, and definitely a contrast to Orson Scott Card's more "here and now" speech. That made it easy to get lost in the world of the book, because it really did have the feel of a place to escape to. And isn't that often the point of reading fiction?

In any case, I stopped reading "Garden of Eden" not because the writing was poor (though I never got far enough to discern any real plot)--quite the contrary, the writing was excellent. No, I stopped reading because to me, this was literary porn.

The story is about newlyweds who are honeymooning in Southern Europe. The wife (most frequently referred to as "The Girl," at least in the chapters I got through) has some very left-field ideas about romantic love. She, essentially, wants to take the male role in the marriage--or at least in bed--and tries persuading her new husband to play the female. She straight out tells him, "No, *you* are Kate. I am Peter." (at least, I think she said Peter; I've forgotten.) Though Hemingway doesn't get hard-core graphic, he leaves little to the imagination at times (yes, Kate has breasts; thank you for reminding us that adult women are thus equipped). By the time I quit, things really looked to be taking a rather kinky bent, as the husband, willing to please his wife, despite the inherent strangeness of her behaviour, begins surrendering his manhood (the back cover actually speak of him trying to recover it; I'm sure that figures into plot tension later on). Kate, "The Girl" really seemed eager to explore the role reversal, and Hemingway didn't seem too shy about filling the reader in on how she planned to go about doing that.

I'm sure the book makes some very interesting social commentary on gender roles, but I guess I'll never know.

Perhaps my judgment is hasty, because I only got three or four chapters into the book? But then, I'm reading it with my set of morals, and the book offended them enough that I'd rather just not finish it, and recognise that I have, more or less, judged a book by its cover. (less)

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Oct 22, 2011 yoli rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, audiobook

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 20, 2011 David Lentz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this novel Hemingway plays the simple triangle of two bi-sexual women and a straight man for all it's worth. In the last published novel of Hemingway's the lean, muscular dialogue still rings clear and honest and true. The narrative is clean, compelling and minimalistic with details in the narrative that breed not only credibility but also trust in the verity of the narrator. I wondered if F. Scott Fitzgerald's many trials with Zelda, as Hemingway was a trusted confidant of Scott, had left mo...more

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Mar 16, 2011 Henry added it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-novel

Hemingway's cold veneer makes me suicidal, I noted halfway through. But the ending of this, which I found to be a kind of happy cop-out (to be fair his manuscript wasn't done), was more despairing because less true. All the same, I feel I learned a lot more about writing from this book than I did from many craft books.

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." -Marita

"It's a book you had to die to write and you had to be completely destroyed." -Catherine

"He treated evil like a...more

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Dec 21, 2010 Bruce rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This incomplete novel was published in 1986, long after Hemingway’s death in 1961. In it the young writer, David Bourne, and his lovely young wife, Catherine, are on their honeymoon and begin experimenting with reversing their sexual roles, primarily on Catherine’s initiative as she clearly prefers a transgender role and identity. Catherine becomes increasingly coercive, insisting on their assuming identical androgynous appearances and personae. She is ambivalent about his writing career, a care...more This incomplete novel was published in 1986, long after Hemingway’s death in 1961. In it the young writer, David Bourne, and his lovely young wife, Catherine, are on their honeymoon and begin experimenting with reversing their sexual roles, primarily on Catherine’s initiative as she clearly prefers a transgender role and identity. Catherine becomes increasingly coercive, insisting on their assuming identical androgynous appearances and personae. She is ambivalent about his writing career, a career that she is financially supporting, alternately encouraging and then denigrating his efforts. David himself seems curiously passive in the face of her demands, occasionally resisting but rarely for long. There are interesting digressions about the writing process, perhaps reflecting Hemingway’s own views and practices. “He had not known just how greatly he had been divided and separated because once he started to work he wrote from an inner core which could not be split nor even marked nor scratched. He knew about this and it was his strength since all the rest of him could be riven.”

One wonders how David’s seeming emasculation is a reflection of Hemingway’s own feelings and fears as his physical prowess and writing skills seem to decline toward the end of his sixth and beginning of his seventh decade up to the time of his suicide. There are clear parallels between this story and Hemingway’s own marriages, writings, interests, and relationships, even to his known involvement in big game hunting and to his heavy use of alcohol.

The writing is what we have come to expect from Hemingway - sequences of declarative sentences, each often more spare than the one before, focusing more and more intently on a given sensory experience. As the narrative develops, David and Catherine meet Marita who falls in love with both of them. With Catherine’s connivance, a true ménage à trois develops. Written skillfully, such a tricky and dangerous situation might be interesting, but sometimes Hemingway makes it all rather slow and tedious. Was this his intent? He speaks of “the unfinding unrealizable quest that is love.” Is this text about the inexhaustible nature of desire? Does it reflect Hemingway’s own conflicted feelings about the nature of masculinity and femininity? Was the book an attempt to exorcize his own demons, or was it a means of exploring possibilities outside of traditional roles?

As Catherine’s mental stability falters and her relationship with David becomes more adversarial even as he grows closer to Marita, David retreats more and more into his writing, his creative activity being where he is assertive and in control in the face of his external passivity. He becomes immersed in a story he is writing about his father on an elephant hunt, although sometimes the distinction between his father and himself is blurred and unclear as he seemingly tries to understand who he is through an understanding of his father. The trajectory of the novel gradually shifts from David’s relationship with Catherine to focusing more on Marita and especially on the process and content of David’s writing. The denouement in this possibly truncated and incomplete novel is puzzling and not entirely convincing.

After Hemingway’s death, the text and notes for this novel were significantly manipulated by his editor, more than was at first claimed and believed. One wonders what the novel would have been had Hemingway himself been able to complete it.
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Nov 19, 2009 Lewis Manalo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one sexiful book.

Set on the French Riviera, the book follows the erotic play of a writer and his new wife and what happens when their gender-bending games involve a young French woman.

Published posthumously and in a drastically shorter version than the drafts he left behind, GARDEN OF EDEN wasn't so critically embraced as the jacket copy would have you believe, but this is doing the reader a great disservice. I've never accepted the reigning idea that Hemingway was all about "male anxie...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hemingway breaks out the greatest hits: drinking Absinthe in a European cafe and a side story of a great hunt in Africa. There is more drinking in the novel than within The Boss's "Glory Days," but I would expect nothing less from Hem. The story line is more strange than anything published under his name. The entangled love triangle is not something I had expected, wholly a departure from the themes that dominate his work. The writing is strong toward the end of the novel, but the text is not th...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

great book. seriously great book. so vastly different than any other hemingway, except in style. for about 1/3 of this book, all i was thinking was "WTF! this is wild."

i would not read this book if you have not read any other hemingway.

according to the introduction, this work was not entirely finished at the time of hemingway's death. the second half was ready for print, but there were some gaps that were filled in in the beginning. at first i kind of thought i liked the beginning better, but t...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Beverly rated it 3 of 5 stars

David Bourne has just published his second novel and is on a honeymoon with his wife, Catherine, in France/Spain when they meet a beautiful young woman, Marita, who announces she is in love with them both. They seem to be titillated by this idea and do some sexual experimenting. All 3 are in love but which one will the boy choose?? The crazy wife who is jealous of his work and success? Or the calm, sane and beautiful woman who encourages him to work and praises his new stories? Duh!

David is try...more

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About Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collec...more Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works. Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1922, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent, and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community. The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first novel, was published in 1926.

After his 1927 divorce from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from Spanish Civil War where he had acted as a journalist, and after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. They separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II; during which he was present at the Normandy Landings and liberation of Paris.

Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two plane crashes that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.(less)

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“When you start to live outside yourself, it's all dangerous.” — 284 people liked it

“Everybody has strange things that mean things to them. You couldn't help it.” — 71 people liked it

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The Garden of Eden

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