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Mar 21, 2009

Brad rated it:

Night Before Battle -- I was thinking last night, while we were watching M*A*S*H*, about Hemingway's preoccupation with war.

There is an episode of M*A*S*H*, not the one we were watching, where they make a thinly veiled attack on Hemingway's war writing. A famous journalist/author with a red beard and huge physical presence comes to the 4077th and has a run in of philosophy with Hawkeye and BJ (I think it was BJ), and he's written off as a bloodthirsty exploiter of warfare.

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Aug 17, 2009

Kim rated it:

So, I didn’t read the Complete short stories of Hemingway. I wanted an introduction, I’d always thought of Hemingway as..well, I’d never really given him much thought. He was just someone I wasn’t interested in reading. Lord help me, I can be dense.

I’ve read about a dozen of the stories in this anthology. I asked my husband for his opinion on which ones I should start with and I think that I’ve read a fair sampling, I’ll probably continue to pick this up every now and th More...

20 comments like (16 people liked it)

May 07, 2011

Rick rated it:

The story takes place at a train station in the Ebro River valley of Spain. The year is not given, but is almost certainly contemporary to the composition (1920s). This particular day is oppressively hot and dry, and the scenery in the valley is barren and ugly for the most part. The two main characters are a man (referred to only as "the American") and his female companion, whom he calls Jig.

While waiting for the train to Madrid, the American and Jig drink beer and a liquo More...

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Nov 16, 2008

Martin rated it:

I've been reading Hemingway's complete short stories just to see if I'd been judging him too harshly all these years. It appears I haven't been judging him harshly enough. What kind of mass hypnosis are the people under who insist Hemingway innovated a lean, economical style--'the Iceberg style', which was named 'multum in parvo' in Ancient Rome and described a style thousands of years old even then? 'A Reader Writes' is one and three quarter pages long, and only the letter em More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 11, 2011

Alex rated it:

I am only commenting here on "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber".

Why happy moments in ones life are so cruelly short and why this happiness for some is difficult to keep ?
Why price to pay for those few happy moments yet is so deadly steep ?

While Hemingway was in love-hate *relationship* with Lady Brett Ashly ("Fiesta"), here the wife of Francis Macomber is presented as the *final* Hemingway's outlook on the typical woman's character: do More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Brenton rated it:

I'm a huge fan of all of Hemingway's works, but this one takes the top. The stories in here are so moving, so real, vividly portraying all kinds of manifestations of human nature. Could talk about these works forever. Each story has so much meaning packed as densely as possible into every bit of text. Any one could easily be analyzed for an entire semester in a college literature class. I'd love to suggest one, but to I wouldn't want to take away from any of the others; each story has something More...

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Nov 10, 2011

Soviet rated it:

Hemingway is that dude. He'd probably beat most of these hating ass niggas in a fight. Word to the god. Now, this here Nick, dude's alright. These short stories are on some masterful shit. Way dude describes food and cooking, shit'll make you hungry, nahmean? I grabbed me some Doritos when reading. That terse iceberg shit flies well in these short stories. There's some shit about three whores, one of them being bigger than a mother. But her voice nice and all that, and the other whore might be a More...

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May 06, 2011

Erik rated it:

It is likely impossible to go through the public schools in the U.S.A. without being exposed to Ernest Hemingway. I no longer recall which was the first of his stories I read, but by the time I was buying my own books in high school I was already having trouble keeping track of which had been read--usually in anthologies, which hadn't.

The longer pieces began to be assigned in high school, beginning in the freshman year with, of course, The Old Man and the Sea. Since then I've read More...

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Sep 17, 2010

Chantal rated it:

"It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.
'Will you have a lime juice or lemon squash?' Macomber asked.
'I’ll have a gimlet,' Robert Wilson told him.
'I’ll have a gimlet too. I need something,' Macomber’s wife said.
'I suppose it’s the thing to do,' Macomber agreed.

Hemingway accomplishes so much with so little page in "The Short Happy More...

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Aug 22, 2010

Marianna rated it:

There's the old idea that the Monster that we don't see (or can't see) is the one that scares us most. Hemingway's writing is defined as the "Iceburg" principle; he would write about only the surface elements of a situation, the very tip of the iceburg that you could see above the water, so to speak. He would only hint at the much more massive goings-on happening beneath the surface, leaving you to fill in those blanks yourself. He didn't tell you what to feel, and I think that's why H More...

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Jul 31, 2009

Andy rated it:

I read this from cover to cover on a beach in Aruba, which was just weird, because somebody dies every ten pages or so. It wasn't really in keeping with the carefree beach vibe we were going for. But you really can't deny Hemingway. I realize the man was a terrible husband and father, that his writing suffered in the end and that he didn't have the most highly evolved views of gender. But despite all that, in his prime, he wrote dozens of truly great stories.

At the small Midwestern e More...

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Feb 15, 2011

D. rated it:

This collection is probably the best way to become acquainted with the style and mastery that is Ernest Hemingway. I think any aspiring writer should read him, even if he doesn't write in their preferred genre. His economical word use, and the way he often uses dialogue to carry a story are still examples that many modern writers could profit from.

The one drawback to these stories is that the modern reader could find them rather inaccessible due to the time and settings they portray. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 07, 2011

Pegah rated it:

Type of Work

......."Hills Like White Elephants" is a short story that observes the classical unities--that is, the action follows a single storyline (without subplots) that takes place in one place on a single day.

Setting

.......The action takes place in the mid-1920s at a train station in Zaragoza, a major city in northeastern Spain on the Ebro River. Zaragoza is approximately 170 miles northeast of Madrid. The region around Zaragoza receives scant More...

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Oct 29, 2009

Barbara marked it as to-read

This is my first voyage into Hemmingway's work since my days in college. It is amazing how much more they means as an adult and without an English professor waiting to hear and "destroy" your interpretation of his work. I read Fathers and Sons first and feel that I need to read it another time or two before I can comment. There is a lot packed into a few short pages.

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Aug 01, 2008

B. Zedan rated it:

This is a tome. It's difficult to summarise or review short story collections, especially one so extensive as this.

So lemme just say, there is a reason that Heminway is canon. He reminds me of Chekhov, of Vonnegut—the sadness implicit in humanity's existence and the true, yet sometimes hollow joy that is found despite it.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 18, 2010

Karen rated it:

What can I say? I love Hemingway... I love his deceptively simple writing style in which very little is said, but very much is expressed. I love that he writes on two levels... the painfully simple story he appears to tell and the incredibly complex one he is actually sharing. I love that so much of his work is autobiographical.

If you are not a person who is willing or able to read between the lines or put the pieces of a puzzle together, Hemingway will seem like oddly simplistic More...

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May 08, 2010

Jake rated it:

All of the stories in this omnibus collection are good, and many are great- among the best short stories I've ever read. Worth reading several times are: "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", and "Hills Like White Elephants"- each is a masterpiece. New to me in this volume were Hemingway's stories of the Spanish Civil War, which are a great compliment to "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and several stories he wrote later in h More...

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Dec 13, 2009

Alex rated it:

This is a fantastic collection of all of Hemingway's short stories. Reading this is very, very depressing. Hemingway treats some very dark themes. My favorite stories were: "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot," "Indian Camp," "Hills Like White Elephants," "In Another Country," "A Way You'll Never Be," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." I suppose that the story that had the most profound impact on m More...

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Sep 21, 2010

Cameron rated it:

This collection of all the short stories ever written by Ernest Hemingway is like my bible. Hemingway's symbolization and overall writing ability is above anyone elses. My favorite short stories from this collection include, "The Good Lion", "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber". Honestly, every one of these short stories is fantastic. Anybody interested in seeing just exactly "how it is done", should buy this book and More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Robert rated it:

July 2011 will be my Hemingway month. I read many of Hemingway's works like many people did, when I was young and when I was in school. But perhaps this isn't the best way or at least not the best for me because its only now, this month makes it fifty years after his death, that I can really appreciate him.

I recommend looking past Hemingway the myth and into Hemingway the writer because he was a damn good one. His short stories are some of the best he has to offer and some of the best More...

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Aug 28, 2010

Alison rated it:

This book contains some marvelous stories, including, in The First Forty-nine, a run of several that, by themselves, earn the collection four stars and support all the claims about Hemingway's mastery of the short story form. Among these stellar stories are "In Another Country" (a physical therapy story!), the much-anthologized "Hills Like White Elephants," "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" (a story about La Spezia, where we started our Italian vacation this summer!), and t More...

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Feb 13, 2010

Sean rated it:

A collection of masterpieces, The Finca Vigia Edition of Hemingway's short stories is a must-have for any reader's collection. Whether you are interested in his American writing, his war writing, his Africa writing, or his bull-fight writing, you will find something to sate your palate. Hemingway's short stories covered his vast and superb career, and are a constant insight into what he was striving for artistically.

While I would recommend starting with "The Short and Happy Life More...

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May 20, 2009

Tony rated it:

You've heard of Hemingway...everybody has. My first encounter with him came in the form a short story called "Hills Like White Elephants" back in high school and I've been enamored with the man's work ever since. His novels are superb, but I really think he shines in the short form and this collection is as good as it gets. The only minor flaw is that despite the title, it isn't complete (the posthumous collection THE NICK ADAMS STORIES contains some previously unpublished pieces th More...

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Jan 26, 2012

Joshua rated it:

My father gave me a copy of Hemingway's short stories when I was thirteen. I didn't appreciate them. Six years later I read them again and thought they were brilliant. Hemingway's great talent was revealing an emotional truth through attention to the smallest details. He said that, if a writer did his job, a reader should feel as though they actually experienced the events in a story. What he succeeds in doing in his work is presenting pivotal moments in life so clearly that they help a reader m More...

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Nov 16, 2011

John rated it:

Hem's short stories could always be on my currently-reading shelf. Often when I finish a book and am not sure what to read next, I'll spend a few days with "The Complete Short Stories". Each time I pick it up, I tell myself to read some of the ones I've never read, or read so long ago that I can't remember them. But, I always end up back re-reading the old favorites. Best of all is "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", who finally wakes up and starts living, only to d More...

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Aug 16, 2011

Ben rated it:

Have you ever been so excited to finish a book that you actually procrastinate in finishing it because you know that would mean the end of that excited feeling?

I'm FINALLY finished with this one!

Not that it was bad. But certain stories lacked...well, EVERYTHING!

"The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" were amazing. Ther were others that were very impressive. But for the most part, the stories were excessively More...

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Jul 04, 2011

Thomas rated it:

Despite his status as one of America's greats, I have to say I have mixed (which is putting it gently) feelings about Hemingway. To start with the positive, his "good" stories, ones that have earned him such acclaim in the field of short fiction, are spectacular. They're innovative, full of keen insight, and obviously the work of a creative genious. However, and not coming from any experience with his novels (yet, though probably permanently after this experience) I've come to think th More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 07, 2011

Alexa rated it:

"The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry."

This is a line in the beginning of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants". This story is one that has several different levels of signifigance, discovered through careful analysis and attention. It is when the story is read through a second or third time, all the while taking its title into consideration, that the deapth of this story, and what Hemingway More...

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Jun 12, 2011

Fiona rated it:

One of Ernest Hemingway's short stories "Hills Like White Elephants" is a very intense and thoughtful story. There is no exact explanation of what's going on. It's all for interpretation but once you read more of the story you'll know that it's all about a guy and a girl who don't really have a stable relationship but, the girl is pregnant and she wants the child where as the guy is telling her to get rid of it. The girl is very upset that the guy doesn't want her to keep the chil More...

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Aug 19, 2011

Nathan rated it:

This is the edition of Hemingway short stories to own; do not accept substitutes if you can help it. This is the most complete collection of Hemingway short fiction available (more complete than "The Complete"), and it avoids many of the pitfalls of other editions because it has more stories and attempts no awkward arrangements (cf. The Nick Adams Stories--no evidence to believe these are all supposed to be one person).

Here they all are: "Big Two-Hearted River," " More...

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