The ideal introduction to the genius of Ernest Hemingway, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories" contains ten of Hemingway's most acclaimed a...
read full description
reviews
Aug 14, 2008
Evil_Dead_Junkie
rated it: 
Anyone looking for a good entry way into Hemingway need look no farther. This basically acts as an unofficial greatest hits. Not only do you get the wonderful and surprisingly vunerable (tho kinda misogynistic) title story, a quiet meditation on death and wasted potential. But you also get A Clean Well Lighted Place considered the greatest short story ever written by none other then James friggin Joyce, and most of the best Nick Adam's stories as well, including The Killers, Fathers and Sons, an
More...
0 comments
like
(5 people liked it)
Apr 18, 2008
Matthew
rated it: 
For some strange reason, I was surprised that I liked this book. I had never had much interest in reading his short stories, mostly because I think that the short story as a medium is very hard to do well, and I have to admit that I didn't feel he was up to it.
Most of the stories are, as you might expect, about men being real men, resignedly keeping their emotions inside or dying brave deaths, which I must admit is something that Hemingway does very well. However, my favorite storie More...
Most of the stories are, as you might expect, about men being real men, resignedly keeping their emotions inside or dying brave deaths, which I must admit is something that Hemingway does very well. However, my favorite storie More...
Oct 11, 2011
Book Concierge
rated it:
Audio of Kilimanjaro performed by Charlton Heston
4**** for the title story (3*** for the collection as a whole)
This slim volume contains 10 short stories, including the most famous SoK.
This short story reflects many of Hemingway’s own concerns in the mid-late 1930s. He worried about the effects of “politics, women, drink, money and ambition” on American writers (from Green Hills of Africa). Here he voices those concerns through his main character, Harry, a writer who is d More...
4**** for the title story (3*** for the collection as a whole)
This slim volume contains 10 short stories, including the most famous SoK.
This short story reflects many of Hemingway’s own concerns in the mid-late 1930s. He worried about the effects of “politics, women, drink, money and ambition” on American writers (from Green Hills of Africa). Here he voices those concerns through his main character, Harry, a writer who is d More...
Jul 27, 2011
Shannon
rated it: 
After thoroughly enjoying both The Old Man and the Sea and The Paris Wife, I made a trip to my favorite used bookstore, hoping to find another Hemingway book worth reading. Sadly, the shelf was nearly bare with summer reading list students having been one step ahead of me. I decided to give this collection of short stories a try, even though the short story is not my favorite.
I did find this collection interesting, if a bit depressing. Sad themes that appear in his novels are presen More...
I did find this collection interesting, if a bit depressing. Sad themes that appear in his novels are presen More...
May 22, 2011
Ernest
rated it:
I've read it over the course of almost a year. It is really a long time to finish such a thin book. Not that I don't like it, the stories Hemingway wrote is very depressing and war-ish, therefore it would be too much to read it all in one shot. I like few stories, including The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Fifty Grand, and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber but some stories I just didn't understand. Hemingway's prose is so short and too concise sometimes if you are not patient, you will miss some
More...
Feb 28, 2011
Dan
rated it: 
As this is the first Hemingway material I've read since high school, I don't quite know how representative of Hemingway's more famous works The Snows of Kilimanjaro is. There's a really strong masculine despair present in almost all of these short stories, and (fulfilling the stereotype) an unmistakable American Weltanschauung. The story about trout-fishing, Big Two-Hearted River: Part II is beyond skillful, but my favorite was Soldier's Home, a very believable vignette of a WWI veteran return
More...
Dec 22, 2010
Tra-Kay
rated it:
Dorothy Parker wrote (just after his first novel was published) that Hemingway wasn't quite right as a novelist, considering that he was one of the finest - if not the finest - of the short story writers of the day.
Judging from that same novel, The Sun Also Rises, I agree. His style of brevity and subtle, indirect meanings became watered-down when he attempted to make it stretch into a novel. By the first twenty pages, you already knew how it was going to go down. And that's what ma More...
Judging from that same novel, The Sun Also Rises, I agree. His style of brevity and subtle, indirect meanings became watered-down when he attempted to make it stretch into a novel. By the first twenty pages, you already knew how it was going to go down. And that's what ma More...
Sep 27, 2010
Alison
rated it:
I tried to read this book years ago, and only picked it up again last year because I made friends with a woman with connections to Hemingway. The "Short Life of Francis Macomber" is probably based on her grandfather Dick Cooper, who was a good friend of Hemingway's. The title story of the collection is also possibly based on him, though Hemingway claims he based it on himself. I've heard a lot of different stories about the character being a contemptuous portrayal of Fitzgerald. I've
More...
Sep 15, 2009
Dan
rated it:
I've intentionally avoided Hemingway, having developed a personal dislike for him through what I've heard of him. Belligerent, arrogant alcoholics don't rate high on my list of most-loved people and it's hard to enjoy a story when you have any form of a bias, let alone actually disliking the person doing the telling. I'm not sure that I like him any more than I did before, but I certainly have a greater respect for him as an author at least. I expected "manly-man" tales of heroism
More...
Aug 09, 2009
Mazel
rated it:
Prix Nobel de Littérature 1954
*
Le Kilimandjaro est une montagne de neige, haute de 6021 mètres, et que l'on dit être la plus haute montagne d'Afrique.
La cime ouest s'appelle le "Masai Ngaje Ngai", la Maison de Dieu.
Tout près de la cime ouest il y a une carcasse gelée de léopard. Nul n'a expliqué ce que le léopard allait chercher à cette altitude précise, en préambule de cette nouvelle, Ernest Hemingway.
Relativement courte, elle e More...
*
Le Kilimandjaro est une montagne de neige, haute de 6021 mètres, et que l'on dit être la plus haute montagne d'Afrique.
La cime ouest s'appelle le "Masai Ngaje Ngai", la Maison de Dieu.
Tout près de la cime ouest il y a une carcasse gelée de léopard. Nul n'a expliqué ce que le léopard allait chercher à cette altitude précise, en préambule de cette nouvelle, Ernest Hemingway.
Relativement courte, elle e More...
Jan 31, 2010
Jake
rated it:
This collection is from Hemingway's prime in the mid-1930s. Two of the stories, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," are among the best of his that I've read. Both are set in Africa, and concern men of leisure trying to find some meaning in manly pursuits and meeting bad ends. Hemingway isn't the unalloyed booster of hunting that you might expect him to be— he understands the weakness that drives men to kill animals. And by the time h
More...
Sep 17, 2009
Ryan
rated it:
The first story deals with life in the context of death and the last story deals with death in the context of life. Between the two is an uneven progression.
As a topical collection, 1961’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Scribner, ISBN: 0684862212) by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) serves as a good overview of the more dreary side of Hemingway’s standard subject matter: unspoken dissatisfaction, the absence of emotion in the midst of war, and decent men in the midst of bad More...
As a topical collection, 1961’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Scribner, ISBN: 0684862212) by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) serves as a good overview of the more dreary side of Hemingway’s standard subject matter: unspoken dissatisfaction, the absence of emotion in the midst of war, and decent men in the midst of bad More...
Dec 01, 2011
Stephanie
rated it:
I always said that I would never fully understanding Hemingway's writing and style for 3 reasons.
1. I have never fought in a war
2. I have never been hunting/fishing
3. I have never been to Africa
This book has all of those elements. It's full of quintessential Hemingway writing style. There's a lot of dialogue and some great descriptions. The dialogue really movies the story along and the themes are primarily about death, suffering and feeling alive.
More...
1. I have never fought in a war
2. I have never been hunting/fishing
3. I have never been to Africa
This book has all of those elements. It's full of quintessential Hemingway writing style. There's a lot of dialogue and some great descriptions. The dialogue really movies the story along and the themes are primarily about death, suffering and feeling alive.
More...
Sep 25, 2011
Chiara
rated it:
Per essere uno dei racconti più famosi di Hemingway, non mi ha propriamente entusiasmato, forse perché è un po' lontano dalla mia sensibilità.
Negli eroi (più propriamente anti-eroi) di Hemingway io non riesco a riconoscermi, anche se devo ammettere che non mi sforzo poi tanto. Da notare il fatto che ho Addio alle armi in ballo da mesi.
In Le nevi del Kilimangiaro abbiamo uno scrittore che sta per morire "alle falde del Kilimangiaro" (come potremmo dire se quest More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
May 17, 2010
Bob
rated it:
Hunting, skiing, horseracing, drinking, bullfighting, and war—This collection of stories highlight a few of the manly activities that interested Mr. Hemingway. From the haunting title story of Harry, the rugged but wistful writer turned big game hunter to ‘Big Two-Hearted River, an idyllic trout fishing tale, Hemingway utilizes his “iceberg theory” style of writing for what he's famous for---telling adventure stories simply, briefly, economically, powerfully.
I wasn’t enamored More...
Feb 26, 2009
Istop4books
rated it:
In this very small volume of short stories, Hemingway writes in an almost semi-biographical narrative of life, of death, of relationships, of regret. He seems almost defiant in his narratives, defying the reader to find fault with him, with his characters, with his reasoning. The shorties are short, but several pack a strong punch. It seems that his mortality is a common thread throughout the stories, in some ways with almost a perverse desire to kill or die.
I read this as part of More...
I read this as part of More...
Jul 25, 2009
Christine
rated it:
I have not attempted to read any Hemingway since high school, over 20 years ago. It was not because I was actively avoiding his writings, but because I had found so many other writers who had learned from him to occupy my reading shelf. But after trekking through this volume I remembered both what I admire and am frustrated by in Hemingway's works. I love the crisp descriptions and incisive characterizations that make me feel that a bright interrogation lamp has been directed at a dark corner
More...
Feb 25, 2010
I'm reading a real old-ass copy of this they were throwing away at the public library in an attempt to escape what I found to be the obscurantism of Maldoror. Hemingway writes like an ingenious 8th grader (which I mean as a compliment, though interestingly I consider Quentin Tarrantino to be a really talented teenager, which I mean as an insult) and I haven't read him in a while so it's funny to see he writes exactly as we all remember, in a complete self-parody of himself. Anyway he's fun and e
More...
Apr 14, 2010
TAB
rated it:
Liked "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" as it's a story of something that probably really happened except Hemingway imagined himself dying which I don't know if I would have the balls to do when re-writing how a trip I took turned out.
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is always good, has been since high school, still a classic. "Fathers and Sons" wasn't as good as the back cover made it out to be and I didn't get the part about suicide at all. "The Killers" More...
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is always good, has been since high school, still a classic. "Fathers and Sons" wasn't as good as the back cover made it out to be and I didn't get the part about suicide at all. "The Killers" More...
Jan 16, 2011
Laura
rated it:
I'm not the biggest Hemingway fan; I'll always think of myself as a Fitzgerald girl. However, I loved the short story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Hemingway has apparently said there was enough meat on that short alone for a handful of novels, and you definitely get the sense of that. I'm so new to Hemingway when you consider the scope of his works; this really is just a sampling of his short stories. I liked "Fifty Grand" as well as "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio,
More...
May 31, 2011
Brian
rated it:
This is a terrific collection. While renowned for such novels as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway is rightly considered by many (myself among them) to be the finest short story author America has ever produced. If you haven't experienced his short work yet, this collection is a wonderful place to start. There's not a lame tale in the bunch: such venerable entries in the Hemingway canon as "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "The Killers,
More...
Jul 13, 2009
Daniel
rated it:
A Short Story Experiment for Tolstoy and Hemingway Fans Alike
Hemingway’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1954): “How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”
The reading of this story (and the other) was prompted by a passage written by Jeffrey Meyers More...
Hemingway’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1954): “How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”
The reading of this story (and the other) was prompted by a passage written by Jeffrey Meyers More...
Apr 13, 2011
Lyn M
rated it: 
OK, It is official. Ernest Hemingway is just not for me. I read this book because I am doing a three month "Give an author a second chance" challenge, and I couldn't think of anyone who I needed to give a second chance more than Hemingway. I have only read two books by Hemingway in my whole like, The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises. Both of those were a long time ago. So I thought, how perfect for the challenge. At first, ans I started the book, I was beginning to thin
More...
Jan 24, 2011
Nick
rated it:
Only read The Snows of Kilimajaro. Nice little story, with Harry (the hunter, bushman, wild man) settling for a life without worries .... and Helen, his wife, looking to avoid solitude/leading a lonely life. Out for a Safari, they experience problems with their car, and their small party has to wait for assistance. While in the bush, Harry gets a thorn scratch - which he looks upon with slight. Slowly this lil nothing becomes an infection, then a cangrene. With no help and no means to fight it,
More...
Jan 10, 2011
Becky
rated it:
I'll never forget The Snows of Kilimanjaro! It's like it's in my blood now, silly as that may seem. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber came close to eliciting the same sensation - the difference being that the subject matter of The Snows of Kilimanjaro hit dead on to my taste of heart - that is honest (though sometimes brutal) reflections of a character about their life. Unfortunately, the other short stories in this book began fading from my memory as soon as each last line was read.
More...
Feb 09, 2011
Charles
rated it:
This edition is inexpensive, and it appears that way.
I don't know if this makes sense but I like to read Hemingway either in the summer or winter. Don't ask me why. If you're not familiar w EH short work this is a good place to start. the chef also recommends Men Without Women for another collection of shorts
I don't know if this makes sense but I like to read Hemingway either in the summer or winter. Don't ask me why. If you're not familiar w EH short work this is a good place to start. the chef also recommends Men Without Women for another collection of shorts
Aug 02, 2010
Frankie
rated it:
Best described on the Scribner edition's cover as an "ideal introduction" to Hemingway, Snows... is loosely themed as a collection of hunting narratives, though some of it dabbles in Chicago gangster legend and battlefield irony (with hunting motif nonetheless). Having read his masterpiece Old Man and The Sea, I felt these stories were slightly weak in their mores and content. His bare vocabulary and anemic plot development are usually made up for by his authentic dialogue and rapid ch
More...
Dec 09, 2009
Rob
rated it:
Perhaps this is heresy but... I just don't find Hemingway's work to be all that interesting. It just seems like macho tough guy bullshit and maybe-just-maybe there is something humanized and vulnerable deep down in there but I'm not so sure.
Were we talking about mortality?
Were we talking about mortality?
2 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Jul 19, 2011
Lori
rated it:
I read "The Short happy Life of Francis Macomber). I think I liked this one because of how it got me thinking. Hemingway was so exact with his use of symbols and images - (spoiler alert) and really does anyone know if Margaret really meant to do it?
As a reader we are never privileged to know the thoughts of Mrs. Macomber. We know what she says and we know the thoughts of Wilson, who in the end leads the reader to believe that she shot her husband on purpose. Wilson said, “T More...
As a reader we are never privileged to know the thoughts of Mrs. Macomber. We know what she says and we know the thoughts of Wilson, who in the end leads the reader to believe that she shot her husband on purpose. Wilson said, “T More...
Feb 22, 2009
Josephkohn
rated it:
An incredible collection of Hemingway's more famous shorts, drawn from various other anthologies. There are snide American women, wise-cracking hoodlums, and the nigh ever-present self reflective writer. This set of stories allows a glimpse into Hemingway's psyche and provides a cross-section of his themes and motifs. They contain Hemingway's ability to transport you to strange cities and barren deserts, while wrenching your soul out as you admire the landscapes and are nonchalantly forced to re
More...
