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 more of a lasting impression on Hem than he would publicly admit. The sub-plot of the elephant hunt is vintage Hemingway, as seen through David Bourne as a young man, and I sympathized with his hatred of the hunt for ivory. The women are from a different era, admittedly, but sometimes they struck me as way too compliant and at other times their dialogue sounded mannish and inapt. But, overall, the portrait work of these three hedonistic characters in this Eden of Spain and the South of France seemed well drawn, as I cared what happened to each of them throughout the story line. Hemingway's last work ends on a note of powerful optimism -- luminous and hopeful that in the end paradise, once lost, can be re-gained on earth. For a Nobel novelist, who had seen so much of grim war and tempestuous love and humans tested by a harsh universe, he lived all of it immensely deeply: such optimism by such a realist is, at least, reassuring and, at best, an inspiration. Hemingway wrote better short works but he ended his career as a novelist with a grace note, which seems to say that the "garden" is still there through grace, if one only possesses the will to reclaim it.