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In Our Time
First published in 1925, earning Hemingway praise as a promising American writer. Contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories. This volume introduces readers to the hallmarks of the famous Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic.
"In Our Time" provides key insights into Hemingway's later works.
"In Our Time" provides key insights into Hemingway's later works.
156 pages, Paperback
First published October 5, 1925
About the author
Ernest Hemingway
1,450 books27.6k followersTerse literary style of Ernest Miller Hemingway, an American writer, ambulance driver of World War I , journalist, and expatriate in Paris during the 1920s, marks short stories and novels, such as
The Sun Also Rises
(1926) and
The Old Man and the Sea
(1952), which concern courageous, lonely characters, and he won the Nobel Prize of 1954 for literature.
Economical and understated style of Hemingway strongly influenced 20th-century fiction, whereas 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. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two nonfiction works. Survivors published posthumously three novels, four collections of short stories, and three nonfiction works. People consider many of these classics.
After high school, Hemingway reported for a few months for the Kansas City Star before leaving for the Italian front to enlist. In 1918, someone seriously wounded him, who 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, and he worked as a foreign correspondent and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the expatriate community of the "lost generation" of 1920s.
After his divorce of 1927 from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. At the Spanish civil war, he acted as a journalist; afterward, they divorced, and he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls . Hemingway maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s.
Martha Gellhorn served as third wife of Hemingway in 1940. When he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II, they separated; he presently witnessed at the Normandy landings and liberation of Paris.
Shortly after 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where two plane crashes almost killed him and left him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. Nevertheless, in 1959, he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.
Economical and understated style of Hemingway strongly influenced 20th-century fiction, whereas 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. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two nonfiction works. Survivors published posthumously three novels, four collections of short stories, and three nonfiction works. People consider many of these classics.
After high school, Hemingway reported for a few months for the Kansas City Star before leaving for the Italian front to enlist. In 1918, someone seriously wounded him, who 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, and he worked as a foreign correspondent and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the expatriate community of the "lost generation" of 1920s.
After his divorce of 1927 from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. At the Spanish civil war, he acted as a journalist; afterward, they divorced, and he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls . Hemingway maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s.
Martha Gellhorn served as third wife of Hemingway in 1940. When he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II, they separated; he presently witnessed at the Normandy landings and liberation of Paris.
Shortly after 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where two plane crashes almost killed him and left him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. Nevertheless, in 1959, he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.
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October 8, 2021
Hemingway’s first published work, a collection of short short stories, really 18 vignettes. You can read this book in a half-hour because almost all are less than a page.
NOTE: There are more than 200 editions of this book. I read the one published originally in 1924, which is short and just contains the 18 vignettes. Another edition was originally published in 1925, containing short stores as well, such as Two Big-Hearted River. Modern editions of both versions sometimes have the same cover, so it is confusing.
Here we see an introduction to many of the themes that Hemingway would carry through to later works. We meet Nick, a wounded soldier who is probably the Nick of the Nick Adams short stories and the novel, In Another Country.
There’s a lot of drinking. In the very first story we meet a battery of French soldiers on their way to the front. All are drunk, especially the leader. Nick has been shot in the spine, but the narrator tells us that things are “going well.”
Several stories involve matadors getting gored, dying, getting crap thrown at them in the ring - or all three.
One is autobiographical. A wounded American soldier falls in love with his Italian nurse. They agree she will come to the States and marry him. Instead, when he’s back home, he gets a Dear John letter. This is exactly what happened to Hemingway when he fell in love with his Italian nurse after we was wounded in Italy and was recovering in a hospital in Milan.
Two solders talk about making “a separate peace,” a title later used in John Knowles’ famous novel.
There is a lot of violence, appearing random, disconnected and place-less. Four German soldiers climbing over a garden wall are shot one by one. Six cabinet ministers are lined up against a hospital wall and shot. We don’t know what country, who they were, or who shot them. An American soldier shoots and kills two Hungarians robbing a cigar store, apparently just because they were “wops.” In a county jail in the US, five men are hanged, three of them Negroes. A man wounded and immersed in fighting begs and makes promises to Jesus to get him out. He gets out and forgets his promises by nightfall.
Are these good stories? Yes and no. They are typical Hemingway but too short, even for short stories, to make much out of them or to develop any feeling for the characters. Still worth a read.
Top photo from unsplash.com
Middle photo of WW I soldiers from knowledge.ca
Hemingway's 1923 passport photo from wikipedia
NOTE: There are more than 200 editions of this book. I read the one published originally in 1924, which is short and just contains the 18 vignettes. Another edition was originally published in 1925, containing short stores as well, such as Two Big-Hearted River. Modern editions of both versions sometimes have the same cover, so it is confusing.
Here we see an introduction to many of the themes that Hemingway would carry through to later works. We meet Nick, a wounded soldier who is probably the Nick of the Nick Adams short stories and the novel, In Another Country.
There’s a lot of drinking. In the very first story we meet a battery of French soldiers on their way to the front. All are drunk, especially the leader. Nick has been shot in the spine, but the narrator tells us that things are “going well.”
Several stories involve matadors getting gored, dying, getting crap thrown at them in the ring - or all three.
One is autobiographical. A wounded American soldier falls in love with his Italian nurse. They agree she will come to the States and marry him. Instead, when he’s back home, he gets a Dear John letter. This is exactly what happened to Hemingway when he fell in love with his Italian nurse after we was wounded in Italy and was recovering in a hospital in Milan.
Two solders talk about making “a separate peace,” a title later used in John Knowles’ famous novel.
There is a lot of violence, appearing random, disconnected and place-less. Four German soldiers climbing over a garden wall are shot one by one. Six cabinet ministers are lined up against a hospital wall and shot. We don’t know what country, who they were, or who shot them. An American soldier shoots and kills two Hungarians robbing a cigar store, apparently just because they were “wops.” In a county jail in the US, five men are hanged, three of them Negroes. A man wounded and immersed in fighting begs and makes promises to Jesus to get him out. He gets out and forgets his promises by nightfall.
Are these good stories? Yes and no. They are typical Hemingway but too short, even for short stories, to make much out of them or to develop any feeling for the characters. Still worth a read.
Top photo from unsplash.com
Middle photo of WW I soldiers from knowledge.ca
Hemingway's 1923 passport photo from wikipedia
April 30, 2022
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
In Our Time is Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories, published in 1925. The collection is known for its spare language and oblique depiction of emotion, through a style known as Hemingway's "theory of omission" (Iceberg Theory).
In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories “Indian Camp” and “The Three Day Blow,” and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic. His writing suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of vision.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پانزدهم ماه آگوست سال2012میلادی
عنوان: در زمان ما؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی مترجم شاهين بازيل؛ عزیز ترسه؛ تهران، افق، سال1391؛ شابک9789651175336؛ در200ص؛ سال1393؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م
کتاب مجموعه ای از داستانهای کوتاه است؛ سیزده داستان یک صفحه ای با عناوین داستان شماره یک، داستان شماره دو و ...؛ یک داستان یک صفحه ای با عنوان «نماینده ی سیاسی»؛ داستانهای دیگر با عنوانهای: «اردوگاه سرخ پوستان»، «دکتر و همسرش»، «پایان یک رابطه» و «گربه زیر باران»؛ «مشت زن حرفه ای»؛ «داستان خیلی کوتاه»؛ «انقلابی»؛ «آقا و خانم الیوت»؛ «صید غیرمجاز»؛ «برف سراسری»؛ «پدرم»؛ «رودخانه ی بزرگ با دو قلب»؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ مدعی است که مجموعه ای از چندین داستان است، اما چنین نیست بلکه کتابی است از گوشه های زندگی یک فرد، که پشت سر هم ردیف شده اند؛ «در زمان ما» داستانی تکه تکه است؛ نخستین صحنه ها از کنار یکی از دریاچه های بزرگ «آمریکا» ـ احتمالاً دریاچه ی «سوپریور» ـ آغاز میشود، که جزو بهترینهاست؛ و آن هنگامی است که «نیک» هنوز کودکی بیش نیست؛ سپس تکه هایی از جنگ در جبهه ی «ایتالیا» را داریم؛ سپس زن و مرد جوانی را، در اروپای پس از جنگ میخوانیم؛ و پس از آن، داستانی درباره ی یک سوارکار «آمریکا»یی در «میلان» و «پاریس» است؛ و در پایان «نیک» بار دیگر به دریاچه ی «سوپریور» باز میگردد، در کنار شهری سوخته، از قطار پیاده میشود، از سرزمینی متروک میگذرد، تا کنار جویباری پُر از ماهی «قزل آلا» اتراق کند؛ «قزل آلا» تنها مشوقی است که زندگی برای او باقی گذاشته است که این نیز چندان نمیپاید؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ کتابی کوتاه است، که وانمود میکند، درباره ی یک فرد نیست؛ اما چنین نیست، درباره ی یک فرد است؛ درست همانقدر که لازم و کافی است، تا درباره ی زندگی یک فرد بدانیم؛ قصه ها کوتاه، موجز، سرزنده و برخی از آنها بسیار عالی و دلنشین هستند؛ و همین چند قصه، شخصیت فرد و گذشته اش را برای خوانشگر روشن میکند؛ «نیک» از آن تیپهایی است، که در مناطق بکر و وحشی «آمریکا» یافت میشوند؛ او از بازماندگان شکارچیان پوست، و گاوچرانهای تنها هست، که امروزه روز، متمدن و فرهیخته شده اند، و با همه چیز قطع رابطه کرده اند؛ «نیک» نمادی از نوعی خودآگاهی است، آگاهانه نسبت به همه چیز و همه کس، بجز آزادگی، و غنیمت شمردن دم، بیتفاوت است
آقای «همینگوی» به بهترین وجهی از عهده ی کار برآمده اند؛ هیچ چیز مهم نیست، همه چیز اتفاق میافتد، فرد میخواهد آزاد باشد؛ فقط از یک چیز اجتناب میورزد «پایبند شدن»، پایبند چیزی مشو؛ اگر چیزی تو را پایبند کرد، آن را رها کن؛ به چیزی دل مبند، بند را پاره کن و رها شو؛ با این اندیشه که به جای دیگری پناه بری، رها شو؛ رها شو به خاطر رها شدن؛ بزن به چاک! «خب پسر، باید بزنم به چاک»، اوه، گفتن این حرف چه قدر لذت بخش است؛ داستانهای آقای «همینگوی» به این دلیل عالی هستند: چون بسیار کوتاه، همانند روشن کردن یک کبریت، یا کشیدن یک سیگار دلچسب هستند، و تمام
عشق جوانی «نیک» همچو دور انداختن ته سیگار تمام میشود؛ «دیگر برایم لطفی نداره» ـ «حس میکنم همه چیز زیر و رو شده» صداقت در این سطور موج میزند؛ و حکایت فراوان از «سانتیمانتالیزم» دارد؛ زمانیکه همه چیز در درون انسان زیر و رو میشود، «سانتیمانتالیزم» شخص وانمود میکند که چیزی رخ نداده است؛ اما آقای «همینگوی» کار سانتیمانتالیزم را یکسره میکنند؛ «دیگر برام لطفی نداره، باید بزنم به چاک»؛ و میزند به چاک، به جایی دیگر؛ دست آخر او خانه به دوشی است، که مدام به اینسو و آنسو میرود، به خاطر رفتن، به خاطر رها شدن از آنجایی که هست؛ این هدف منفی است، و آقای «همینگوی» واقعا عالی است، چرا که فوق العاده صریح است؛ مانند «کربس» در آن داستان منقلب کننده ی «اوکلاهما» که هیچ کس را دوست ندارد، و تظاهر به این کار، حالش را به هم میزند؛ او حتی نمیخواهد کسی را دوست داشته باشد، نمیخواهد به جایی برود، یا کاری انجام دهد؛ تنها میخواهد ول بگردد، و احساسی از پوچی شدید، در درونش و احساسی از نفی، نسبت به اطراف و اطرافیانش را، ابقا و تقویت کند؛ و چرا که نه، زیرا این چیزی است که دقیقا و صادقانه احساس میکند؛ اگر واقعا به چیزی اهمیت نمیدهد، پس چرا باید اهمیت بدهد؟ به هر حال، او اهمیت نمیدهد)؛ پایان نقل از دی.اچ.لارنس
نقل نمونه متن: (داستان شماره یک: همه مست بودند؛ کلّ گُردانِ توپخانه مست بود، و در طول جاده در تاریکی پیش میرفت؛ عازم «شامپانی» بودیم؛ ستوان اسبش را راند به طرف دشت، و به او گفت: «گوش ات با منه پیرمرد، من مستم؛ اوه، مست مستم.»؛ تمامی شب را در امتداد جاده راه رفتیم و آجودان سوار بر اسب در کنار آشپزخانه ی من میراند، و میگفت: «تو باید خاموشش کنی، خطرناکه، دیده میشه.» پنجاه کیلومتر از جبهه دور بودیم، با این وصف آجودان نگران آتش اجاق آشپزخانه ی من بود؛ پیشروی ما، در آن جاده مسخره بود؛ این مال وقتی بود که من سرجوخه ی آشپزخانه بودم.)؛ پایان نقل
نقل از پشت جلد کتاب: (شش وزیر کابینه را ساعت شش و نیم صبح پای دیوار بیمارستان اعدام کردند؛ توی حیاط برکه های آب بود؛ کف سنگفرش حیاط پوشیده از برگهای پژمرده و خیس بود؛ باران یکریز میبارید؛ کرکره ی تمام پنجره های بیمارستان را کیپ بسته بودند؛ یکی از وزرا حصبه داشت؛ دو نفر سرباز آوردندش توی حیاط، زیر باران؛ تلاش میکردند تا پای دیوار سرپا بایستد، اما چمباتمه زد توی گودال آب؛ پنج تای دیگر، آرام، پای دیوار ایستادند؛ بالأخره افسر به سربازها گفت دست بردارند چون نای ایستادن نداشت؛ وقتی نخستین رگبار گلوله را شلیک کردند، سر در گریبان توی گودال نشسته بود) پایان نقل از پشت جلد کتاب
ناریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 09/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
In Our Time is Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories, published in 1925. The collection is known for its spare language and oblique depiction of emotion, through a style known as Hemingway's "theory of omission" (Iceberg Theory).
In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories “Indian Camp” and “The Three Day Blow,” and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic. His writing suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of vision.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پانزدهم ماه آگوست سال2012میلادی
عنوان: در زمان ما؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی مترجم شاهين بازيل؛ عزیز ترسه؛ تهران، افق، سال1391؛ شابک9789651175336؛ در200ص؛ سال1393؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م
کتاب مجموعه ای از داستانهای کوتاه است؛ سیزده داستان یک صفحه ای با عناوین داستان شماره یک، داستان شماره دو و ...؛ یک داستان یک صفحه ای با عنوان «نماینده ی سیاسی»؛ داستانهای دیگر با عنوانهای: «اردوگاه سرخ پوستان»، «دکتر و همسرش»، «پایان یک رابطه» و «گربه زیر باران»؛ «مشت زن حرفه ای»؛ «داستان خیلی کوتاه»؛ «انقلابی»؛ «آقا و خانم الیوت»؛ «صید غیرمجاز»؛ «برف سراسری»؛ «پدرم»؛ «رودخانه ی بزرگ با دو قلب»؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ مدعی است که مجموعه ای از چندین داستان است، اما چنین نیست بلکه کتابی است از گوشه های زندگی یک فرد، که پشت سر هم ردیف شده اند؛ «در زمان ما» داستانی تکه تکه است؛ نخستین صحنه ها از کنار یکی از دریاچه های بزرگ «آمریکا» ـ احتمالاً دریاچه ی «سوپریور» ـ آغاز میشود، که جزو بهترینهاست؛ و آن هنگامی است که «نیک» هنوز کودکی بیش نیست؛ سپس تکه هایی از جنگ در جبهه ی «ایتالیا» را داریم؛ سپس زن و مرد جوانی را، در اروپای پس از جنگ میخوانیم؛ و پس از آن، داستانی درباره ی یک سوارکار «آمریکا»یی در «میلان» و «پاریس» است؛ و در پایان «نیک» بار دیگر به دریاچه ی «سوپریور» باز میگردد، در کنار شهری سوخته، از قطار پیاده میشود، از سرزمینی متروک میگذرد، تا کنار جویباری پُر از ماهی «قزل آلا» اتراق کند؛ «قزل آلا» تنها مشوقی است که زندگی برای او باقی گذاشته است که این نیز چندان نمیپاید؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ کتابی کوتاه است، که وانمود میکند، درباره ی یک فرد نیست؛ اما چنین نیست، درباره ی یک فرد است؛ درست همانقدر که لازم و کافی است، تا درباره ی زندگی یک فرد بدانیم؛ قصه ها کوتاه، موجز، سرزنده و برخی از آنها بسیار عالی و دلنشین هستند؛ و همین چند قصه، شخصیت فرد و گذشته اش را برای خوانشگر روشن میکند؛ «نیک» از آن تیپهایی است، که در مناطق بکر و وحشی «آمریکا» یافت میشوند؛ او از بازماندگان شکارچیان پوست، و گاوچرانهای تنها هست، که امروزه روز، متمدن و فرهیخته شده اند، و با همه چیز قطع رابطه کرده اند؛ «نیک» نمادی از نوعی خودآگاهی است، آگاهانه نسبت به همه چیز و همه کس، بجز آزادگی، و غنیمت شمردن دم، بیتفاوت است
آقای «همینگوی» به بهترین وجهی از عهده ی کار برآمده اند؛ هیچ چیز مهم نیست، همه چیز اتفاق میافتد، فرد میخواهد آزاد باشد؛ فقط از یک چیز اجتناب میورزد «پایبند شدن»، پایبند چیزی مشو؛ اگر چیزی تو را پایبند کرد، آن را رها کن؛ به چیزی دل مبند، بند را پاره کن و رها شو؛ با این اندیشه که به جای دیگری پناه بری، رها شو؛ رها شو به خاطر رها شدن؛ بزن به چاک! «خب پسر، باید بزنم به چاک»، اوه، گفتن این حرف چه قدر لذت بخش است؛ داستانهای آقای «همینگوی» به این دلیل عالی هستند: چون بسیار کوتاه، همانند روشن کردن یک کبریت، یا کشیدن یک سیگار دلچسب هستند، و تمام
عشق جوانی «نیک» همچو دور انداختن ته سیگار تمام میشود؛ «دیگر برایم لطفی نداره» ـ «حس میکنم همه چیز زیر و رو شده» صداقت در این سطور موج میزند؛ و حکایت فراوان از «سانتیمانتالیزم» دارد؛ زمانیکه همه چیز در درون انسان زیر و رو میشود، «سانتیمانتالیزم» شخص وانمود میکند که چیزی رخ نداده است؛ اما آقای «همینگوی» کار سانتیمانتالیزم را یکسره میکنند؛ «دیگر برام لطفی نداره، باید بزنم به چاک»؛ و میزند به چاک، به جایی دیگر؛ دست آخر او خانه به دوشی است، که مدام به اینسو و آنسو میرود، به خاطر رفتن، به خاطر رها شدن از آنجایی که هست؛ این هدف منفی است، و آقای «همینگوی» واقعا عالی است، چرا که فوق العاده صریح است؛ مانند «کربس» در آن داستان منقلب کننده ی «اوکلاهما» که هیچ کس را دوست ندارد، و تظاهر به این کار، حالش را به هم میزند؛ او حتی نمیخواهد کسی را دوست داشته باشد، نمیخواهد به جایی برود، یا کاری انجام دهد؛ تنها میخواهد ول بگردد، و احساسی از پوچی شدید، در درونش و احساسی از نفی، نسبت به اطراف و اطرافیانش را، ابقا و تقویت کند؛ و چرا که نه، زیرا این چیزی است که دقیقا و صادقانه احساس میکند؛ اگر واقعا به چیزی اهمیت نمیدهد، پس چرا باید اهمیت بدهد؟ به هر حال، او اهمیت نمیدهد)؛ پایان نقل از دی.اچ.لارنس
نقل نمونه متن: (داستان شماره یک: همه مست بودند؛ کلّ گُردانِ توپخانه مست بود، و در طول جاده در تاریکی پیش میرفت؛ عازم «شامپانی» بودیم؛ ستوان اسبش را راند به طرف دشت، و به او گفت: «گوش ات با منه پیرمرد، من مستم؛ اوه، مست مستم.»؛ تمامی شب را در امتداد جاده راه رفتیم و آجودان سوار بر اسب در کنار آشپزخانه ی من میراند، و میگفت: «تو باید خاموشش کنی، خطرناکه، دیده میشه.» پنجاه کیلومتر از جبهه دور بودیم، با این وصف آجودان نگران آتش اجاق آشپزخانه ی من بود؛ پیشروی ما، در آن جاده مسخره بود؛ این مال وقتی بود که من سرجوخه ی آشپزخانه بودم.)؛ پایان نقل
نقل از پشت جلد کتاب: (شش وزیر کابینه را ساعت شش و نیم صبح پای دیوار بیمارستان اعدام کردند؛ توی حیاط برکه های آب بود؛ کف سنگفرش حیاط پوشیده از برگهای پژمرده و خیس بود؛ باران یکریز میبارید؛ کرکره ی تمام پنجره های بیمارستان را کیپ بسته بودند؛ یکی از وزرا حصبه داشت؛ دو نفر سرباز آوردندش توی حیاط، زیر باران؛ تلاش میکردند تا پای دیوار سرپا بایستد، اما چمباتمه زد توی گودال آب؛ پنج تای دیگر، آرام، پای دیوار ایستادند؛ بالأخره افسر به سربازها گفت دست بردارند چون نای ایستادن نداشت؛ وقتی نخستین رگبار گلوله را شلیک کردند، سر در گریبان توی گودال نشسته بود) پایان نقل از پشت جلد کتاب
ناریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 09/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
March 6, 2023
“In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure he would never die”—Hemingway, “Indian Camp”
“Dear Jesus, please get me out. Christ, please, please, please, Christ. If you only keep me from being killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everybody in the world that you are the only thing that matters. Please, please, dear Jesus' The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody”--Hemingway
In Our Time is a book I have read several times over the years. In my view, Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of all time. Certainly one of the most influential writers, in terms of style, a kind of tough-minded minimalism that allows for very little commentary, few adverbs. Not flowery or “showing off” as he would have said; straightforward, simple, direct prose. Hem started out as a journalist and maybe his style in part extends out of that reporter’s call for description/observation, in a just-the-facts, ma’am approach. Depictions of women are problematic, of course. He married many women, he slept with many more. That energy, the fame, who knows why? But I can guess at it through a reading of the prose, those central characters. The joie de vivre and the anguish. And I love the central great novels—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and The Sea—but the real gems are the stories, which I am re-reading.
A couple weeks ago I was heading to northern Wisconsin for a short vacation, so thought to begin re-reading In Our Time, his second book, because it is a north country book. Tomorrow I head for a few days to northern Michigan, to the exact geographical area of these stories—the Petoskey, Michigan region, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Hem spent his early summers. I have a photograph I recently found of my mother holding me in her arms when I was four months old, near Lake Manistique in the U. P. where I stayed in a cabin every year in the summer for more than thirty years with my family. Hem traveled each summer from Oak Park, Illinois where he lived and I now live, to this area in the north where his family had a cottage.
The construction of this book is unique, experimental, even now, mostly short short stories, some of them 2-3 pages, set in northern Michigan interspersed with even shorter vignettes set in WWI where Hem had served as an ambulance driver. The (mostly) war stories depict violence; there’s a couple of bullfighting he would have seen in Spain in the early twenties. The domestic stories are the Nick Adams stories, about nature, hunting, fishing, backpacking, skiing, mother and father, friends, drinking, girls. In general one might be tempted to call this Hemingways’s tales of Innocence and Experience, a record of contrasts, but there is trauma in both the Michigan and European stories.
Reading them this time I see these early stories as gems—not all of them amazingly good, but he is already the model in these stories for generations of writers all over the world. What I am reading in the stories now is a prophecy of what is to come: There’s early drinking, early struggles with girls/women, there’s plenty of depression (though in my early reading I might have thought of it as a kind of existential brooding). There is plenty of unhappiness in these stories, yes, and at one point Nick asks his father about suicide, which Hem committed in 1961, after having won the Nobel Prize in 1953. A lifelong struggle with depression leading to suicide, and you can see this in the stories. It was always there for him, a family history of depression and suicide.
But the style is wonderful, in the early gems, especially, “The Three Day Blow,” about a break-up with a girl Nick was nearly engaged to; “My Old Man,” a heart-breaking story about a boy’s admiration for his jockey father, who as he got older became corrupt, involved in “funny” business; “Soldier’s Home,” about Nick’s coming home from the war, depressed and alienated, changed; and the wonderful trout-fishing story, “Big Two-Hearted River” (it’s in the U.P., but it’s a lie, a fisherman never reveals his fishing holes; this isn’t his favorite fishing river); "Indian Camp," where Nick's father delivers a baby by c-section with less than adequate resources, let's just say. Not all the stories are great here, but the few great stories hold up the collection as great, and the experimental concept is also great, overcoming some slighter, earlier stories. And there is everywhere his style, his irony, his barely contained emotions, his darkness and isolation.
“Dear Jesus, please get me out. Christ, please, please, please, Christ. If you only keep me from being killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everybody in the world that you are the only thing that matters. Please, please, dear Jesus' The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody”--Hemingway
In Our Time is a book I have read several times over the years. In my view, Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of all time. Certainly one of the most influential writers, in terms of style, a kind of tough-minded minimalism that allows for very little commentary, few adverbs. Not flowery or “showing off” as he would have said; straightforward, simple, direct prose. Hem started out as a journalist and maybe his style in part extends out of that reporter’s call for description/observation, in a just-the-facts, ma’am approach. Depictions of women are problematic, of course. He married many women, he slept with many more. That energy, the fame, who knows why? But I can guess at it through a reading of the prose, those central characters. The joie de vivre and the anguish. And I love the central great novels—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and The Sea—but the real gems are the stories, which I am re-reading.
A couple weeks ago I was heading to northern Wisconsin for a short vacation, so thought to begin re-reading In Our Time, his second book, because it is a north country book. Tomorrow I head for a few days to northern Michigan, to the exact geographical area of these stories—the Petoskey, Michigan region, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Hem spent his early summers. I have a photograph I recently found of my mother holding me in her arms when I was four months old, near Lake Manistique in the U. P. where I stayed in a cabin every year in the summer for more than thirty years with my family. Hem traveled each summer from Oak Park, Illinois where he lived and I now live, to this area in the north where his family had a cottage.
The construction of this book is unique, experimental, even now, mostly short short stories, some of them 2-3 pages, set in northern Michigan interspersed with even shorter vignettes set in WWI where Hem had served as an ambulance driver. The (mostly) war stories depict violence; there’s a couple of bullfighting he would have seen in Spain in the early twenties. The domestic stories are the Nick Adams stories, about nature, hunting, fishing, backpacking, skiing, mother and father, friends, drinking, girls. In general one might be tempted to call this Hemingways’s tales of Innocence and Experience, a record of contrasts, but there is trauma in both the Michigan and European stories.
Reading them this time I see these early stories as gems—not all of them amazingly good, but he is already the model in these stories for generations of writers all over the world. What I am reading in the stories now is a prophecy of what is to come: There’s early drinking, early struggles with girls/women, there’s plenty of depression (though in my early reading I might have thought of it as a kind of existential brooding). There is plenty of unhappiness in these stories, yes, and at one point Nick asks his father about suicide, which Hem committed in 1961, after having won the Nobel Prize in 1953. A lifelong struggle with depression leading to suicide, and you can see this in the stories. It was always there for him, a family history of depression and suicide.
But the style is wonderful, in the early gems, especially, “The Three Day Blow,” about a break-up with a girl Nick was nearly engaged to; “My Old Man,” a heart-breaking story about a boy’s admiration for his jockey father, who as he got older became corrupt, involved in “funny” business; “Soldier’s Home,” about Nick’s coming home from the war, depressed and alienated, changed; and the wonderful trout-fishing story, “Big Two-Hearted River” (it’s in the U.P., but it’s a lie, a fisherman never reveals his fishing holes; this isn’t his favorite fishing river); "Indian Camp," where Nick's father delivers a baby by c-section with less than adequate resources, let's just say. Not all the stories are great here, but the few great stories hold up the collection as great, and the experimental concept is also great, overcoming some slighter, earlier stories. And there is everywhere his style, his irony, his barely contained emotions, his darkness and isolation.
April 1, 2019
Hot on the heels of reading 'The Sun Also Rises' & 'A Moveable Feast' (loved them both), I couldn't resist trying some of his short fiction. I had read the odd Hemingway short-story before, but this my first collection, and I wasn't disappointed. Basically this is the book that thrust Hem into the limelight, and set him on a path to write some of the 20th century's best known novels. His style is again a sparse, simple but efficient prose that works so well, and he has that knack similar to Richard Yates of easily conveying deep emotions within a matter of minutes through the great use of dialogue. There is mixture of experimentation and autobiographical elements with themes Hemingway would return to in his later writings - that of war and returning from war, bullfighting, hunting, fishing, difficulties of marriage, and disappointments. One of his strongest attributes here is exploring moral values. Some vignettes / stories connect characters, some don't. All though are classic Hemingway. The pick of the bunch for me were - 'The End of Something', 'Soldier's Home', 'Out of Season', and 'My Old Man'.
October 30, 2021
In Our Time is a collection of very, very short stories published in 1925. A testament to Hemingway’s poetic prose with his careful choice of words and his journalistic style, the stories are well anchored in the Hemingway ethos: despite death and war and bad relationships, a “real” man (and a “real” woman please) must face up to the world as it is and learn to cope with the problem of living as a human being within such unpleasantness. Every time I read Hemingway, I remember to be stoic, although there is tenderness here and there and a zest of vulnerability that he doesn’t judge too harshly. I do like all the stories, but my favorite is “The End of Something”: protagonist Nick Adams falls out of love, but he doesn’t know why. He simply understands that he can and now he has to deal with it. Hemingway’s stories capture such moments of the human experience in a rather subtle, but relatable way.
October 3, 2015
I have a deep, unabiding dislike of Hemingway's style. It's sparse, it's soulless, and reads like it was written by a third-grader who just learned to construct sentences.
Whether you like him or not, have a gifset of Nick Miller trying to be Hemingway:
Whether you like him or not, have a gifset of Nick Miller trying to be Hemingway:
June 6, 2021
Nope. Too boring for me. Don't know what I was expecting but this is not what I usually like.
August 16, 2019
مجموعة قصص تتكون من 17 قصة قصيرة كتبها هيمنجواي في بداية حياته وتحديدا في عام 1925 وتعد أول مجموعة قصصية يصدرها
القصص بها تنوع كبير لكن الحبكات غير ناضجة وينقصها عنصر التجديد والإبداع وإن كان اسلوب الكاتب مميز في وصف المشاعر الانسانية
القصص بها تنوع كبير لكن الحبكات غير ناضجة وينقصها عنصر التجديد والإبداع وإن كان اسلوب الكاتب مميز في وصف المشاعر الانسانية
October 26, 2022
In Our Time is a collection of eighteen vignettes, presented as chapters, about the years prior to, during, and after the first world war.
Each story is very brief with hardly any context that will allow the reader to get at its intent. These are unhappy vignettes about folks fleeing the war, cabinet ministers being shot against a hospital wall, drunk soldiers trudging to the war front in the dark, a soldier shot in the spine, waiting for an ambulance amongst the dead, another soldier praying for deliverance from death, a hanging, and a failed romance. There are also five gory stories about matadors slaying bulls or being gored to death.
I cannot say I appreciated any of these stories. They are conveyed in a sparse and nonchalant fashion. There is subtle humor in grim situations. I detected a note of elation in ‘potting’ one’s enemies.
I read the edition published in 1924 which apparently contains only vignettes between major stories.
Two stars. More a function of my inability to relate to these vignettes than Hemingway’s skills.
Each story is very brief with hardly any context that will allow the reader to get at its intent. These are unhappy vignettes about folks fleeing the war, cabinet ministers being shot against a hospital wall, drunk soldiers trudging to the war front in the dark, a soldier shot in the spine, waiting for an ambulance amongst the dead, another soldier praying for deliverance from death, a hanging, and a failed romance. There are also five gory stories about matadors slaying bulls or being gored to death.
I cannot say I appreciated any of these stories. They are conveyed in a sparse and nonchalant fashion. There is subtle humor in grim situations. I detected a note of elation in ‘potting’ one’s enemies.
I read the edition published in 1924 which apparently contains only vignettes between major stories.
Two stars. More a function of my inability to relate to these vignettes than Hemingway’s skills.
July 22, 2022
I think there is a common theme that runs through these short stories. Nearly all of them are about people on a leisurely break from life. And even though they are generally having a good time, the sadness from the approaching return to ordinary life keeps creeping up into their thoughts. Or you could say they are about people experiencing happiness but they are saddened by thoughts that this happiness is only fleeting and sadness is just around the corner.
The stories with the Nick Adams character are special. Especially Big Two-hearted River Parts 1 and 2 where Nick Adams goes trout fishing. They are written with a lot of tenderness. I bet Hemingway had a great time writing part 1. The story makes you want to head out into the woods with some canned food and have a good time. So he definitely succeeded.
This man could write!
The stories with the Nick Adams character are special. Especially Big Two-hearted River Parts 1 and 2 where Nick Adams goes trout fishing. They are written with a lot of tenderness. I bet Hemingway had a great time writing part 1. The story makes you want to head out into the woods with some canned food and have a good time. So he definitely succeeded.
This man could write!
February 17, 2017
Short review on short stories. I would amend those 3 stars down to 2.5 stars.
These short stories are credited with being the turning point for Hemingway, having made him famous. This is why I chose them for my next Hemingway read.
On the stories themselves. Most of them were a bit bland, not a lot happened in them, and they lacked a certain emotion. There were a couple, however, that I enjoyed - The End of Something, Cross-Country Snow were good. Although these two stories were only a few pages in length, they did manage to portray emotion, which seemed to bring the pages to life.
And regarding his writing. It is of course unique. Once in a while he inserts a brief sentence of only a few words, and it's like being punched in the gut, having the result of really pulling you into the story. Something I noticed that distracted me while reading was his use of the adjective 'very.' He overuses it, even in his dialogue. Hemingway's use of dialogue in these stories was hit and miss. Some stories were well done, others I found the dialogue unnatural. I think, though, that this is likely a reflection of living a century apart. There are obviously going to be colloquialisms a part of 20th century language that don't hold true today.
Next stop on the Hemingway train for me: The Sun Also Rises.
These short stories are credited with being the turning point for Hemingway, having made him famous. This is why I chose them for my next Hemingway read.
On the stories themselves. Most of them were a bit bland, not a lot happened in them, and they lacked a certain emotion. There were a couple, however, that I enjoyed - The End of Something, Cross-Country Snow were good. Although these two stories were only a few pages in length, they did manage to portray emotion, which seemed to bring the pages to life.
And regarding his writing. It is of course unique. Once in a while he inserts a brief sentence of only a few words, and it's like being punched in the gut, having the result of really pulling you into the story. Something I noticed that distracted me while reading was his use of the adjective 'very.' He overuses it, even in his dialogue. Hemingway's use of dialogue in these stories was hit and miss. Some stories were well done, others I found the dialogue unnatural. I think, though, that this is likely a reflection of living a century apart. There are obviously going to be colloquialisms a part of 20th century language that don't hold true today.
Next stop on the Hemingway train for me: The Sun Also Rises.
November 28, 2016
In Our Time, much like Hemingway's
Farewell to Arms,
is a meditation on suffering. Between the short stories, half page vignettes illustrate tableaus of violence and death taken from fleeing refugees, the bull rings of Spain, and the collapsing monarchies of Europe.
My favorite linked sections of this book followed Nick Adams, in part because his story is full of intriguing holes, and in part because much that concerns him here is so banal and slow in contrast to the vignettes. One gets the sense that Nick is holding a great well of experience inside him, that trout fishing in a river is a great relief from the anxiety of his memories.
Interesting too, on the topic of death and violence, was the means by which the author met his own end. Particularly when the following passage from "Indian Camp" speaks to it directly.
Why did he kill himself, Daddy?"
"I don't know, Nick. He couldn't stand things, I guess."
"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?"
"Not very many, Nick."
"Do many women?"
"Hardly ever."
"Don't they ever?"
"Oh, yes. They do sometimes."
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Where did Uncle George go?"
"He'll turn up all right."
"Is dying hard, Daddy?"
"No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends."
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
My favorite linked sections of this book followed Nick Adams, in part because his story is full of intriguing holes, and in part because much that concerns him here is so banal and slow in contrast to the vignettes. One gets the sense that Nick is holding a great well of experience inside him, that trout fishing in a river is a great relief from the anxiety of his memories.
Interesting too, on the topic of death and violence, was the means by which the author met his own end. Particularly when the following passage from "Indian Camp" speaks to it directly.
Why did he kill himself, Daddy?"
"I don't know, Nick. He couldn't stand things, I guess."
"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?"
"Not very many, Nick."
"Do many women?"
"Hardly ever."
"Don't they ever?"
"Oh, yes. They do sometimes."
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Where did Uncle George go?"
"He'll turn up all right."
"Is dying hard, Daddy?"
"No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends."
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
September 2, 2016
Διηγήματα που σε ταξιδεύουν
April 14, 2009
As I am now part of an Ernest Hemingway Short Story book club, I will write reviews of the stories that strike my fancy and add them to the books from whence they came.
Cat in the Rain -- This story represents one of my favourite aspects of Hemingway's work -- his simplicity.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, superfluous in Cat in the Rain. Every word is purposefully placed for its ability to invoke emotion or conjure an image. Reading Cat in the Rain can transport you to another time and place: to a square near the ocean in Italy during an afternoon rainstorm.
But don't just read it once on the page, read it again out loud and be dazzled by the rhythms of the rain that Hemingway embeds in the staccato dripping and dropping and dripping and dropping of his words. He repeats and repeats to make the rain come alive, and unless you read it out loud you can't hear it.
Then when the American girl and her husband talk you can hear truth that few other authors are willing to attempt, and even fewer can achieve with so little said. They love, they want, they are, but the distance between them makes us wonder if they do any of those things together.
And all of this comes down to a cat in the rain, tightening itself into a little ball beneath a cafe table so that no water will touch its fur.
Papa could write.
Cat in the Rain -- This story represents one of my favourite aspects of Hemingway's work -- his simplicity.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, superfluous in Cat in the Rain. Every word is purposefully placed for its ability to invoke emotion or conjure an image. Reading Cat in the Rain can transport you to another time and place: to a square near the ocean in Italy during an afternoon rainstorm.
But don't just read it once on the page, read it again out loud and be dazzled by the rhythms of the rain that Hemingway embeds in the staccato dripping and dropping and dripping and dropping of his words. He repeats and repeats to make the rain come alive, and unless you read it out loud you can't hear it.
Then when the American girl and her husband talk you can hear truth that few other authors are willing to attempt, and even fewer can achieve with so little said. They love, they want, they are, but the distance between them makes us wonder if they do any of those things together.
And all of this comes down to a cat in the rain, tightening itself into a little ball beneath a cafe table so that no water will touch its fur.
Papa could write.
March 20, 2023
Difficult to rate this early collection from a famous American writer. The stories are over 100 years old at this point, and the rude language can be jarring to modern ears. On the other hand, writers like Hemingway were trying to capture the way that people really spoke, and is perhaps displaying authentic language from early 1900. The use of vernacular and realistic speech was a startling development in fiction at the time.
This collection includes the "famous Nick Adams" stories, but I have to say these were not among my favourites. In the last two fishing stories ("Big Two-Hearted River," parts I and II) the protagonist is named Nick, but the pieces, and some of the other Nick Adams stories, feel like sketches intended to be part of a novel that never happened. My favourite in the collection was Soldier's Home which is an early and insightful depiction of the lingering effects of trauma.
This collection, dedicated to his first wife Hadley Richardson, is even more interesting if one knows the background in terms of Hemingway's biography, the sources of his material and inspiration, and where he was when he wrote each of these pieces. For example, he was inspired by events in Europe to write about situations in the U.S.
This is an important work in terms of the development of an influential writer, but not an essential work by this writer. Therefore, rounding down to 3 stars, because I believe winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize should be enough for any writer.
This collection includes the "famous Nick Adams" stories, but I have to say these were not among my favourites. In the last two fishing stories ("Big Two-Hearted River," parts I and II) the protagonist is named Nick, but the pieces, and some of the other Nick Adams stories, feel like sketches intended to be part of a novel that never happened. My favourite in the collection was Soldier's Home which is an early and insightful depiction of the lingering effects of trauma.
This collection, dedicated to his first wife Hadley Richardson, is even more interesting if one knows the background in terms of Hemingway's biography, the sources of his material and inspiration, and where he was when he wrote each of these pieces. For example, he was inspired by events in Europe to write about situations in the U.S.
This is an important work in terms of the development of an influential writer, but not an essential work by this writer. Therefore, rounding down to 3 stars, because I believe winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize should be enough for any writer.
September 10, 2012
Hemingway's minimalist writing style is polarizing - this isn't news. His sparse sentences, staccato pacing and seemingly adjective free narratives aren't for everybody. But if you like this type of writing, this book of stories is for you.
This is the first time in reading Hemingway that it dawned on my just how much like poetry his writing can be (I'm slow - my GR friends have probably written thesis on this). Here's an example, with line breaks at each period:
He did not want any consequences
He did not want any consequences ever again
He wanted to live along without consequences
Besides he did not really need a girl
The army had taught him that
It was all right to pose as though you had to have a girl
Nearly everybody did that
But it wasn't true
You did not need a girl
That was the funny thing
This is the first time in reading Hemingway that it dawned on my just how much like poetry his writing can be (I'm slow - my GR friends have probably written thesis on this). Here's an example, with line breaks at each period:
He did not want any consequences
He did not want any consequences ever again
He wanted to live along without consequences
Besides he did not really need a girl
The army had taught him that
It was all right to pose as though you had to have a girl
Nearly everybody did that
But it wasn't true
You did not need a girl
That was the funny thing
August 29, 2017
این، یک مجموعه داستان کوتاه است.
با خوندن این مجموعه متوجه میشید که همینگوی چرا بین نویسندگان داستان کوتاه اینقدر مطرح شده. داستانهاش، از ساده ترین مسائل و احساسات انسانی صحبت میکنند به شکلی که برای تمام انسانهای دنیا معنا دارند. پر از جزئیات شفاف و خردهکاریهایی که این نویسنده باعث میشه نظرمونو بهشون جلب کنیم. افعال رو بهقدری دقیق توضیح میده که میتونی مثل یک فیلم توی ذهنات تصوراش کنی و باعث میشه خودت هم توی انجام دادن کارهای روزانه دقت بیشتری به خرج بدی و متوجه جزئیات بشی.
جملاتش کوتاه کوتاه و بدون تکلف اند.
اتفاقات گاهی بدون هیچ دلیل خاص یا محکمهپسندی رخ میدن. دقیقن مثل زندگی! (مخصوصن دورهای که همینگوی توش زندگی میکرده)
با خوندن این مجموعه متوجه میشید که همینگوی چرا بین نویسندگان داستان کوتاه اینقدر مطرح شده. داستانهاش، از ساده ترین مسائل و احساسات انسانی صحبت میکنند به شکلی که برای تمام انسانهای دنیا معنا دارند. پر از جزئیات شفاف و خردهکاریهایی که این نویسنده باعث میشه نظرمونو بهشون جلب کنیم. افعال رو بهقدری دقیق توضیح میده که میتونی مثل یک فیلم توی ذهنات تصوراش کنی و باعث میشه خودت هم توی انجام دادن کارهای روزانه دقت بیشتری به خرج بدی و متوجه جزئیات بشی.
جملاتش کوتاه کوتاه و بدون تکلف اند.
اتفاقات گاهی بدون هیچ دلیل خاص یا محکمهپسندی رخ میدن. دقیقن مثل زندگی! (مخصوصن دورهای که همینگوی توش زندگی میکرده)
January 21, 2018
I don't agree with those who try to discredit Hemingway as a mediocre writer. I have talked with and read reviews by these people and I understand their criticisms but their points could apply to any writer. Also, and maybe more importantly, they don't like his false macho affectation. Okayyy. That's fair. But to go so far as to argue that the shouldn't be remembered as a great writer is just plain silly.
Have these people never had a tight-lipped uncle who liked to go fishing?
Or a brother who got into too many fist fights?
Apparently not.
OK, rant over.
In Our Time is one of Hemingway's immortal books. It was his first, a collection of short stories which was like nothing else that came before it. It's hard to believe it was published in 1924, the age of Sinclair Lewis and Edith Wharton.
These stories are like little gusts of Chekhovian sweetness. There are great moments of tenderness and tragedy that seem impossible to fit in the space Hemingway manages. Each one seems to be overflowing. Like it wants to say more but knows it shouldn't. I love stories like this and that's maybe why I am able to give Hemingway the benefit of the doubt overall. Insofar as he is an American Chekhov, I really love his writing. And this is the golden age in Hemingway's career for this sort of thing. At the time of its publication New York Times called "In Our Time," fibrous and athletic, colloquial and fresh, hard and clean, his very prose seems to have an organic being of its own. I think they were right. Had he continued along this line, and avoided his later self-imitations and "sentimentality," I think he would have been a far better writer, and much lesser known.
To me, the bottom line for what makes Hemingway a worthwhile read is that--although his attempts are not always perfect--he makes literature un-literary. "Literature" at its best is always fresh, coming back down to earth to see how things are going and how people are talking to one another, and then going back up for air. Literature that never comes down to earth, but stays suspended in academia, or in esoteric little hipster sanctuaries of trendiness and high-mindedness, never connects for me. I hate those books.
In college I once had a life-defining conversation with an old girlfriend of mine. We were debating whether or not everyone has the ability to have deep thoughts. She said no, not everyone has deep thoughts. I said yes, I think they do--many people just don't know how to talk about them or they'd rather not talk about them. She said she didn't think so. She said there are some people out there, beer-guzzling mouth-breathers, who, honest-to-goodness, just don't produce a single profundity their entire lives. They just sit around and take up oxygen. I said I didn't see it that way. The topic never came up again, and we broke up after only a few months of dating.
Fast forward three years.
Walking around campus one morning, I ran into her again. I hadn't really seen or talked to her for those three years. The conversation was awkward at first. We shifted our weight back and forth. She asked me what I was reading. I said Hemingway. She laughed. Now, she was loosened up. She said isn't his stuff pretty simple and macho? Yes, I said. But there's a lot there if you're willing to look for it. Well, she said she didn't think she'd ever get around to reading him.
Have these people never had a tight-lipped uncle who liked to go fishing?
Or a brother who got into too many fist fights?
Apparently not.
OK, rant over.
In Our Time is one of Hemingway's immortal books. It was his first, a collection of short stories which was like nothing else that came before it. It's hard to believe it was published in 1924, the age of Sinclair Lewis and Edith Wharton.
These stories are like little gusts of Chekhovian sweetness. There are great moments of tenderness and tragedy that seem impossible to fit in the space Hemingway manages. Each one seems to be overflowing. Like it wants to say more but knows it shouldn't. I love stories like this and that's maybe why I am able to give Hemingway the benefit of the doubt overall. Insofar as he is an American Chekhov, I really love his writing. And this is the golden age in Hemingway's career for this sort of thing. At the time of its publication New York Times called "In Our Time," fibrous and athletic, colloquial and fresh, hard and clean, his very prose seems to have an organic being of its own. I think they were right. Had he continued along this line, and avoided his later self-imitations and "sentimentality," I think he would have been a far better writer, and much lesser known.
To me, the bottom line for what makes Hemingway a worthwhile read is that--although his attempts are not always perfect--he makes literature un-literary. "Literature" at its best is always fresh, coming back down to earth to see how things are going and how people are talking to one another, and then going back up for air. Literature that never comes down to earth, but stays suspended in academia, or in esoteric little hipster sanctuaries of trendiness and high-mindedness, never connects for me. I hate those books.
In college I once had a life-defining conversation with an old girlfriend of mine. We were debating whether or not everyone has the ability to have deep thoughts. She said no, not everyone has deep thoughts. I said yes, I think they do--many people just don't know how to talk about them or they'd rather not talk about them. She said she didn't think so. She said there are some people out there, beer-guzzling mouth-breathers, who, honest-to-goodness, just don't produce a single profundity their entire lives. They just sit around and take up oxygen. I said I didn't see it that way. The topic never came up again, and we broke up after only a few months of dating.
Fast forward three years.
Walking around campus one morning, I ran into her again. I hadn't really seen or talked to her for those three years. The conversation was awkward at first. We shifted our weight back and forth. She asked me what I was reading. I said Hemingway. She laughed. Now, she was loosened up. She said isn't his stuff pretty simple and macho? Yes, I said. But there's a lot there if you're willing to look for it. Well, she said she didn't think she'd ever get around to reading him.
August 18, 2019
قصص لا بأس بها، لكني توقعت أفضل من ذلك
April 15, 2021
This is a wonderful collection of short stories that cover many many topics. It covers periods of Hemingway‘s party times in Spain and later moves through is outrageous drunken times ( although this. Does last the rest of his life).
Providing support and developed characters are pretty enjoyable.
I recommend
Providing support and developed characters are pretty enjoyable.
I recommend
September 23, 2018
از اعجاز داستان های همینگوی که تا الان خوندم( پیرمرد و دریا - در زمان ما) همین قدر که منی که تو عمرم ماهیگیری نرفتم موقع ترسیم صحنه ماهیگیری و فرار ماهی و... استرس میگرفتم:))
نمیدونم پشت این داستان چه مفهوم خاصی بود که منتقدها روش اصرار کردن چون عادت به خوندن نقد، قبل از خوندن کتاب ندارم. دید رو محدود میکنه. اما همینقدر که منِ فراری رو آشتی داد با ادبیات آمریکا، برام معجزه ست.
متنی از کتاب :
نمیدانم چرا وقتی بعضی ها دهان باز میکنند تا همه چیز طرف را از او نگیرند دست از سرش بر نمیدارند.
نمیدونم پشت این داستان چه مفهوم خاصی بود که منتقدها روش اصرار کردن چون عادت به خوندن نقد، قبل از خوندن کتاب ندارم. دید رو محدود میکنه. اما همینقدر که منِ فراری رو آشتی داد با ادبیات آمریکا، برام معجزه ست.
متنی از کتاب :
نمیدانم چرا وقتی بعضی ها دهان باز میکنند تا همه چیز طرف را از او نگیرند دست از سرش بر نمیدارند.
January 23, 2021
Free In Our Time
Review of the AmazonClassics Kindle eBook edition (2021) of the Boni & Liveright original In Our Time (1925)
The Hemingway industry shows no signs of slowing down, even as we approach the centenary of his first published works. His forever publisher Scribner will issue yet another repackaging of short stories The Hemingway Stories: As Featured in the Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on PBS (expected March 2, 2021) to coincide with a new 6-hour documentary on PBS (expected April 5, 2021). The projected 16 volume / 20 year project of the Complete Letters of Ernest Hemingway is only up to The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 5, 1932-1934: 1932-1934 as of 2020. The Ernest Hemingway Library Edition of reissues expanded with early drafts and deletions is perhaps only a third of its way to completion. A seemingly infinite number of biographies continue to be written with The Man Who Wasn't There: A Life of Ernest Hemingway (2020) and Ernesto: The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba (2019) being the most recent.
AmazonClassics have gotten in on the act by issuing a Kindle only reissue of the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of the "In Our Time" vignettes and short stories. They call it the "New York edition" to distinguish it from the original 1924 Paris chapbook edition in our time (lower-case letter title) which contained only the original 18 vignettes. This first American edition added 14 short stories, expanded 2 original vignettes into short stories and used the 16 remaining vignettes as inter-chapters. When Scribner took over Hemingway's publishing it added an additional short story "On the Quai at Smyrna" for the 1930 American edition In Our Time.
Hemingway's early short stories are among my favourites of his writing. Any collection with Indian Camp, The Battler, Soldier's Home, Cat in the Rain, Out of Season and Big Two-Hearted River will rate an easy 5-stars from me. In Our Time also acts as somewhat of a novel-in-short-stories as 7 of the 14 have the Hemingway proxy character of Nick Adams as their explicit protagonist and several of the others would seem to have Hemingway/Adams as an anonymous or renamed character. The overall arc takes Nick from the immortality of childhood in the face of death seen in Indian Camp through to the chastened world-weary Adams returned from the horrors of World War I and seeking revitalization while fishing in the Big Two-Hearted River.
Trivia and Link
I read In Our Time (1925) in its AmazonClassics edition which is available free for Amazon Prime members through Amazon Kindle https://www.amazon.com/b?node=1866070... (link is to Amazon USA, although I used Amazon Canada).
Review of the AmazonClassics Kindle eBook edition (2021) of the Boni & Liveright original In Our Time (1925)
The Hemingway industry shows no signs of slowing down, even as we approach the centenary of his first published works. His forever publisher Scribner will issue yet another repackaging of short stories The Hemingway Stories: As Featured in the Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on PBS (expected March 2, 2021) to coincide with a new 6-hour documentary on PBS (expected April 5, 2021). The projected 16 volume / 20 year project of the Complete Letters of Ernest Hemingway is only up to The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 5, 1932-1934: 1932-1934 as of 2020. The Ernest Hemingway Library Edition of reissues expanded with early drafts and deletions is perhaps only a third of its way to completion. A seemingly infinite number of biographies continue to be written with The Man Who Wasn't There: A Life of Ernest Hemingway (2020) and Ernesto: The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba (2019) being the most recent.
AmazonClassics have gotten in on the act by issuing a Kindle only reissue of the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of the "In Our Time" vignettes and short stories. They call it the "New York edition" to distinguish it from the original 1924 Paris chapbook edition in our time (lower-case letter title) which contained only the original 18 vignettes. This first American edition added 14 short stories, expanded 2 original vignettes into short stories and used the 16 remaining vignettes as inter-chapters. When Scribner took over Hemingway's publishing it added an additional short story "On the Quai at Smyrna" for the 1930 American edition In Our Time.
Hemingway's early short stories are among my favourites of his writing. Any collection with Indian Camp, The Battler, Soldier's Home, Cat in the Rain, Out of Season and Big Two-Hearted River will rate an easy 5-stars from me. In Our Time also acts as somewhat of a novel-in-short-stories as 7 of the 14 have the Hemingway proxy character of Nick Adams as their explicit protagonist and several of the others would seem to have Hemingway/Adams as an anonymous or renamed character. The overall arc takes Nick from the immortality of childhood in the face of death seen in Indian Camp through to the chastened world-weary Adams returned from the horrors of World War I and seeking revitalization while fishing in the Big Two-Hearted River.
“Is dying hard, Daddy?”
“No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick. It all depends.”
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
- excerpt from Indian Camp
He walked along the road feeling the ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill. His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It was all back of him. - excerpt from Big Two-Hearted River
Trivia and Link
I read In Our Time (1925) in its AmazonClassics edition which is available free for Amazon Prime members through Amazon Kindle https://www.amazon.com/b?node=1866070... (link is to Amazon USA, although I used Amazon Canada).
June 28, 2016
I had been going along in my English major career under the assumption that Hemingway just wouldn't be my cup of tea. His reputation, from what I'd heard, was (and still is) one which championed the art of gritty narrative, the bare-bones of a structured plot, and fast-paced, uncensored dialogue. I had read a few of his short stories, and while I acknowledged their strength in minimalism and simplicity, I was never blown away by anything he wrote. Critical enthusiasm for his work was lost on me. I didn't get it.
Until I read this book.
Now, I love Hemingway.
But my affection for the former journalist and WWI ambulance driver has not sprung from the same well of fondness most English majors draw from. All this talk of his prose being "lean" and "tough"; the "sparse" characters; the basic and unpretentious syntax; these kinds of comments provoked nose-wrinkles, slanted eyebrows and internal eye-rolling from my past, Hemingway-less self. These criticisms demean the thought behind beauty of his writing! They imply barbarism towards language, as if Hemingway turned away from complexity out of rebellion or spite!
Stuff and nonsense. Hemingway is hardly the hero of simplicity for simplicity's sake. Each sentence, although written in the thorough vernacular, is deliberately crafted and scientifically weighted for and within the story. The short, descriptive and declarative sentences carry a certain gentleness -- inimitable and kind, manifesting that certain calmness necessary for truth-telling. Hemingway is unclouded, not harsh. The narrative is loyal to events, not emotion. It's genius.
For all you readers avoiding Hemingway because of his cut-and-dry reputation, I am here to clarify the situation. There is so much more to notice and appreciate in his writing besides its obvious lack of clauses, semi-colons, adverbs and SAT vocabulary. Look for the courage, the sadness, and the joy found in these simple stories, and pause your life. Set the book down. Take a deep breath. Just feel like a human.
Until I read this book.
Now, I love Hemingway.
But my affection for the former journalist and WWI ambulance driver has not sprung from the same well of fondness most English majors draw from. All this talk of his prose being "lean" and "tough"; the "sparse" characters; the basic and unpretentious syntax; these kinds of comments provoked nose-wrinkles, slanted eyebrows and internal eye-rolling from my past, Hemingway-less self. These criticisms demean the thought behind beauty of his writing! They imply barbarism towards language, as if Hemingway turned away from complexity out of rebellion or spite!
Stuff and nonsense. Hemingway is hardly the hero of simplicity for simplicity's sake. Each sentence, although written in the thorough vernacular, is deliberately crafted and scientifically weighted for and within the story. The short, descriptive and declarative sentences carry a certain gentleness -- inimitable and kind, manifesting that certain calmness necessary for truth-telling. Hemingway is unclouded, not harsh. The narrative is loyal to events, not emotion. It's genius.
For all you readers avoiding Hemingway because of his cut-and-dry reputation, I am here to clarify the situation. There is so much more to notice and appreciate in his writing besides its obvious lack of clauses, semi-colons, adverbs and SAT vocabulary. Look for the courage, the sadness, and the joy found in these simple stories, and pause your life. Set the book down. Take a deep breath. Just feel like a human.
October 23, 2013
Wow. I am surprised by how much I enjoyed this. My favorite stories are the two Big-hearted River stories at the end.
Since I wrote that, I have been trying to understand why this book has such meaning for me and I still don't have words. Hemingway gets me, I think. Or, his getting himself down on paper, the way his characters feel and react to both extreme and mundane circumstances, is fundamental to humanity, so fundamental that it's difficult articulate and seeing any approach to such articulation feels like a sudden intimacy between us, as though he really does get me. The feeling of interior similarity I get, especially in the last two stories, to Nick, is like a friendship. It makes me happy. To be happy in the circumstances in our time, after having experienced the extremities of what there is to experience in our time, is pretty freaking special and beautiful and rare and to be cherished. I think that's why I love this so much. Somehow the simplicity and accuracy of the language and the honesty of emotion without much extra cerebral interference has created a perhaps unlikely friendship between Hem and me.
Also, I really dig mountains and streams and trees and earth and Hem does too, so that helps.
Since I wrote that, I have been trying to understand why this book has such meaning for me and I still don't have words. Hemingway gets me, I think. Or, his getting himself down on paper, the way his characters feel and react to both extreme and mundane circumstances, is fundamental to humanity, so fundamental that it's difficult articulate and seeing any approach to such articulation feels like a sudden intimacy between us, as though he really does get me. The feeling of interior similarity I get, especially in the last two stories, to Nick, is like a friendship. It makes me happy. To be happy in the circumstances in our time, after having experienced the extremities of what there is to experience in our time, is pretty freaking special and beautiful and rare and to be cherished. I think that's why I love this so much. Somehow the simplicity and accuracy of the language and the honesty of emotion without much extra cerebral interference has created a perhaps unlikely friendship between Hem and me.
Also, I really dig mountains and streams and trees and earth and Hem does too, so that helps.
May 18, 2021
After watching Ken Burns's wonderful PBS documentary Hemingway, I decided to give the infamous author a try. I was astonished -- the man lived such an amazing and daring life only for it to come to a miserable and tragic end. I read in class a couple of years ago his short work A Clean, Well-Lighted Place and I must admit I was not blown away. His writing didn't capture me. I didn't appreciate the simplicity. So after watching the film I drove over to the library. And I'm glad I did.
The book is a short collection of vignettes that follow the life of a man named Nick. We meet him as a young boy when he witnesses death for the first time and then follow as he becomes a veteran of WW1. Most of the stories are snapshots of a moment in time, where almost nothing significant occurs. It's Hemingway's straightforwardness that brings these moments to life, without the need for flowery prose. He paints the scene on the canvas of the minds eye wonderfully; the flowing rivers, the leaves blowing in the wind, the creaking of old wooden floors. Its these moments that bring the vignettes to life.
I plan on reading his other works chronologically. If his other books are like this then he will have gained a new fan.
The book is a short collection of vignettes that follow the life of a man named Nick. We meet him as a young boy when he witnesses death for the first time and then follow as he becomes a veteran of WW1. Most of the stories are snapshots of a moment in time, where almost nothing significant occurs. It's Hemingway's straightforwardness that brings these moments to life, without the need for flowery prose. He paints the scene on the canvas of the minds eye wonderfully; the flowing rivers, the leaves blowing in the wind, the creaking of old wooden floors. Its these moments that bring the vignettes to life.
I plan on reading his other works chronologically. If his other books are like this then he will have gained a new fan.
April 25, 2017
Hemingway at his most experimental. A fantastic book, written before he was "Hemingway."
April 24, 2022
When people ask me, I recommend that they start their experience of Hemingway with this book. It’s where Hemingway found his voice and – alongside The Sun Also Rises – it’s the best book he ever managed to write.
I’m reading this for the umpteenth time. It’s one of the few books that I feel as if I have come close to memorizing. That’s a matter not just of my having read it so often but also of Hemingway’s having distilled his prose to such a fine point that almost every word feels necessary. Having read it, I know what has to come next in most of the stories.
A couple of these are clunkers. “Mr. and Mrs. Elliott” is a mean-spirited takedown of effete wannabe poets. And “A Very Short Story” reeks of a self-pity beneath the ethical imagination of most of the rest of this.
But “Indian Camp,” “The End of Something,” “The Battler,” “Cat in the Rain,” and “Big Two-Hearted River” are all models of the Modern American style of the short story. And, interspersed with the “chapters” that give us glimpses of the violence of war and bullfighting, they take on even more power.
There are reasons to criticize Hemingway, above all the way he mythologized a form of toxic masculinity that still infects much of American society. If you read this carefully, though, you can see that Hemingway criticized that impulse himself. At this early stage, when he was just discovering his voice and his vision, he understood the limits of the masculine self he was exploring. It didn’t take long for him to harden his insights into a “code,” and then it didn’t take much longer beyond that for him to replace the irony of his discovery with self-aggrandizement and self-pity.
Here, though, where it all started, we can get the purest glimpse of an artist who changed the aesthetics of American culture.
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Addendum, April 2022
I’m reading this for the tenth or 12th time, too many to count by now. As such, it’s hard to come to new elements of it. As much as I admire “Soldier’s Home,” for instance, I find I’ve almost memorized certain lines within it. I know what’s coming, certainly, and I know how Krebs’s hope for a life “without complications” will contrast with Nick’s greater capacity to endure trauma and find a way back to new life.
In that light, “Big Two-Hearted River” hit as hard as ever, and it was powerful once again to see Nick finding resurrection in the wasteland of Seney, emerging into an April that isn’t as cruel as Eliot’s even as it lets him feel so much.
What strikes me most of all on this reading, though, is the antipathy of my students as we’ve discussed this. A few seemed to enjoy the work overall, but the vast majority couldn’t look past its toxic masculinity.
When I teach this, I try to acknowledge what this outlook became for Hemingway. The narrator here, working so hard to reconcile trauma with the urge to tell stories, gives way in later Hemingway to a voice that feels sorry for itself. Here we see a narrator trying to heal; by For Whom the Bell Tolls, we see a narrator who thinks himself tough, who wants to be acknowledged for that toughness. It’s no longer someone dealing with trauma; it’s someone who thinks he deserves special treatment – treatment the world may nonetheless deny him – for having endured the difficult.
Still, I couldn’t persuade many students this time around of what I see as a crucial distinction. As I reflect on that, I wonder if it’s just gotten that much more difficult to teach Hemingway in this cultural moment. Yes, it embraces a sense of machismo, and yes we get glimpses of the misogyny that will find its full flower in things like “The Short, Happy Life of Frances MacComber,” but there’s a greatness – a vulnerability – here, too, that I’d hate to keep future classes from glimpsing.
At the same time, it may be that the distractions of Hemingway have gotten too loud and that they overshadow his virtues.
Since this came into the public domain at the start of 2022, we’re going to see some good new editions. I may look through some of them, but I’m going to have to give a lot of thought to whether to include it the next I teach the American survey.
I’m reading this for the umpteenth time. It’s one of the few books that I feel as if I have come close to memorizing. That’s a matter not just of my having read it so often but also of Hemingway’s having distilled his prose to such a fine point that almost every word feels necessary. Having read it, I know what has to come next in most of the stories.
A couple of these are clunkers. “Mr. and Mrs. Elliott” is a mean-spirited takedown of effete wannabe poets. And “A Very Short Story” reeks of a self-pity beneath the ethical imagination of most of the rest of this.
But “Indian Camp,” “The End of Something,” “The Battler,” “Cat in the Rain,” and “Big Two-Hearted River” are all models of the Modern American style of the short story. And, interspersed with the “chapters” that give us glimpses of the violence of war and bullfighting, they take on even more power.
There are reasons to criticize Hemingway, above all the way he mythologized a form of toxic masculinity that still infects much of American society. If you read this carefully, though, you can see that Hemingway criticized that impulse himself. At this early stage, when he was just discovering his voice and his vision, he understood the limits of the masculine self he was exploring. It didn’t take long for him to harden his insights into a “code,” and then it didn’t take much longer beyond that for him to replace the irony of his discovery with self-aggrandizement and self-pity.
Here, though, where it all started, we can get the purest glimpse of an artist who changed the aesthetics of American culture.
---------------------------------------
Addendum, April 2022
I’m reading this for the tenth or 12th time, too many to count by now. As such, it’s hard to come to new elements of it. As much as I admire “Soldier’s Home,” for instance, I find I’ve almost memorized certain lines within it. I know what’s coming, certainly, and I know how Krebs’s hope for a life “without complications” will contrast with Nick’s greater capacity to endure trauma and find a way back to new life.
In that light, “Big Two-Hearted River” hit as hard as ever, and it was powerful once again to see Nick finding resurrection in the wasteland of Seney, emerging into an April that isn’t as cruel as Eliot’s even as it lets him feel so much.
What strikes me most of all on this reading, though, is the antipathy of my students as we’ve discussed this. A few seemed to enjoy the work overall, but the vast majority couldn’t look past its toxic masculinity.
When I teach this, I try to acknowledge what this outlook became for Hemingway. The narrator here, working so hard to reconcile trauma with the urge to tell stories, gives way in later Hemingway to a voice that feels sorry for itself. Here we see a narrator trying to heal; by For Whom the Bell Tolls, we see a narrator who thinks himself tough, who wants to be acknowledged for that toughness. It’s no longer someone dealing with trauma; it’s someone who thinks he deserves special treatment – treatment the world may nonetheless deny him – for having endured the difficult.
Still, I couldn’t persuade many students this time around of what I see as a crucial distinction. As I reflect on that, I wonder if it’s just gotten that much more difficult to teach Hemingway in this cultural moment. Yes, it embraces a sense of machismo, and yes we get glimpses of the misogyny that will find its full flower in things like “The Short, Happy Life of Frances MacComber,” but there’s a greatness – a vulnerability – here, too, that I’d hate to keep future classes from glimpsing.
At the same time, it may be that the distractions of Hemingway have gotten too loud and that they overshadow his virtues.
Since this came into the public domain at the start of 2022, we’re going to see some good new editions. I may look through some of them, but I’m going to have to give a lot of thought to whether to include it the next I teach the American survey.
September 23, 2019
Hemingway's first book, and much literary labor has gone into its interpretation, particularly of the structure. Stories that feel more or less complete are set against italicized vignettes of war, bullfighting, and other acts of masculine heroism. Characters are not shared from story to vignette (though many of the full-length stories are about Nick Adams, famously) and often protagonists and narrators are not named. Critics wonder how to read these vignettes, which are generally outside time and do not build in a linear or conventionally narrative way. The stories, by contrast, begin in Adams' childhood, and though not all the stories involve Adams, his maturation -- through failed romance, war, and pilgrimage -- nevertheless make up the collection's true heart.
Hemingway himself claimed that the collection was arranged in a deliberate and careful way, meant to evoke themes of alienation in the new century (In Our Time was originally published in 1924), the rearrangement of borders (both geographic and psychological) by war, and the emotional costs of masculine performance (of which war is an example). Hemingway is very often critiqued for his misogyny and treatment of female characters, and I won't attempt to correct this perception -- such critiques are certainly supportable. However, I tend to read Hemingway as very critical of the conventionally masculine, and I think the vignettes about war, bullfighting, and other acts of violence are there to cast into greater relief the experiences of Adams and other (male) protagonists in the full stories, whose experiences are, in essence, about the damage caused by violence and stoicism, and the losses, confusions, and sorrows caused by limited emotional language. Yes, women in these stories have full lives only insofar as they relate to men, and much of the content and circumstances are white, male, American (baseball, fishing, whisky). But there are still (in 2019, nearly 100 years later) plenty of story collections and novels that get a lot of play and attention, about those very things, and without the kind of critique offered by Hemingway, via the vignettes. Perhaps we dismiss Hemingway for the responses of his readers (often true, for writers) who saw his work as "about" fishing or bullfighting or wine-drinking. Or perhaps because his critique was too measured or artful, and in that way arguable or ambiguous, even totally ineffective -- perhaps because he's not good at women or race, to say the least -- perhaps because he failed to change the meaning of fishing, fighting, wine-drinking, and we had to endure the men who came after him, whose work is often characterized by violence as regeneration, by sexual deprivation as sincere spiritual affliction (Discuss: is Rabbit Angstrom's main problem that he doesn't feel sufficiently laid? Is he the original InCel?).
Unanswerable questions, or answerable only through contention, a mode which feels increasingly irrelevant, by virtue of being mostly performed. My view, though, is that this book is Hemingway's most strident critique of the masculine (as the thing that makes war, that demands large and small-scale violence in order be expressed, that seems to make that violence itself personally or culturally meaningful), and that the structure bears out this reading. Part One of "The Big Two-Hearted River" is some of the best writing about the long arc of trauma, then or now. Later, books like The Old Man and the Sea will glorify more than critique, but here Hemingway has not lost the thread yet. Essential reading.
Hemingway himself claimed that the collection was arranged in a deliberate and careful way, meant to evoke themes of alienation in the new century (In Our Time was originally published in 1924), the rearrangement of borders (both geographic and psychological) by war, and the emotional costs of masculine performance (of which war is an example). Hemingway is very often critiqued for his misogyny and treatment of female characters, and I won't attempt to correct this perception -- such critiques are certainly supportable. However, I tend to read Hemingway as very critical of the conventionally masculine, and I think the vignettes about war, bullfighting, and other acts of violence are there to cast into greater relief the experiences of Adams and other (male) protagonists in the full stories, whose experiences are, in essence, about the damage caused by violence and stoicism, and the losses, confusions, and sorrows caused by limited emotional language. Yes, women in these stories have full lives only insofar as they relate to men, and much of the content and circumstances are white, male, American (baseball, fishing, whisky). But there are still (in 2019, nearly 100 years later) plenty of story collections and novels that get a lot of play and attention, about those very things, and without the kind of critique offered by Hemingway, via the vignettes. Perhaps we dismiss Hemingway for the responses of his readers (often true, for writers) who saw his work as "about" fishing or bullfighting or wine-drinking. Or perhaps because his critique was too measured or artful, and in that way arguable or ambiguous, even totally ineffective -- perhaps because he's not good at women or race, to say the least -- perhaps because he failed to change the meaning of fishing, fighting, wine-drinking, and we had to endure the men who came after him, whose work is often characterized by violence as regeneration, by sexual deprivation as sincere spiritual affliction (Discuss: is Rabbit Angstrom's main problem that he doesn't feel sufficiently laid? Is he the original InCel?).
Unanswerable questions, or answerable only through contention, a mode which feels increasingly irrelevant, by virtue of being mostly performed. My view, though, is that this book is Hemingway's most strident critique of the masculine (as the thing that makes war, that demands large and small-scale violence in order be expressed, that seems to make that violence itself personally or culturally meaningful), and that the structure bears out this reading. Part One of "The Big Two-Hearted River" is some of the best writing about the long arc of trauma, then or now. Later, books like The Old Man and the Sea will glorify more than critique, but here Hemingway has not lost the thread yet. Essential reading.
January 16, 2014
Unlike This Side of Paradise, this was a pretty good start for Hemingway. I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking to get into his work, though. The first few stories were the best ones before it proceeds to get weaker and weaker. The last three held little of my attention. "Indian Camp" I would say was my favorite. But overall much of Hemingway's style is just budding in these texts. He didn't yet know how to say something beautiful and terse. The interludes between chapters were interesting, and I thought them a clever device to provide atmosphere for the time.
The last two stories, "The Big Two Hearted River" part one and two was as intriguing as describing the minutia of setting up a camp and fishing can be in very plain prose. I've never enjoyed Hemingway when he describes landscape because it often amounts to naming the features of the land, whether it was on the left or the right, naming trees and location. But the end of the collection is designed to show Nick Adams rejuvenating himself after the war, which messed him up, but it is just not captivating. A few moments we can glimpse at the internal struggle, but that's it, not worth the 20 pages.
On a side note, I'm sure this all would have been far more important in its time, with certain assumptions within the culture, as well as being one of the few writers it seems to write about the trauma of the Great War. But I'm not one to laud all works by an author because he has been deemed a genius.
The last two stories, "The Big Two Hearted River" part one and two was as intriguing as describing the minutia of setting up a camp and fishing can be in very plain prose. I've never enjoyed Hemingway when he describes landscape because it often amounts to naming the features of the land, whether it was on the left or the right, naming trees and location. But the end of the collection is designed to show Nick Adams rejuvenating himself after the war, which messed him up, but it is just not captivating. A few moments we can glimpse at the internal struggle, but that's it, not worth the 20 pages.
On a side note, I'm sure this all would have been far more important in its time, with certain assumptions within the culture, as well as being one of the few writers it seems to write about the trauma of the Great War. But I'm not one to laud all works by an author because he has been deemed a genius.
June 2, 2007
Any review I write here is going to make me sound stupid. Somehow I left it not really having enjoyed it, but having renewed my appreciation for Hemingway's writing (though not necessarily his skills of positioning stories in a collection - even though I'm still not convinced that's the best word to describe this).
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