Hemingway in Love: His Own Story in Books and Brews

Nov 07, 2018 Elizabeth rated it it was ok

Shelves: nonfiction, 2018-reads

This wasn't long enough to paint the picture that A.E. Hotchner attempted...I also have zero sympathy for Ernest within this story arc. ...more

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Nov 09, 2018 Ryan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, csb-books-and-brews

I really feel like a person's opinion of this book will waver depending on how much Hemingway they've read and how recently. That being said I really like "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Old Man and the Sea". "In Our Time" is a good short story set. "The Sun Also Rises" is kind of bad, to be honest. And the three novel(la)s I've read of that set of four have all been within the last few months.

Hemingway is a titan of American literature, and people seems to have an opinion about him even if they'v I really feel like a person's opinion of this book will waver depending on how much Hemingway they've read and how recently. That being said I really like "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Old Man and the Sea". "In Our Time" is a good short story set. "The Sun Also Rises" is kind of bad, to be honest. And the three novel(la)s I've read of that set of four have all been within the last few months.

Hemingway is a titan of American literature, and people seems to have an opinion about him even if they've never read anything by him. He's a legend and his private life lives on today even more than his works do, I'd argue. Overall, I really like Hemingway as a writer. I like his style that shirked the popular form of prose at the time.

That being said, Hemingway was not a good person. So I struggled to rate this book. Hotchner's presentation is very forward and terse (in obvious allusion to Hemingway's iconic style) and it gets the point across vividly despite little description. But Hotchner also romanticizes some of Hemingway's poor choices in some places. The book borders on hagiography and I get why: Hotchner was incredibly close to Hemingway and personal relationships aren't easy to write about impartially. We see that explicitly with the way he portrays the female romantic leads in works like "A Moveable Feast" and more roman-a-clef-ly in "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Sun Also Rises".

And while I know readers will struggle with this work because they don't like Hemingway or dislike what he stands for or for any other reason, I think this book is very good and especially useful as a tool to get into Hemingway's mind about the way he treats romance in his novels. For example, when he's with his second wife, Pauline, who hangs on his every word, he was writing "A Farewell to Arms" in which Catherine is basically a lapdog to the male lead Frederic.

But if you read this just as is, you probably aren't going to enjoy it very much. It's the tale of a bitter old man talking about his regrets in life and that's basically 50% of all literature ever written.

I plowed through this and couldn't put it down. This is the ideal supplementary material to any Hemingway book.

And I'd be remiss not to mention the greatest part: on pages 83-4, Gertrude Stein calls Papa out on his double standards and achieved persona that she gave him and it is the ultimate literary clapback. Dorothy Parker would have been proud. ...more

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Nov 18, 2018 Molly rated it liked it

Shelves: csb-books-brews

Yup. He was a misogynistic, self-centered douche. When he talks abut the women he loved, he talks of their appearance and how they supported him - and that's about it. His poor third wife, who got one paragraph, was a writer with her own ambitions. Hemingway said, "I wasn't about to put her needs before mine." He's on his own, without a companion for 9 weeks (his 100 days that were cut short) and he can't take it. When he finally comes back around and remembers how much he loved Hadley, he basic ...more

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Nov 24, 2018 Suzanne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Wow. Hemingway truly was the biggest douchbag in the world. :-P I enjoyed reading about his escapades from the perspective of his friend, "Hotch," and particularly liked the insight into EH's final weeks and months. I couldn't help thinking, though, that society's romanticized image of Hemingway as a hard-drinking, high-adventure "man's man" doesn't translate well into the 21st century and the #MeToo movement. This memoir did make me want to read (or re-read) a few of the short stories mentioned ...more

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