The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway

In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هفدهم ماه نوامبر سال 2006میلادی

عنوان: بهترین داستان‌های کوتاه ارنست میلر همینگوی؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی؛ برگزینش، ترجمه و مقدمه احمد گلشیری؛ تهران، نگله، 1385، در438ص؛ شابک 9643512967؛ چاپ پنجم 1392؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان ایالات متحده امریکا - سده 20م

فهرست: مقدمه مترجم؛ از مجموعه در زمان ما: اردوگاه سرخپوستان؛ خانه سرباز؛ دکتر و همسر دکتر؛ پایان یک ماجرا؛ طوفان سه روزه؛ گربه زیر باران؛
از مجموعه مردان بدون زنان: تپه هایی چون فیلهای سفید؛ ده نفر سرخپوست؛ قناری سوغاتی؛ در سرزمین دیگر؛ شکست ناخورده؛ آدمکشها؛ پنجاه هزار دلار؛

از مجموعه برنده سهمی نمیبرد: یک گوشه پاک و پرنور؛ پیرمرد بر سر پل؛ دگرگونی دریا؛ زندگی خوش و کوتاه فرانسیس مکومبر؛ قمارباز راهبه و رادیو؛

و برفهای کلیمانجارو؛

این کتاب شامل «هجده داستان برگزیده‌» از سه مجموعه‌ ی «در زمان ما (سال 1925میلادی)»، «مردان بدون زنان (سال 1927میلادی)» و «برنده سهمی نمی‌برد (سال 1933میلادی)‌»، و نیز داستان کوتاه و نام آشنای «برف‌های کلیمانجارو» است؛ بسیاری از داستان‌ها، پیشتر با چند ترجمه‌ ی گوناگون منتشر شده اند، اما چاپ این کتاب، که می‌توان ‌آن‌ را عصاره‌ ی سال‌های سال تلاش «ارنست همینگوی»، در عرصه‌ ی داستان ‌کوتاه دانست، فرصتی‌ است، برای بازخوانی «همینگوی»، و آموختن شگردهایی که نثر، و سبک ایشان را، برای همگان پر خواستار کرده، و بر داستان‌نویسی نسل پس از جنگ جهانی دوم، تاثیری شگرف بگذاشته است؛ «همینگوی» نویسنده‌ ای‌ بودند، که بیشتر داستان‌های ایشان از تجربیات و خواسته های شخصی خود ایشان، مایه بگرفته‌ اند؛ شاید یکی از رموز موفقیتش نیز همین باشد؛ ایشان از چیزهایی می‌نویسند، که با پوست و استخوان خویش تجربه‌ شان کرده، و شناخت کافی از آن‌ها دارند؛ ناآشنایی با بیوگرافی، و زندگی پرفراز و نشیب «همینگوی»، چیزی از جذابیت‌ داستان‌های ایشان کم نمی‌کند، اما به یقین، شناخت ایشان نیز، بر لذت خوانش داستان‌هایش می‌افزاید، و بسا که برای دریافت گوشه و کنایه‌ های نهفته، در زیر لایه‌ ی برخی از نوشتارهای‌ ایشان نیز، شرط لازم باشد؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 09/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 26/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

***Review of short story "Cat in the Rain", which record Goodreads has merged with the complete short stories--don't ask me why.***

I'm not sure why this story affects me so much more than anything else by Hemingway I've read. There isn't much to it--just a brief conversation that is barely any conversation at all, a passing encounter with a hotel owner and a maid, a stray cat out in the rain. And yet there is also a world of loneliness and displacement and isolation there, never explicit but bleeding between the lines so heavily that one can taste it. As always with Hemingway, the impact of the story lies in the accumulation of little details. The unnamed "American Girl" doesn't know any other guests--she and her husband are the only Americans (and presumably the only English-speakers; being abroad has taught me how isolating that is, even if one speaks the local language).

Add to that displacement the fact that she expresses great fondness for a near stranger, the elderly hotel owner, but all interactions with her young husband (are they on their honeymoon?) are decidedly cold--their marriage in a nutshell right there. There is something about that image of the "poor little kitty," out in the rain, trying to stay dry, which somehow sums up all that loneliness and near-despair, and it's more than she can handle, more than I can handle. Wanting to bring that cat in out of the rain quickly moves beyond an act of pity (and, perhaps, boredom) as that lost cat becomes a symbol of everything the American girl desperately desires.

"‘I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,’ she said. ‘I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her... And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.’
‘Oh, shut up and get something to read,’ George said. He was reading again."

I've seen this outburst interpreted as an expression of American materialism, but I don't think that's it at all. She doesn't really just want silverware and candles and clothes; these are the trappings of the quiet, old-fashioned domesticity that she has done away with when she cut her hair short and went to Italy, but that now seems a haven. To wear her hair in a heavy bun the way her mother and grandmother did, to have a house of her own to rule over and something small and warm to cuddle: this is to have an established Place, a sense of belonging somewhere.

To be deprived of all this and be stuck in a strange place with a husband who doesn't hear her is bad enough; to lose the cat, who would bring some small comfort, on top of it all just seems cruelly unfair. "I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat."
It is beautiful that the story ends with the maid bringing in the tortoise-shell cat, before we see how either of the Americans react, because it leaves the question dangling--does having a cat actually make the sadness go away?

When I first read this story in college, during a peculiarly lonely time for me, it was like a lightning bolt through my soul. Because I GET what the American Wife is feeling. I want to go and get that kitty out of the rain and bring it inside and feel it purr when I stroke it; and somehow, it seems, that will make everything all better.

A writer knows he has achieved perfection not when there are no words left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away

How many unforgettable characters Hemingway created, his most succesfull charachter was himself. He lived a dangerous life, loved his women and his whiskeys. His collection of short stories refects this - tales of war, women and whiskey which make Hemingway come alive.

Another remarkable fact of his writing style is the lack of pompous description. As no other writer, Hemingway is able to get to the bare bone of the story, without the need of adding more words than necessary. This is the mark of a truly great writer. Hemingway himself called this the "iceberg principle": you see one-eight of the story, the rest is under the waterline.

The quote at the beginning is my modification based on a quote of Antoine de Saint-Exupery.