It has been about 40 years since I read Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" in High School which I plan on re reading that next. I have several of his novels on my "to read" shelf but decided on reading "Islands in the Stream" after a Goodreads' friend recommend this book to me, it being a favorite. I had no idea what this novel was about except what the name implies and it was published in 1970 about ten years after his death. I enjoy going into a book blind because I rather not have any influence on my perspective. I did see that someone suggested reading "The Old Man in the Sea" after; hence my next read. Not being familiar with these Islands and sea life and boats, I enjoyed looking certain fish and other things unknown.

While I was reading this wonderful story, I was wondering how much of this was his life and others he might have known and to the very end I was thinking in those lines. These stories were found by Mary Hemingway, rough but seemed finished. He started this story in 1950, when his novel "Across the River and Into the Trees" was not well received. Added that story to my list "to read" because many times I enjoy stories not deemed popular, so I will give that a try at some point. How much was added because this was "rough but finished", when I was reading this I had no idea of this sentiment but as I reading it seemed quite complete. As I found out later, Hemingway had experiences in these Islands and had an American painter friend, Henry Strater, and also friends, The Murphys who had something happened to them that caused Hemingway to notice and use it in his story. Last Hemingway's boat, Pilar, was used during World War 2 in hunting U-Boats near these Islands.
If you like a straight forward story with things spelled out, you will not find it here. The way to take this novel is to read not expecting to know all right away and even then many things are not told or quite clear but when you finish you will see it in the whole and how important each part plays in Tom Hudson's life and in his heart and mind, which encompasses his whole being. The narrator is third person but knows all in Tom's mind and everything around him. The characters not present are unknown to him and us, except once I remember when this rule was broken briefly near the end of the "Cuba" part 2.


Part 1- Bimini, we are introduced to painter, Tom Hudson, who lives on this island and his family and friends visit him. He has a routine he adheres by that helps him keep structure in his life. I loved this section which had describes his three sons and the differences in them. We learn about something in his life and his fondness for drinking. I cried at the end of this section and the beginnings of part 2.


Part 2- Cuba, This section has "The Lost Weekend" film feel but not to that extreme. If you had seen this movie, you remember Ray Milland's portrayal of a hopeless alcoholic in "The Lost Weekend" but Tom Hudson is different. Note, I found out that this movie was based on Charles Jackson's novel, added it. Hemingway's Lady of the Night are mentioned in this section a fair amount and it reminds me a little of Steinbeck but it is all Hemingway. This part seems to be about 15 years later but that is my guess.

Part 3- At Sea, It is not clear that this part is during World War 2 or after but the use of Tom Hudson's boat and his being the leader of this melange of men in the hunt for Germans near the Islands. This section is as interesting as the other two parts but with added adventure in chasing down the enemy. In this section we find out Tom's dependence on drinking and we know the difference between him and Ray Milland. A comment I noted on Wikipedia, that the ending is ambiguous, I have to differ; if you read the last several paragraphs, you know how things end. An author does not need to "spell" things out but the words he uses makes it quite evident how this ends.

I came away knowing I enjoyed this story and when I thought about all three sections and how they played into Tom Hudson's life and how he acted, I see the humanity in its whole. I see that a person lives their life the best they can but that life throws curve balls, mistakes made but intentions are not always clear but trying to live and dealing with our lives in our own way. The more I think of this novel, the more I see the genius that was Ernest Hemingway and it earned its place on my "favorite" shelf.

This may have been the most miserable slog through prose that I've ever endured. Highlights include the children's stilted dialogue in Bimini, long digressive stories told to a prostitute in Cuba, (Which she manages to point out are boring as all get out.) and then it finally gets interesting, though in need of serious edits about page 385. Please for the love of god, read any of EH's other books. There is a reason that this one wasn't published until after his death.
Read the last book, (At Sea) if you're going to read any of it. This was originally supposed to be part of "The Old Man and The Sea." That novella won a Pulitzer, and it did so because it wasn't dragging this 450 page anchor along with it.

Hemingvėjaus "Salos vandenyne" ramiai ilsėdavosi tualete ant radiatoriaus mano pirmuose vaikystės namuose.

Tėtis su Hemingvėjumi leisdavosi į savo lokalias Odisėjas, o man, jei pasisekdavo, retkarčiais prieš miegą vietoj pasakų paskaitydavo spalvingus aprašymus - kaip šiandien pamenu salsvą iguanų kvapą, bombos ir granatos išmestos krante smarvių skirtumą, pėdas žnaibantį kubietišką smėlį ir, ryškiausiai turbūt, moterišką skarelę, išprotėjusiai plevėsuojančią druskingame vėjy.

Skaitant 1982-ųjų leidimą gali susidaryti įspūdis, kad tai tikrai labai prastas vertimas, mat vietomis dialogai primena dvylikamečių prisipažinimą meilėje po šeštos pamokos mokyklos koridoriuje. Man visa skaitymo kelionė buvo be galo sentimentali ir nostalgiška. Jei galėčiau apimti viską vienu sakiniu: "Salas vandenyne" gautume, jei sumaišytume žydrą ir gerai panokusią oranžinę spalvas. Paprasčiau už bato aulą, bet visos mikro-kosmosinės smulkmenos daug aiškiau pastebimos. Kažkas, prie ko maloniai grįžčiau vasarą saulei flirtuojant su mano paraudusiais pečiais.

Right up until the first inciting event with the kids, it’s a four star. The ending left much to be desired and wasted the amazing setup of the event with the kids.

i loved this book yet reading it i was put off by the disconnect in the three parts of the book. the first part details the life of a painter in the bahamas, the second his time as an alcoholic with cats in cuba, and the last his ship chasing the crew of a german u-boat across the keys.

i really enjoyed the first part, so i will definitely be adding the old man and the sea to my to read list

The book is good. It's good but it's sad. It's a good, sad book about a good, sad man, and that's what Hemingway intended. He knew that writing a good book is a fine thing, because people will enjoy reading it.

I tell myself that he's right: reading a good book is a good thing. You can be glad that the book is good, and you can be glad that you are not a character in the book, because Hemingway books are sad books, and characters in Hemingway books do not have an easy time of it. But it's a good, fine thing to enjoy as a good read.

Lots of books you are not reading, because you are reading this one right now, may be better - hell, some must be - but do not dwell on that. No, do not dwell on that, but read the good book you have, because you know it is good and is nothing to complain about. You've got a good book and it's a pleasure to read, and it's a damned sight better to read than it is to be one of the characters in the book.

If you are a character in a Hemingway book you will probably get shot. You'll get shot and it will hurt like hell and there will be blood and you might die. If you do not die, you may get shot again, later in the book. That will hurt like hell, too, and if you get shot a second time you might as well die because Hemingway has it in for you.

So be glad that you are reading the book, you bastard, and that you aren't one of the bastards in the book.

"Being against evil doesn't make you good ...when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you're fighting"

A manly story about a very manly man, doing the things manly men do: hunting, fishing, fist fighting, a few quick trips to the local brothel, then off to capture nazi u-boat survivors. This novel just oozes with testosterone, yet Hemingway still conveys a sense of warmth and vulnerability. His protagonist is a loving father, a kind-hearted exhusband, who is fanatically devoted to his cats.

He had me at 'fanatically devoted to his cats'

Loved this book … really connected to it

Why Papa is the master:

“The end of a man’s own world does not come as it does in one of the great paintings Mr. Bobby had outlined. It comes with one of the island boys bringing a radio message up the road from the local post office and saying, “Please sign on the detachable part of the envelope. We’re sorry, Mr. Tom.”

He gave the boy a shilling. But the boy looked at it and put it down on the table.

“I don’t care for a tip, Mr. Tom,” the boy said and went out.

He read it. Then he put it in his pocket and went out the door and sat on the porch by the sea. He took the radio form out and read it again. YOUR SONS DAVID AND ANDREW KILLED WITH THEIR MOTHER IN MOTOR ACCIDENT NEAR BIARRITZ ATTENDING TO EVERYTHING PENDING YOUR ARRIVAL DEEPEST SYMPATHY.” ......

“He thought that on the ship he could come to some terms with his sorrow, not knowing, yet, that there are no terms to be made with sorrow. It can be cured by death and it can be blunted or anesthetized by various things. Time is supposed to cure it, too. But if it is cured by anything less than death, the chances are that it was not true sorrow.”

My first and favorite Hemingway's book. Three stories ranging from a fascinating portrait of a father and his three sons to a war story in the Caribbean. The most touching novel. It has nostalgic appeal.

A return to form. Whereas I think acts two and three are perhaps merely competent it is act one, Bimini, that positively sparkles. It would have deserved life as a novel in its own right and it would have been one of his greatest.

I avoided reading this book for many, many years as I was worried that it was simply a poorly edited, rough draft of a book. It is that, but it's more, too.*

In terms of a simple book review-- it's broken down into three novellas, really: Bimini, Cuba, and At Sea. Kind of a cool design. The first and 3rd parts work as stories in that they have plots and build. The 2nd piece doesn't work at all. It's akin to being trapped on an airplane seat next to a drunken boor that will not shut up and tells boorish story after boorish story about his 'romantic' life all the while drinking double frozen daiquiris without sugar. Sometimes he's joined by trashy friends for just a bit while they all drink dobles and then he gets back to running his drunken yap. The conceit of this piece, if it can be called that, is that he's telling his stories to an over-the-hill whore (narrator's term of endearment) who functions as a cardboard cutout that supposedly enjoys these stories. Seriously, from the description of the book, you would think she was some great character. She's not.

Ultimately, the book is a story about grief and it is quite maudlin in places. It does read like a rough draft that needs about 150 pages excised from it. That being said, there is some terrific Hemingway writing in here. The descriptions of the sea and the sand and the trees weaving in the wind are wonderful. It really takes you to the Caribbean. The battle between one of his sons and the marlin in Part I is top notch. That was great. (Unfortunately, his children speak in an absolute caricature/parody of Hemingway dialogue-- imagine Jake Barnes in the body of an 8 year old; Frederick Henry pretending to be a 10 year old. ) Part III is almost a straight action story and could be out of To Have and Have Not with the ending cribbed from To Whom the Bell Tolls. (But I liked that part, too long but I liked it.)

Now, reading between the lines, it is more interesting. All of Hemingway's foibles are on bright display. The narrator, Thomas Hudson, is a clean stand-in for Hemingway-- an artist who'd lived in Paris in the 1920s, father of 3 children with 2 wives, deep sea fisherman, most desirable and exciting man in the room, etc. Hell, his kids even refer to him as 'Papa.' Curiously, he is a painter rather than a writer, although Hemingway doubles himself in Part I with the character of Roger, a writer who also lived in Paris in the '20s and lived the life and now struggles to write anything with meaning. Of course, Roger is a tough guy and expert boxer and easily (badly) beats up a loudmouth yacht owner before picking up a beautiful girl who even the narrator creepily lusts after.

In this section, Hemingway does writing lovingly about about his affection for his children and it comes across as very real. Also of interest to the armchair psychiatrists out there-- he describes knowing a bad thing that exists in his youngest child because it exists in him too. This would of course correspond to Gregory and his eventual tragic arc, and when it meshes with the psycho-sexual stuff Hemingway leaks out in some of his writings...

As I said, the second part is bad, but we do get to see Hemingway frolicking with his cats in Cuba and a description of the drive from Finca Vigia to downtown Havana, also a glimpse into the Floridita and the way business was conducted there. But, the 'story' part. So self-indulgent, pitying, boasting, etc. Everyone hanging on his every word because he's the most interesting person in the world, wondering if he will try to break the record for the moist daiquiris consumed before lunch. It's embarrassing. (Plus Hudson tells us, via the stand-in of the over-the-hill whore about his sexual adventures, including three beautiful Chinese girls at one time.) Also, his oldest son dies flying a Spitfire over the Channel, which I find strange as he was an American. This is after his two other sons die in a car crash in Europe, along with their 'bitch' of a mother. (He did not care for Pauline as he was writing this...) He remains in love with his first wife and never should have left her... Of course, she is the most beautiful woman in the world, a glamorous movie star. And who do you bet shows up in this gin joint in all the world during this debauch? The first wife, on a USO trip to Europe. (Why she stops in Havana is never made clear as she is taking an airplane.) Of course, all the Cubans tell her she is the most beautiful woman in the world. She and Thomas Hudson return to his finca before lunch (after he's had 26? dobles) and fall into bed to have sex. She doesn't know about the death of her son and he doesn't tell her because its more important he gets his rocks off before she knows. The she figures out and they fight. The end.

Part 3 is where the book goes deliriously off the rails in some good ways. Just hours after the episode with the first wife, Thomas Hudson, the famous, well-known, rich painter with houses in NY, Bimini, Cuba, and a ranch out west is hunting for Nazi submarines in the Keys and around Cuba with a crew of irregulars. He is given special orders because he is now a well-trained, suave, superspy. (I guess the Navy didn't have any PT boats or subchasers handy.) Of course, they have plenty of alcohol on board, because that's what professional, modern sailors do, drink highballs with coconut water and gin as they steer through coral reefs. Of course this is Hemingway's play-acting during WWII on the Pilar. (As Martha Gelhorne once opined, his sub-hunting activities involved getting rationed gasoline for boat trips with his buddies and having drinking parties.) Only now, it's for real and they're hunting a real u-boat crew and Hudson is the driven, supercharged, never sleeping Nimitz of the Keys. (I did like this part though. It could have been a good short story with a different narrator. His description of the flamingos was the best thing in the book, I think.) When the twin .50s suddenly show up on the deck of The Pilar, complete with shields on either side of the mounted guns, just like a PT boat, I laughed. They weren't there before, weren't there until Hemingway needed them. They were sailing under the guise of a scientific mission on a small boat.

Good for well-versed Hemingway fans and completists looking to read between the lines; probably a C- for normal lit fans.

*One thing that changed my mind in this regard, in one of his last interviews, which I only read recently, Hemingway spoke of his stockpile of manuscripts and unpublished writers, called them money in the bank for his family. It didn't seem as if he would be opposed to the publication.