I picked this up purely on instinct from the newly refurbished 'Classics' section of my local library. I have only dabbled lightly in Hemingway's work, and I thought this collection of short stories was an ideal place to start.

This collection revolves around men, the atrocities of war, being a Father and the wounded, and for the most part, I found these stories to be complex, but interesting, and I can see why he is such a popular writer. However, I cannot say I loved his characters, but maybe that was the point.

'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' was the only story I had heard of, and I also just discovered that this was made into a film adaptation. This was my favourite of the collection, being about a man dying of gangrene of the leg, musing to himself about his life, his accomplishments and his failings. Did he do enough? Were there various missed opportunities? I suppose this enters all of our minds at some point or another. The dying man treats his wife fairly inhumanely towards the end, speaking to her badly, but all the while knowing he was set to pass from this world alone. I thought the themes here were important, and definitely thought-provoking.

The rest of the stories were compelling, and admittedly, a couple went completely over my head, but what stood out the most is how deep and complex his stories travel. On the surface they feel rather thin and watery, but actually, the subject matter here is gritty, uncomfortable and truthful, and Hemingway tackled it head-on.

Well, I think the 1 star rating makes it clear that I hate this. Some people call this Hemingway's best work. I think it's a pretentious piece of crap that lacks emotion, a storyline, and decent characters.

It is poorly edited and extremely sexist (in the most boring sort of way), and yes, I understand this was a popular failure of men from this time period. It basically hates on women, remarking on their stupidity and worthlessness about every third paragraph. Every second paragraph is endless rambling about writing and being a writer that even I, as someone who writes, couldn't care about.

The whole short story is full of nonsense that I feel pretty sure he wrote while drunk (Hopefully. If not, then I'm actually embarrassed for him). Then I suspect he fell so in love with his own rambling sentences that he didn't bother to edit decently once sober.

It's basically a telling montage with one irritating run on sentence after another, and it's not even interesting or insightful. There are no surprises here, except how much I hate this short story and wish I hadn't wasted my time finishing it. Don't expect to feel any emotion while reading it, other than general irritation and boredom. This is tedious. Thank goodness it was short, so the suffering was limited.

Also, I'm actually feeling sad that people from this time period apparently didn't have anything better to read than this, if it's considered a classic and some of his best work. I wish I could make a quantum leap back through time to carry the people something insightful, forwarding thinking, emotionally resonant, and unique. Instead, all they got was this boring montage built around a dislike of women, a fear of death, and condescending ideas about art and creation.

I first read this when I was 16, and, of course, I was far too young to be able to properly appreciate this book; I loved it only moderately. Reread it when I was almost 50: clearly this is top class, especially by the very precise way of writing things down, more introspective and honest towards himself. Hemingway here clearly de-bunks the machismo for which he always is both praised ànd loathed. Apparantly, he managed to strike a more balanced tone in later life. Or is this just an illusion of mine?

Yes, I think that this story serves as a moving account of a man who comes to terms with his life as he prepares to die. However, while I hate to sound as repetitive in my reviews of Hemingway as Hemingway sounds in his actual writing, I cannot stand how his protagonists always take out their frustrations on women. As the main character suffers, he calls his partner a "rich bitch" and a "caretaker and destroyer of his talent." I rate Hemingway's work so low because from my perspective, I must point out how he lets his characters get away with sexism and misogyny, even if they do indeed face painful circumstances. I will say it now and I will say it again: an individual's anger does not justify their mistreatment of another person. I wish Hemingway had understood that in his life and in his writing.

Nineteen short stories, many of them interrelated and/or semi biographical, set in the United States and Europe in the early first half of the twentieth century. Lots of fishing and bullfighting, typical Hemingway. Hemingway, as is his style, managed to reveal human emotion and tenderness at the same time that he is writing about human adversity and tragedy. Also features the 25 page 'Snows of Kilimanjaro' from which Hemingway himself managed to complete a film script for the same named Hollywood blockbuster. 4 out of 12, Two Stars is the best this can get from me.

2011 read

(review in English below)

Como não gosto de ler histórias diferentes assim de enfiada, li estes 3 contos ao longo de algumas semanas.

O que gostei mais foi o do toureiro (Os Invencíveis), pela descrição emotiva da lide, que prendeu a minha atenção até ao fim. É pena que os outros dois contos não tenham destes momentos e estejam escritos numa linguagem que achei muito básica, com diálogos por vezes a roçar a idiotice, sobretudo o terceiro. Apesar de até poder ter sido essa a intenção do autor, como parte da caracterização das personagens, pareceu-me exagerado e demasiado simplista.

Não fiquei com grande vontade de ler mais obras do Hemingway, mas talvez daqui a uns tempos lhe dê outra oportunidade...

I don't like to read different stories one after the other, so I read these 3 tales over a few weeks.

My favourite was the one about the bullfighter (The Undefeated), due to the emotive description of the bullfight, which grabbed my attention to the end. Unfortunately, the other two stories have none of this and are written in a very basic language, including some dialogues that I found almost idiotic, specially on the third tale. Although maybe that was indeed the author's intention as a way to portray the characters, it fell overdone and too simplistic.

I have no desire to read more books by Hemingway, but maybe in a while I'll give him another chance...

I don't like to continually bash famous authors. I worry that it might make me look as though I'm just jealous, when really I am. That being said, there isn't much to The Snows of Kilimanjaro to make it worthy of a recommendation. These stories by Hemmingway feel as though each had been pulled at random from a longer story--as if there was something I had missed earlier and, in eight out of ten of the stories, as if there was definitely something I was going to miss later, by which I mean to say that I felt left up in the air. At the conclusion of each I kept asking myself, "Is that it?"

Perhaps what was worse was how he wrote conversations. They were annoyingly repetitive with characters saying the same line over and over again in rather short conversations. Here is an example:

When offered alcohol the 'thin one' says--"Thanks no. It mounts to my head."--half a page later when there's a second round--"Not me. It mounts to my head." On the next page he adds, just in case you missed it the first two times, "It is alcohol that mounts to my head." and on the next page, after a number of lines that are so meaningless as to be absolutely chalk full of hidden meaning that only literature professors could interpret, he reminds us, "I can't take it. It goes right to my head."

I get the feeling he's not into alcohol. It's subtle, but it's there.

Here's a line that is so repetitive all by itself that nothing can save it: "No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I'm going right down to the church to pray." That was seven Nos! All in response to an invitation to listen to a football game on the radio. I would have to work very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard to write so badlier as this. (You see? It's not easy.)

Now for the only thing I actually liked about the book. The smell. The copy I read was over fifty years old and the musty aroma brought back memories of shabby little book shops I used to frequent as a teen in New York City. You'd see a sign that only read "Books" and through the door with its little bell above, there would be stacks as high as the ceiling and shelves where the word unkempt wouldn't do to describe. I always went with Unruly, as if the thousands of stories fought to be seen and read.

In these shops, it seemed alphabetizing was seen as a sign of weakness and the only order came from the endless war between truth and make believe. For me, always make believe won out, and how could it not? Where can truth ever compete with imagination? It can't...except for maybe when it comes to the sense of smell. The smell of that book, that was truth, it's one redeeming truth.
If you enjoyed this review you'll probably like my Youtube reviews--be warned, I enjoy some good snark! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ6D...

OK, It is official. Ernest Hemingway is just not for me. I read this book because I am doing a three month "Give an author a second chance" challenge, and I couldn't think of anyone who I needed to give a second chance more than Hemingway. I have only read two books by Hemingway in my whole life, The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises. Both of those were a long time ago. So I thought, how perfect for the challenge. At first, as I started the book, I was beginning to think that maybe he wasn't as bad as I remembered, but every time I would really start to get into a story.....BAM, he would slap me upside the head with one of the traits of his writing that drive me crazy, thus reminding me why I don't read Hemingway.

For example, in one story he spends a whole page having the two characters say

"Watch the game with me."
"No, I'm going to pray."
"Watch the game with me."
"No, I'm going to pray."
"Watch the game with me."
"No, I'm going to pray."
"Watch the game with me."
"No, I'm going to pray."

Literally, a whole page. Or he describes something in the most undescriptive way possible. Or he doesn't describe it at all. In my opinion the man has no imagination at all. The only things that he writes about are old men who are womanizers, like to either hunt or fish, and want to commit suicide. In other words, himself. I will not be running out to get any more Hemingway anytime soon.

نمی‌دونم چرا با داستان‌ها ارتباط برقرار نکردم. اساساً یه حس «که چی؟» داشتم به اکثر داستان‌هاش، یعنی نه برام مفهومی داشت نه به لحاظ ادبی جذاب بود. شاید زمان مناسبی برای خوندنش نبود. به هر صورت خیلی دوست دارم بدونم آدما تو این داستانای همینگوی چی می‌بینن! من کتاب رو به صورت صوتی گوش دادم. خوانش کتاب بد نبود اما سرعتش کمی برای من کند بود. از اینا گذاشته داستان آخر واقعاً بد بود، هم خود داستان جالب نبود و هم خوندنش بد بود. مدام کلمه‌های تکراری توی مکالمه‌ها می‌اومد مثل «گفت» و این دیگه حوصله‌سربر می‌شد.
لینک کتاب در طاقچه:
https://taaghche.com/audiobook/29288/...

I first read this collection of Hemingway stories when it came out in 1970, and a few times since. I have read all of the stories many times, previously collected in other configurations. I see Papa =as one of the greatest short story writers of all time, and one of the great writers of all time. I don’t have to talk about his life to say that. Most artists are philandering drunks, crazy, and so on. But while I see him as a five star short story writer, I don’t think this particular collection is quite five-stars-excellent, but most of the stories here are great.

I read this book in (machismo-oriented?) Alaska recently, one of my trips of a lifetime, and this may have made me forgive him for that aspect of the work I find a little (for me) anachronistic, as in the kill-a-lion-and-prove-you-are-a-man-to-secure-the-love-of-a-woman, but I still find most of the writing stunning. Some of it was seen as experimental, as in short short stories, trying to get at how to represent man-thinking/consciousness, and anecdotes/slice-of-life ala Chekhov. Some of the stories, stripped down minimalist and at the same time lyrical, are wonderful.


***** "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" was first published in 1936 and though was written in his late thirties, already has a tired-of-life quality . Harry, the main character has gangrene and is occasionally delirious, mean to his wife, a rich woman. Hyenas and vultures hovering. End-of-life stream of consciousness memories.

“That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body.”
“He had never quarreled much with this woman, while with the women that he loved he had quarreled so much they had finally, always, with the corrosion of the quarreling, killed what they had together. He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.”
“It was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell.”
“I’d like to destroy you a few times in bed.”

***** "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" first published in 1933, tIs one of my favorite and one of his most despairing stories, featuring an old man who comes in every night to drink himself to closing, and one waiter who revals he is sympathetic to him. There is a nihilst Lord’s Prayer, existentialist, Our nada who art in nada.

**** "A Day's Wait" is a short story probably based on Hem’s own life, where his son feared he would die based on a mis-reading of his fever in Celsius vs. Fahrenheit.

**** "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" first published in 1933, is weird, I forgot it, about a Mexican gambler and a nun that loves Notre Dame football and a guy like Hem who had been hospitalized watching it all. Not my fave but well written.

***** "Fathers and Sons" features Hemingway Nick Adams and his father and grandfather. Papa is at his most romantic--lyrical and spiritual--when writing about the outdoors, maybe especially fly fishing.

**** "In Another Country" is an earlier story, 1927, also a Nick Adams injury story (Hem was injured when he was an ambulance driver in Italy). About courage, has lyrical writing as in A Farewell to Arms. Shorter, but still fine.

***** "The Killers" is also an earlier story, 1927, also a Nick Adams story set in the Chicago area, maybe even Oak Park? I had heard he drafted a version of this at Oak Park High School, in the noir fashion, about two thugss who come into a diner looking to kill Ole Anderson. Nick tries to warne Ole, but Ole is hopeless, resigned. Dark story, mostly dialogue, wonderful.

**** "A Way You'll Never Be" has Nick Adams in a hospital with a head injury, sometimes delirious, clearly brain-injured. Captures this state very well, scarily, tragi-comic. The idea is how to capture the mind thinking.

***** "Fifty Grand" is another early noir story that reminds me of Ring Lardner and Bukowski, a boxing story about Jack, a boxer who just wants to quit, and some corrupt guys who want him to throw the fight, Twisty cool ending. Great sports story.

**** "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" So we know from the title what happens, basically. Beautifully written but dwells too much on the code of kill to show a woman you are brave so she will love you. Macomber runs when a lion shows up, so the relationship is over. . .. or is it? Rich lady Margot is the heartless wife, and professional hunter Robert Wilson representts Hem and his moral rules for manly conduct, eh. “Doesn’t do to talk too much about it. Talk the whole thing away.” But it is still a great story. Has redemption in it, even if I don’t agree with the terms for the redemption.

This books is at its best at the beginning and at the end. This collection features two stories set in Africa, which bookend a selection of more miscellaneous material. The stories in between consist of brief mood-pieces (‘A Day’s Wait’), which are by no means bad, but are certainly short - as well as some longer and more involved stories, of which ‘The Gambler, the Nun and the Radio’ is probably my favourite.

A number of these stories from the middle feature Nick Adams, a recurring Hemingway protagonist, and probably something of an authorial stand-in. Although good, I’m not sure that these stories really ‘connect’ with the stories from Africa at the beginning and the end.

This collection certainly ends well. ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ hits so many of the Hemingway character tropes. And although you could easily question the appropriateness of some of Hemingway’s values (it’s about growing up and becoming a man through lion hunting), you can really feel that Hemingway was having a great time writing it. There’s a lot of passion in this final story.

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