In this novel, Hemingway masterfully explores the complex dynamics of a simple triangle involving two bisexual women and a straight man. The lean, muscular dialogue in Hemingway's last published novel remains clear, honest, and true. The narrative is clean, compelling, and minimalistic, with details that not only enhance credibility but also inspire trust in the narrator's veracity.

I couldn't help but wonder if F. Scott Fitzgerald's numerous trials with Zelda, considering Hemingway was a trusted confidant of Scott, had left a more profound and lasting impression on Hemingway than he would publicly acknowledge. The sub-plot of the elephant hunt, as seen through the eyes of David Bourne as a young man, is classic Hemingway. I found myself sympathizing with his hatred of the hunt for ivory.

The women, admittedly from a different era, sometimes struck me as overly compliant, while at other times their dialogue seemed mannish and inappropriate. However, overall, the portrayal of these three hedonistic characters in the idyllic settings of Spain and the South of France was well-crafted, as I became invested in what happened to each of them throughout the story.

Hemingway's last work concludes on a note of powerful optimism, luminous and hopeful that in the end, paradise, once lost, can be regained on earth. For a Nobel laureate novelist who had witnessed so much of the grim reality of war, the tempestuous nature of love, and the testing of humans by a harsh universe, his ability to maintain such optimism is both reassuring and, at its best, an inspiration. Hemingway may have written better short works, but he ended his career as a novelist with a graceful flourish, suggesting that the "garden" still exists through grace, if only one has the will to reclaim it.

"Spím."

"I was sleeping too."

"I know. It's so strange."

"Not strange."

"Well, no, if you want. It's wonderful how we fit together. Are we going to sleep?"

"Do you want to sleep?"

"I want us both to sleep."

"I'll try."

"Already?"

"No."

"Try to."

"I'm trying."

"Then close your eyes."

"I want to see you new in the morning."

"Did I figure it out well?"

"Stop talking already."

"This is the only way to slow everything down. Couldn't you talk?"

I'm not at all surprised that Hemingway wrote this book for fifteen years because such demented dialogues a person couldn't come up with in a year or two. It takes at least a decade. Hemingway also really cared about the characters, which he sculpted into the form of purebred retards, and that must have taken him a few years too. The writer David Bourne from the trio of cripples comes off probably the best - he writes in the morning, then he sips champagne and goes tanning. In the evening, he has to fend off the intellectual attacks of his blistered tanned thighs, which constantly persuade him to drink more champagne, tan more and shop more - after which David always gives in because he is the biggest wimp that ever existed, which is amazing because his wife is the biggest slut that ever appeared in literature. Besides doing everything written above, she also constantly babbles nonsense, wants boobs and on top of that she masters the super paranoid skill of turning any conversation by one hundred and eighty degrees. And to complete the triangle of dementia, there is the whining prose that these two sissies toss around between them like a hot potato, which is easy because the prose was probably born without a brain and, surprisingly, can only do three activities like a married couple - drink wine, tan and shop.

I absolutely have no idea what Hemingway was aiming for by writing a book about three whores in a restaurant, who suck boobs and guess and do that every day all summer without any change, which Hemingway faithfully describes day by day, as if The Deadly Trap 6: The Breakfast was taking place in front of us. In moments when he presumably ran out of rum, he also composes a story about how he hunts elephants and at that moment it's such a surrealist mess that not even Pavel Karoch with his magic pen in the Football Studio could analyze it. This is simply literary shit and I have no problem writing it even though it's about a great man - because this is such a shitty pile of crap that even Stevie Wonder would sweep it under the table.

David thought: "I have to remember this," and he always remembered it, although it was never of any use to him.

It is one of the most beautiful things that has been written about love, jealousy, open relationships, androgyny, literary creation... A cocktail of many ingredients that, in some way, manage to combine perfectly. Hemingway builds beauty as if it were the easiest thing to do.

Hemingway's writing is truly remarkable. His words have the power to transport readers to another world, a world filled with complex emotions and vivid characters. In this particular passage, we see David's inner turmoil as he grapples with a memory that, despite its uselessness, he cannot forget.

The mention of love, jealousy, and open relationships adds an extra layer of depth to the story. It makes us wonder about the nature of human relationships and how we navigate through the various emotions that come with them.

Overall, this piece of writing is a testament to Hemingway's genius as a writer. His ability to combine different elements and create a beautiful and engaging story is truly inspiring.

This is one of Hemingway’s novels published posthumously.

As usual, there is disagreement on the appropriateness of the editing and cutting. Hemingway worked on this novel from 1946 until his death by suicide in 1961. Biographers say that up to two-thirds of the material was cut, including an extended subplot. Does this mean that Ernest may rise yet again and give us another novel in the future? Perhaps Hemingway thought that the strong sexual content was still too avant garde for the times?

The story is about a few months in the life of a newlywed American couple. It is set, with lots of local color, in the beach resorts of the French Riviera and in Spain’s Basque country and Madrid. The young man is an author who has published two somewhat successful novels. He is working on a third based on the story of his current life and new wife. He takes a break from that novel by also writing Hemingway-esque short stories about his experiences as a boy going big-game hunting with his alcoholic father. One such story is built into the narrative of the Garden of Eden novel. His wife, 21 years old, supports her husband and their lifestyle with monthly checks from family wealth.

They genuinely love each other and live a dream life for a few weeks. But little by little, the woman reveals that she wants to play the male role in sex. In Hemingway’s words, “the girl wants to be a boy.” We don’t get any John Updike-like details, but the man is willing to experiment. Then she gets her hair cut as short as a boy’s and dyes it silver-white. She insists he do the same and she wants them to get tans as dark as possible. She invites a beautiful bi-sexual young woman to join them and they both have sex with her separately, although the husband resists a formal three-some.

Completely independent of the young woman’s sexual orientation and adventures, we start to realize that she is mentally ill. And with Hemingway’s writing skills, we get a bit of a thrill out of the fact that we seem to start to realize this before the husband does. She is domineering and always wants what she wants, but that changes from hour to hour. Just two examples: she eggs him on to have sex with the other woman and then turns against him for having a “whore.” Or she tells him how much she loves his writings and then turns around and tells him it’s garbage. He acts like he got hit by a truck.

I thought the writing was very good; very Hemingway of course. Short and simple sentences, although not always short – sometimes he strings them along with ‘ands’ but commas are rare and semi-colons essentially non-existent. Here’s a long but simple sentence stitched together with five ‘ands’: “The room they lived in looked like the painting of Van Gogh’s room at Arles except there was a double bed and two big windows and you could look out across the water and the marsh and sea meadows to the white town and bright beach of Palavas.”

We read so much about liquor that drinking is almost like a character in the story. They drink a lot! Absinthe with Perrier, pastis (anisette), local reds and whites, such as Tavel; Haig whiskey and others, martinis, Armagnac (like cognac), champagne, Tom Collins – there’s more.

Some passages I liked, including one about the art of writing: “The story started with no difficulty as a story does when it is ready to be written…The story had not come to him in the past few days. His memory had been inaccurate in that. It was the necessity to write it that had come to him.”

A good story and good writing; typical Hemingway despite the posthumous editing (to me, unnoticeable).

Photos of places in the story. Top photo, Grau du Roi, from telegraph.co.uk
Nimes, France from theculturetrip.com
The beach at Palavas from greatruns.com
A beach in Basque country from wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons

I'd never read Hemingway before this book. In fact, I haven't read him since (though it has only been a couple of months, at present, since I read "Garden"). Truth be told, while the book is on my "Read" shelf, I didn't get around to finishing it. No, actually, I actively *stopped* reading it, only a few chapters in.

I picked the book up thinking to read one of the classic masters of literature. Indeed, Hemingway is a very skilled author, in my estimation. His attention to detail is stunning, and almost a fault. For example, I really don't need to know everything this young couple had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The dialogue was simple, but elegant--almost like a good stage play, as it were, and definitely a contrast to Orson Scott Card's more "here and now" speech. That made it easy to get lost in the world of the book, because it really did have the feel of a place to escape to. And isn't that often the point of reading fiction?
In any case, I stopped reading "Garden of Eden" not because the writing was poor (though I never got far enough to discern any real plot)--quite the contrary, the writing was excellent. No, I stopped reading because to me, this was literary porn. The story is about newlyweds honeymooning in Southern Europe. The wife, often called "The Girl," has some very unconventional ideas about romantic love. She wants to take the male role in the marriage, especially in bed, and tries to persuade her husband to play the female. By the time I quit, things were getting rather kinky as the husband, willing to please his wife, begins to surrender his manhood. Maybe the book makes interesting social commentary on gender roles, but I guess I'll never know. Perhaps my judgment is hasty since I only read three or four chapters. But I'm reading with my own set of morals, and the book offended them enough that I'd rather not finish it and just admit that I've more or less judged a book by its cover.

Fascinating and rare indeed is the view we get of Hemingway and the morality of 1920s Spain and France.

Here, he lays bare his soul, expressing deep regret for having given away important information that ultimately leads to the destruction of an elephant.

The complex themes of love, sexuality, and gender play are carefully weighed and explored, offering us a profound insight into the inner workings of his mind.

Moreover, this account reveals much of his writing life, allowing us to peek behind the curtain and see the creative process that gave birth to some of the greatest literary works of the 20th century.

It is a captivating journey through time and space, a must-read for anyone interested in Hemingway and the cultural context in which he lived and wrote.

This book turned out to be a pleasant surprise. At first, I loved it. Then, I started to feel a certain aversion to the characters. Finally, I came to terms with the way things went, since it wasn't up to me to change it.

What a macabre and disturbing story! I don't remember ever coming across a character as crazy as this Catherine Bourne, spoiled, arrogant, and manipulative, whose middle name can only be inhuman. Poor David, the newlywed young man, who suffered the consequences of her madness without ever attributing the slightest responsibility to her, being most of the time understanding. I hated her and really wanted to kill her, make her devour herself. If only he had done it for me. (Alright, alright, I'm going to take a deep breath and count to ten.)

This is a more experimental work in which Hemingway proposed to explore controversial themes (even for today's times), thus arousing divergent opinions among the writer's fans and even doubts about its authenticity, which is natural and to a certain extent understandable. In my opinion, and recognizing its eccentricity, it is a very well-executed work and worthy of appreciation, not only for the way it involves the reader but also for its originality. Leaving aside individual hatreds, I really liked the way it is narrated and I was quite satisfied with the "outcome" (in quotes because the end is left open). After all, Hemingway is a brilliant writer and any book of his authorship, by itself, deserves the opportunity to be read. I highly recommend it.

One of the weirdest books that I have ever read.

It gave me a very bad mood. However, I couldn't help but appreciate the impeccable style and the subject: human madness, the degradation of relationships, perversity and perversion, the condition of the writer.

This book truly stands out for its unique approach and the way it delves into the darker aspects of human nature.

The author's writing style is so engaging that it keeps the reader hooked from start to finish, despite the disturbing nature of the content.

It makes you think about the complexity of human emotions and behaviors, and how easily things can go wrong in our relationships.

Overall, it's a book that leaves a lasting impression and makes you question many of the things we take for granted in our daily lives.

I am so utterly gutted that Hemingway took his own life before this magnificent work got completed. As a result, I am left in a state of anticipation, longing to know what would have happened next. However, what we have is truly brilliant.
This novel is so taut and fascinating in its own way. It revolves around a newly married couple, and there is an exceptionally good character study of the wife. She has a desire to be a boy and is a little bit crazy.
Interestingly, one of Hemingway's own sons, Gregory, was a transsexual, and unfortunately, Hemingway rejected him for that. Whether or not this fact lies behind what Hemingway is writing about, it is an interesting piece of his biography to be aware of. I get the sense that he is somehow working through this complex issue by writing about it through a character.
At one point, the main character, who is a writer, berates himself to write complex things as simply as possible, and that is precisely what Hemingway accomplishes here. There are also some beautiful sequences where we are transported to Africa (and unsurprisingly, hunting is a prominent feature) as the main character is setting his story. It's like a Rousseau painting or something of that sort.
I wasn't as engaged with the character study of the other woman who is introduced to create a ménage à trois that ultimately shatters the relationship of the married couple, as a form of criticism. But otherwise, Hemingway is extremely good at character portrayal. There is also the usual abundance of alcohol consumption, which actually made me want to have a drink myself. The setting of summer vacationing in a foreign country on the beach adds to the erotic tone, for this is indeed an erotic novel.

In the Publisher's note, Charles A. Scribner pens that Mary Hemingway lugged an overstuffed shopping bag into his office. Inside were photocopies of (the now deceased) Ernest Hemingway's unpublished stories. Three of the works were of considerable length. One of these was titled The Garden of Eden, which Hem had been intermittently working on since 1946. His tragic suicide in 1961 left the manuscript only partly completed. The first part, which is now the published version of The Garden of Eden, with some minor edits. Scribner remarks that the 2nd Part was incomplete, which, in my view, is truly a pity and a misfortune. I was truly eager to see how Papa would have concluded David, Catherine, and Marita's story. I have a hunch (as I did with Gone with the Wind) regarding what the ending might have been, but we'll truly never know. Ernest Hemingway always manages to surprise me as a reader.

And this literary gem is no exception. Hem offers a profound character study, a diagnosis of a troubled marriage. The marriage is troubled because Catherine Bourne is self-centered and jealous of her husband's writing - it takes away his time from her. She desires to transform David, and she does so even before she introduces and inserts Marita into their world.

"When you start to live outside yourself," Catherine said, "it's all dangerous. Maybe I'd better go back into our world, your and my world that I made up; we made up I mean. I was a great success in that world. It was only four weeks ago. I think maybe I will be again."

She isn't. She makes a mockery of that world. She loathes David's success. She despises David's writings that aren't the narration he is supposed to be working on. She even attempts to merge both into a single image. Her image.

What David discovers is that Catherine is struggling. Yes, she may drink excessively, and perhaps her hold on reality isn't firm. His wife wants to be a boy. Catherine wants to engage in sex as a boy. But she also enjoys being a girl. Other reviewers believe that Catherine is grappling with her sexuality. She is bisexual. That is most likely true, but I believe Catherine Bourne is struggling with her gender identity.

And David is comfortable in his own being. He writes because he must, just as Catherine has to be a boy at times, with an intensity that rivals his wife's. As Catherine battles within herself, Marita becomes an object of Catherine's affection. Later, David also falls for Marita. But David Bourne has his own internal battle raging, and his extraneous writings mirror that struggle.

Neither Catherine nor David truly comprehend the other, and their world is shattered. Would their world still have crumbled around them had Marita not entered "into our world, your and my world that I made up; we made up I mean." Yes, Catherine, most likely.

A book that reminds me a great deal of the reading of "Horses of Tarquinia" by Marguerite Duras. There is a Mediterranean setting, in the height of summer, with rich or indebted foreigners, couples with strange marriages, a lot of drinks, many sea baths, a great deal of adultery or spouse swapping.

It is a torture of narration that made me nauseous with so much unnecessary repetition. It is the worst thing I have read of Hemingway - I did read everything, in order to be able to give these two stars with all propriety.

This book seems to lack the depth and innovation that one might expect from a work of literature. The plot, although filled with various elements, feels rather flat and unengaging. The characters are not developed enough to truly capture the reader's interest. The constant repetition of certain themes and actions becomes tiresome and makes the reading experience a bit of a chore.

Overall, while it may have some redeeming qualities, it fails to live up to the expectations set by other works in the same genre or by the same author. It is a disappointment that leaves one longing for a more satisfying and thought-provoking read.

I find Hemingway rather off-puttingly macho most of the time. So, I was quite surprised to discover that he's the favorite author of a go-getting feminist from my neighborhood book club. She proposed this as our April selection. I had never even heard of it before, probably because it was Hemingway's second posthumous publication, not released until 1986, a full 25 years after his suicide.

My main issues with it are twofold. Firstly, it reads like an early draft of an early novel - unpolished and lacking a proper ending. Secondly, it seems like a male having-it-all fantasy, where two women simultaneously shower a man with sexual attention and switching between them has no serious consequences.

It's believed that Hemingway started writing this book in 1946, but his mind was cast back to the late 1920s, specifically when he was preparing to leave his first wife, Hadley Richardson, for his second, Pauline Pfeiffer. In 1927, he and Pauline honeymooned in France's Le Grau-du-Roi, which is where the story begins.

Hemingway's stand-in is writer David Bourne, who has had success with a novel about flying in the war. He is now dividing his time between Africa-set short stories that reflect on his childhood and his relationship with his father, and an autobiographical narrative based on his life with his new wife, Catherine. They are on an extended honeymoon in France and Spain, and the title makes you think of this as an idyllic time - swimming, feasting, making love, and taking long drives.

However, Catherine doesn't want to do what is expected. She loves the feeling that she and David have created their own world, free to go anywhere and do anything. Obsessed with equality, she gets a close-cut gamine haircut that matches David's exactly. But already on page 39, the newlyweds are arguing; by page 71, they're worried about not having a baby; and on page 89, their heads are turned by a young woman they meet in a café. This Marita becomes the third in an increasingly uncomfortable ménage à trois.

In some ways, this can be seen as a dramatization of the Genesis story and its accompanying Jewish myths. David calls Catherine "Devil," but really she's the Lilith figure, with David (Adam) later moving on to Marita (Eve). Or perhaps Marita could be thought of as the snake, a temptress destroying the couple's perfect union. Catherine is by far the most interesting character, mercurial and driven by strange compulsions.

It was quite edgy for Hemingway to be exploring gender fluidity and bisexuality, but the way these two women attend to David's needs so that he can continue his heroic writing work didn't sit well with me. It's not as liberated a situation as it might seem.

What I did enjoy about the novel were the descriptions of food and drink and the scenes where David is sitting down to work and reliving the elephant hunt. But, as always, there are the annoyances of the Hemingway style - underpunctuated, too many adjectives, simplistic language, and flat and unrealistic dialogue. Apparently, Hemingway worked on the manuscript off and on for 15 years until it grew to 800 pages, yet he never finished it. Editors cut it down, but couldn't give it a sense of closure. In the end, it's utterly frustrating.

Some favorite lines include Catherine's "I look forward to every day," David's "Everyone's full of charm. Charm and sturgeon eggs," and David's question to Catherine, "Why can't you want something that makes sense?" Catherine's response, "I do. But I want us to be the same and you almost are and it wouldn't be any trouble to do it," and her final comment, "I wish it hadn't ended in complete disillusion too."