It made him feel as a wound does that you think you cannot bear.

The pain was intense, as if it was searing through his very being. It felt like a burden that was too heavy to carry, threatening to crush him under its weight.

But then he thought, you can bear anything. He knew that deep within himself, there was a strength that he had not yet fully tapped into.

Maybe it was this realization that gave him the courage to keep going, to face the pain head-on and not let it break him.

He took a deep breath and resolved to endure, to find a way to heal this wound and come out stronger on the other side.

After all, he had faced challenges before and had always managed to overcome them. This would be no different.

With determination in his eyes, he set off on this new journey of healing and growth, ready to face whatever came his way.

A Strange Novel from Hemingway

For me, as someone who has a deep love for Ernest Hemingway, "Across the River and into the Trees" was truly a huge disappointment.

The Colonel and his one true and last love, Renata, were both unlikable characters. It was hard to find any redeeming qualities in them.

Surprisingly, the dialogue in this novel was awful. Hemingway, who usually excels in writing great dialogue, seemed to have missed the mark here. The constant repetition of "I love you's" became tiresome and drove me insane.

True to his famous quote, there was indeed more than enough weather described in the novel. However, there was no visible plot to speak of. I'm just not crazy about novels that lack a proper plot and are filled with unlikable characters. But then again, this is just my lone opinion. Maybe others might see something in this novel that I failed to notice.

This novel is truly and positively dreadful. It ranks among the ten worst that I have ever had the misfortune to read. In homage to the great works like The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, one might initially give Hemingway the benefit of the doubt. One might believe that he never would have published this disaster in any form other than a short story – had he been alive when it was released to the public. The sad truth is that this novel didn't even have 50 pages worth of engaging and worthwhile reading.

You are my one and last and true love, and I love you truly. If Hemingway, in his prime, would have written anything that bad, he surely wouldn't have repeated it so incessantly. And yet, here it is, splattered all over the page, over and over again. It's no longer about layering and searching for a genuine or "true" effect; now it has become the very essence of the story. And yes, the words true and truly are used in an obsessively repetitive manner.

The last page is perhaps the worst of all. The colonel, climbing into the back seat to die, shuts the car door "well". It's a style that has completely given up its search for a meaningful subject. It's Hemingway at the height of his self-parody mode.

I'm not at all sure that there isn't a high school senior in America who, after reading A Clean and Well-Lighted Place, couldn't then write a chapter of Across the River and Through the Trees better than Hemingway did. Yup, it's really that bad.

Second Reading: December 2014

Yes, this book is not very good: probably two stars at best. And within the context of itself, that is all it's worth. But I found more to this book within the context of what I've come to know about Hemingway, which is just enough to be a danger to my own integrity.

By 1950, when "Across the River's" was published, Hemingway had endured a hard life. He suffered injuries in three wars and regularly abused himself with excessive alcohol. His mornings were for writing, and the rest of the day was for drinking. He must have started to feel the betrayal of his body, and his youthful illusions of immortality must have begun to shatter. It had been ten years since his last book was published. Was he still relevant? I saw these realities as Hemingway's truths, which were imparted to his main character, Colonel (formerly General) Richard Cantwell.

To convey these truths, Hemingway deviated from his traditional approach. In his previous novels, emotions were a burden for his heroes. In "For Whom the Bell Tolls," Maria was more of a responsibility than a great love. However, in "Across the River and into the Trees," Richard Cantwell's emotional state couldn't be gracefully managed. Cantwell, physically deteriorating, grasped for youth and usefulness through his relationship with Renata. Cantwell's feelings were the central message, but Hemingway fell short in expressing them.
Cantwell's thoughts on age, purpose, usefulness, and mortality were engaging. But when translated into dialogue, the story failed. Hemingway, known for his stoicism and discipline, couldn't find the right words.
However, Hemingway's failure in dialogue is what interests me. He tried something new, failed, and then wrote a similar book that won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. In "The Old Man and the Sea," he built on the truths about his body's decay and usefulness but avoided excessive dialogue about the emotions. He used the best of "Across the River and into the Trees" and enhanced them.
I think "Across the River and into the Trees" has a meaningful place among Hemingway's novels. I consider it a study or a preliminary sketch, even if Hemingway didn't think of it that way until it was too late.
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First Read: September 2005