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Στην εποχή μας
Η συλλογή αυτή είναι το πρώτο βιβλίο που εξέδωσε στις ΗΠΑ ο Χέμινγουεϊ μετά την επιστροφή του από την Ευρώπη (1925). Στις περισσότερες ιστορίες, ήρωάς του είναι ο Νικ Άνταμς, ένα είδος alter ego του συγγραφέα, τον οποίο γνωρίζουμε τραυματισμένο από τον πόλεμο και τον αποχαιρετάμε με μια σκηνή ψαρέματος σε αμερικάνικη λίμνη.
Γραμμένα στην πιο γόνιμη περίοδο του Χέμινγουεϊ, τα διηγήματα αυτά συγκαταλέγονται στις καλύτερες δουλειές του νομπελίστα συγγραφέα και χαρακτηρίζονται από μια μορφική και θεματολογική ενότητα, ενότητα που έσπρωξε πολλούς κριτικούς να χαρακτηρίσουν το Στην εποχή μας «σπονδυλωτό μυθιστόρημα», «μυθιστόρημα μύησης» ή «ενότητα διηγημάτων».
Από τα βιβλία που άλλαξαν τη μορφή της αμερικανικής λογοτεχνίας του 20ου αιώνα.
Γραμμένα στην πιο γόνιμη περίοδο του Χέμινγουεϊ, τα διηγήματα αυτά συγκαταλέγονται στις καλύτερες δουλειές του νομπελίστα συγγραφέα και χαρακτηρίζονται από μια μορφική και θεματολογική ενότητα, ενότητα που έσπρωξε πολλούς κριτικούς να χαρακτηρίσουν το Στην εποχή μας «σπονδυλωτό μυθιστόρημα», «μυθιστόρημα μύησης» ή «ενότητα διηγημάτων».
Από τα βιβλία που άλλαξαν τη μορφή της αμερικανικής λογοτεχνίας του 20ου αιώνα.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1924
About the author
Ernest Hemingway
1,797 books30.1k followersErnest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, in mid-1961, he died of suicide.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, in mid-1961, he died of suicide.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,663 reviews
October 8, 2021
Hemingway’s first published work, a collection of short short stories, really 18 vignettes. You can read this book in a half-hour because almost all are less than a page.
NOTE: There are more than 200 editions of this book. I read the one published originally in 1924, which is short and just contains the 18 vignettes. Another edition was originally published in 1925, containing short stores as well, such as Two Big-Hearted River. Modern editions of both versions sometimes have the same cover, so it is confusing.
Here we see an introduction to many of the themes that Hemingway would carry through to later works. We meet Nick, a wounded soldier who is probably the Nick of the Nick Adams short stories and the novel, In Another Country.
There’s a lot of drinking. In the very first story we meet a battery of French soldiers on their way to the front. All are drunk, especially the leader. Nick has been shot in the spine, but the narrator tells us that things are “going well.”
Several stories involve matadors getting gored, dying, getting crap thrown at them in the ring - or all three.
One is autobiographical. A wounded American soldier falls in love with his Italian nurse. They agree she will come to the States and marry him. Instead, when he’s back home, he gets a Dear John letter. This is exactly what happened to Hemingway when he fell in love with his Italian nurse after we was wounded in Italy and was recovering in a hospital in Milan.
Two solders talk about making “a separate peace,” a title later used in John Knowles’ famous novel.
There is a lot of violence, appearing random, disconnected and place-less. Four German soldiers climbing over a garden wall are shot one by one. Six cabinet ministers are lined up against a hospital wall and shot. We don’t know what country, who they were, or who shot them. An American soldier shoots and kills two Hungarians robbing a cigar store, apparently just because they were “wops.” In a county jail in the US, five men are hanged, three of them Negroes. A man wounded and immersed in fighting begs and makes promises to Jesus to get him out. He gets out and forgets his promises by nightfall.
Are these good stories? Yes and no. They are typical Hemingway but too short, even for short stories, to make much out of them or to develop any feeling for the characters. Still worth a read.
Top photo from unsplash.com
Middle photo of WW I soldiers from knowledge.ca
Hemingway's 1923 passport photo from wikipedia
NOTE: There are more than 200 editions of this book. I read the one published originally in 1924, which is short and just contains the 18 vignettes. Another edition was originally published in 1925, containing short stores as well, such as Two Big-Hearted River. Modern editions of both versions sometimes have the same cover, so it is confusing.
Here we see an introduction to many of the themes that Hemingway would carry through to later works. We meet Nick, a wounded soldier who is probably the Nick of the Nick Adams short stories and the novel, In Another Country.
There’s a lot of drinking. In the very first story we meet a battery of French soldiers on their way to the front. All are drunk, especially the leader. Nick has been shot in the spine, but the narrator tells us that things are “going well.”
Several stories involve matadors getting gored, dying, getting crap thrown at them in the ring - or all three.
One is autobiographical. A wounded American soldier falls in love with his Italian nurse. They agree she will come to the States and marry him. Instead, when he’s back home, he gets a Dear John letter. This is exactly what happened to Hemingway when he fell in love with his Italian nurse after we was wounded in Italy and was recovering in a hospital in Milan.
Two solders talk about making “a separate peace,” a title later used in John Knowles’ famous novel.
There is a lot of violence, appearing random, disconnected and place-less. Four German soldiers climbing over a garden wall are shot one by one. Six cabinet ministers are lined up against a hospital wall and shot. We don’t know what country, who they were, or who shot them. An American soldier shoots and kills two Hungarians robbing a cigar store, apparently just because they were “wops.” In a county jail in the US, five men are hanged, three of them Negroes. A man wounded and immersed in fighting begs and makes promises to Jesus to get him out. He gets out and forgets his promises by nightfall.
Are these good stories? Yes and no. They are typical Hemingway but too short, even for short stories, to make much out of them or to develop any feeling for the characters. Still worth a read.
Top photo from unsplash.com
Middle photo of WW I soldiers from knowledge.ca
Hemingway's 1923 passport photo from wikipedia
April 30, 2022
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
In Our Time is Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories, published in 1925. The collection is known for its spare language and oblique depiction of emotion, through a style known as Hemingway's "theory of omission" (Iceberg Theory).
In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories “Indian Camp” and “The Three Day Blow,” and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic. His writing suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of vision.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پانزدهم ماه آگوست سال2012میلادی
عنوان: در زمان ما؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی مترجم شاهين بازيل؛ عزیز ترسه؛ تهران، افق، سال1391؛ شابک9789651175336؛ در200ص؛ سال1393؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م
کتاب مجموعه ای از داستانهای کوتاه است؛ سیزده داستان یک صفحه ای با عناوین داستان شماره یک، داستان شماره دو و ...؛ یک داستان یک صفحه ای با عنوان «نماینده ی سیاسی»؛ داستانهای دیگر با عنوانهای: «اردوگاه سرخ پوستان»، «دکتر و همسرش»، «پایان یک رابطه» و «گربه زیر باران»؛ «مشت زن حرفه ای»؛ «داستان خیلی کوتاه»؛ «انقلابی»؛ «آقا و خانم الیوت»؛ «صید غیرمجاز»؛ «برف سراسری»؛ «پدرم»؛ «رودخانه ی بزرگ با دو قلب»؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ مدعی است که مجموعه ای از چندین داستان است، اما چنین نیست بلکه کتابی است از گوشه های زندگی یک فرد، که پشت سر هم ردیف شده اند؛ «در زمان ما» داستانی تکه تکه است؛ نخستین صحنه ها از کنار یکی از دریاچه های بزرگ «آمریکا» ـ احتمالاً دریاچه ی «سوپریور» ـ آغاز میشود، که جزو بهترینهاست؛ و آن هنگامی است که «نیک» هنوز کودکی بیش نیست؛ سپس تکه هایی از جنگ در جبهه ی «ایتالیا» را داریم؛ سپس زن و مرد جوانی را، در اروپای پس از جنگ میخوانیم؛ و پس از آن، داستانی درباره ی یک سوارکار «آمریکا»یی در «میلان» و «پاریس» است؛ و در پایان «نیک» بار دیگر به دریاچه ی «سوپریور» باز میگردد، در کنار شهری سوخته، از قطار پیاده میشود، از سرزمینی متروک میگذرد، تا کنار جویباری پُر از ماهی «قزل آلا» اتراق کند؛ «قزل آلا» تنها مشوقی است که زندگی برای او باقی گذاشته است که این نیز چندان نمیپاید؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ کتابی کوتاه است، که وانمود میکند، درباره ی یک فرد نیست؛ اما چنین نیست، درباره ی یک فرد است؛ درست همانقدر که لازم و کافی است، تا درباره ی زندگی یک فرد بدانیم؛ قصه ها کوتاه، موجز، سرزنده و برخی از آنها بسیار عالی و دلنشین هستند؛ و همین چند قصه، شخصیت فرد و گذشته اش را برای خوانشگر روشن میکند؛ «نیک» از آن تیپهایی است، که در مناطق بکر و وحشی «آمریکا» یافت میشوند؛ او از بازماندگان شکارچیان پوست، و گاوچرانهای تنها هست، که امروزه روز، متمدن و فرهیخته شده اند، و با همه چیز قطع رابطه کرده اند؛ «نیک» نمادی از نوعی خودآگاهی است، آگاهانه نسبت به همه چیز و همه کس، بجز آزادگی، و غنیمت شمردن دم، بیتفاوت است
آقای «همینگوی» به بهترین وجهی از عهده ی کار برآمده اند؛ هیچ چیز مهم نیست، همه چیز اتفاق میافتد، فرد میخواهد آزاد باشد؛ فقط از یک چیز اجتناب میورزد «پایبند شدن»، پایبند چیزی مشو؛ اگر چیزی تو را پایبند کرد، آن را رها کن؛ به چیزی دل مبند، بند را پاره کن و رها شو؛ با این اندیشه که به جای دیگری پناه بری، رها شو؛ رها شو به خاطر رها شدن؛ بزن به چاک! «خب پسر، باید بزنم به چاک»، اوه، گفتن این حرف چه قدر لذت بخش است؛ داستانهای آقای «همینگوی» به این دلیل عالی هستند: چون بسیار کوتاه، همانند روشن کردن یک کبریت، یا کشیدن یک سیگار دلچسب هستند، و تمام
عشق جوانی «نیک» همچو دور انداختن ته سیگار تمام میشود؛ «دیگر برایم لطفی نداره» ـ «حس میکنم همه چیز زیر و رو شده» صداقت در این سطور موج میزند؛ و حکایت فراوان از «سانتیمانتالیزم» دارد؛ زمانیکه همه چیز در درون انسان زیر و رو میشود، «سانتیمانتالیزم» شخص وانمود میکند که چیزی رخ نداده است؛ اما آقای «همینگوی» کار سانتیمانتالیزم را یکسره میکنند؛ «دیگر برام لطفی نداره، باید بزنم به چاک»؛ و میزند به چاک، به جایی دیگر؛ دست آخر او خانه به دوشی است، که مدام به اینسو و آنسو میرود، به خاطر رفتن، به خاطر رها شدن از آنجایی که هست؛ این هدف منفی است، و آقای «همینگوی» واقعا عالی است، چرا که فوق العاده صریح است؛ مانند «کربس» در آن داستان منقلب کننده ی «اوکلاهما» که هیچ کس را دوست ندارد، و تظاهر به این کار، حالش را به هم میزند؛ او حتی نمیخواهد کسی را دوست داشته باشد، نمیخواهد به جایی برود، یا کاری انجام دهد؛ تنها میخواهد ول بگردد، و احساسی از پوچی شدید، در درونش و احساسی از نفی، نسبت به اطراف و اطرافیانش را، ابقا و تقویت کند؛ و چرا که نه، زیرا این چیزی است که دقیقا و صادقانه احساس میکند؛ اگر واقعا به چیزی اهمیت نمیدهد، پس چرا باید اهمیت بدهد؟ به هر حال، او اهمیت نمیدهد)؛ پایان نقل از دی.اچ.لارنس
نقل نمونه متن: (داستان شماره یک: همه مست بودند؛ کلّ گُردانِ توپخانه مست بود، و در طول جاده در تاریکی پیش میرفت؛ عازم «شامپانی» بودیم؛ ستوان اسبش را راند به طرف دشت، و به او گفت: «گوش ات با منه پیرمرد، من مستم؛ اوه، مست مستم.»؛ تمامی شب را در امتداد جاده راه رفتیم و آجودان سوار بر اسب در کنار آشپزخانه ی من میراند، و میگفت: «تو باید خاموشش کنی، خطرناکه، دیده میشه.» پنجاه کیلومتر از جبهه دور بودیم، با این وصف آجودان نگران آتش اجاق آشپزخانه ی من بود؛ پیشروی ما، در آن جاده مسخره بود؛ این مال وقتی بود که من سرجوخه ی آشپزخانه بودم.)؛ پایان نقل
نقل از پشت جلد کتاب: (شش وزیر کابینه را ساعت شش و نیم صبح پای دیوار بیمارستان اعدام کردند؛ توی حیاط برکه های آب بود؛ کف سنگفرش حیاط پوشیده از برگهای پژمرده و خیس بود؛ باران یکریز میبارید؛ کرکره ی تمام پنجره های بیمارستان را کیپ بسته بودند؛ یکی از وزرا حصبه داشت؛ دو نفر سرباز آوردندش توی حیاط، زیر باران؛ تلاش میکردند تا پای دیوار سرپا بایستد، اما چمباتمه زد توی گودال آب؛ پنج تای دیگر، آرام، پای دیوار ایستادند؛ بالأخره افسر به سربازها گفت دست بردارند چون نای ایستادن نداشت؛ وقتی نخستین رگبار گلوله را شلیک کردند، سر در گریبان توی گودال نشسته بود) پایان نقل از پشت جلد کتاب
ناریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 09/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
In Our Time is Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories, published in 1925. The collection is known for its spare language and oblique depiction of emotion, through a style known as Hemingway's "theory of omission" (Iceberg Theory).
In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories “Indian Camp” and “The Three Day Blow,” and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic. His writing suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of vision.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پانزدهم ماه آگوست سال2012میلادی
عنوان: در زمان ما؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی مترجم شاهين بازيل؛ عزیز ترسه؛ تهران، افق، سال1391؛ شابک9789651175336؛ در200ص؛ سال1393؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م
کتاب مجموعه ای از داستانهای کوتاه است؛ سیزده داستان یک صفحه ای با عناوین داستان شماره یک، داستان شماره دو و ...؛ یک داستان یک صفحه ای با عنوان «نماینده ی سیاسی»؛ داستانهای دیگر با عنوانهای: «اردوگاه سرخ پوستان»، «دکتر و همسرش»، «پایان یک رابطه» و «گربه زیر باران»؛ «مشت زن حرفه ای»؛ «داستان خیلی کوتاه»؛ «انقلابی»؛ «آقا و خانم الیوت»؛ «صید غیرمجاز»؛ «برف سراسری»؛ «پدرم»؛ «رودخانه ی بزرگ با دو قلب»؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ مدعی است که مجموعه ای از چندین داستان است، اما چنین نیست بلکه کتابی است از گوشه های زندگی یک فرد، که پشت سر هم ردیف شده اند؛ «در زمان ما» داستانی تکه تکه است؛ نخستین صحنه ها از کنار یکی از دریاچه های بزرگ «آمریکا» ـ احتمالاً دریاچه ی «سوپریور» ـ آغاز میشود، که جزو بهترینهاست؛ و آن هنگامی است که «نیک» هنوز کودکی بیش نیست؛ سپس تکه هایی از جنگ در جبهه ی «ایتالیا» را داریم؛ سپس زن و مرد جوانی را، در اروپای پس از جنگ میخوانیم؛ و پس از آن، داستانی درباره ی یک سوارکار «آمریکا»یی در «میلان» و «پاریس» است؛ و در پایان «نیک» بار دیگر به دریاچه ی «سوپریور» باز میگردد، در کنار شهری سوخته، از قطار پیاده میشود، از سرزمینی متروک میگذرد، تا کنار جویباری پُر از ماهی «قزل آلا» اتراق کند؛ «قزل آلا» تنها مشوقی است که زندگی برای او باقی گذاشته است که این نیز چندان نمیپاید؛
کتاب «در زمان ما»؛ کتابی کوتاه است، که وانمود میکند، درباره ی یک فرد نیست؛ اما چنین نیست، درباره ی یک فرد است؛ درست همانقدر که لازم و کافی است، تا درباره ی زندگی یک فرد بدانیم؛ قصه ها کوتاه، موجز، سرزنده و برخی از آنها بسیار عالی و دلنشین هستند؛ و همین چند قصه، شخصیت فرد و گذشته اش را برای خوانشگر روشن میکند؛ «نیک» از آن تیپهایی است، که در مناطق بکر و وحشی «آمریکا» یافت میشوند؛ او از بازماندگان شکارچیان پوست، و گاوچرانهای تنها هست، که امروزه روز، متمدن و فرهیخته شده اند، و با همه چیز قطع رابطه کرده اند؛ «نیک» نمادی از نوعی خودآگاهی است، آگاهانه نسبت به همه چیز و همه کس، بجز آزادگی، و غنیمت شمردن دم، بیتفاوت است
آقای «همینگوی» به بهترین وجهی از عهده ی کار برآمده اند؛ هیچ چیز مهم نیست، همه چیز اتفاق میافتد، فرد میخواهد آزاد باشد؛ فقط از یک چیز اجتناب میورزد «پایبند شدن»، پایبند چیزی مشو؛ اگر چیزی تو را پایبند کرد، آن را رها کن؛ به چیزی دل مبند، بند را پاره کن و رها شو؛ با این اندیشه که به جای دیگری پناه بری، رها شو؛ رها شو به خاطر رها شدن؛ بزن به چاک! «خب پسر، باید بزنم به چاک»، اوه، گفتن این حرف چه قدر لذت بخش است؛ داستانهای آقای «همینگوی» به این دلیل عالی هستند: چون بسیار کوتاه، همانند روشن کردن یک کبریت، یا کشیدن یک سیگار دلچسب هستند، و تمام
عشق جوانی «نیک» همچو دور انداختن ته سیگار تمام میشود؛ «دیگر برایم لطفی نداره» ـ «حس میکنم همه چیز زیر و رو شده» صداقت در این سطور موج میزند؛ و حکایت فراوان از «سانتیمانتالیزم» دارد؛ زمانیکه همه چیز در درون انسان زیر و رو میشود، «سانتیمانتالیزم» شخص وانمود میکند که چیزی رخ نداده است؛ اما آقای «همینگوی» کار سانتیمانتالیزم را یکسره میکنند؛ «دیگر برام لطفی نداره، باید بزنم به چاک»؛ و میزند به چاک، به جایی دیگر؛ دست آخر او خانه به دوشی است، که مدام به اینسو و آنسو میرود، به خاطر رفتن، به خاطر رها شدن از آنجایی که هست؛ این هدف منفی است، و آقای «همینگوی» واقعا عالی است، چرا که فوق العاده صریح است؛ مانند «کربس» در آن داستان منقلب کننده ی «اوکلاهما» که هیچ کس را دوست ندارد، و تظاهر به این کار، حالش را به هم میزند؛ او حتی نمیخواهد کسی را دوست داشته باشد، نمیخواهد به جایی برود، یا کاری انجام دهد؛ تنها میخواهد ول بگردد، و احساسی از پوچی شدید، در درونش و احساسی از نفی، نسبت به اطراف و اطرافیانش را، ابقا و تقویت کند؛ و چرا که نه، زیرا این چیزی است که دقیقا و صادقانه احساس میکند؛ اگر واقعا به چیزی اهمیت نمیدهد، پس چرا باید اهمیت بدهد؟ به هر حال، او اهمیت نمیدهد)؛ پایان نقل از دی.اچ.لارنس
نقل نمونه متن: (داستان شماره یک: همه مست بودند؛ کلّ گُردانِ توپخانه مست بود، و در طول جاده در تاریکی پیش میرفت؛ عازم «شامپانی» بودیم؛ ستوان اسبش را راند به طرف دشت، و به او گفت: «گوش ات با منه پیرمرد، من مستم؛ اوه، مست مستم.»؛ تمامی شب را در امتداد جاده راه رفتیم و آجودان سوار بر اسب در کنار آشپزخانه ی من میراند، و میگفت: «تو باید خاموشش کنی، خطرناکه، دیده میشه.» پنجاه کیلومتر از جبهه دور بودیم، با این وصف آجودان نگران آتش اجاق آشپزخانه ی من بود؛ پیشروی ما، در آن جاده مسخره بود؛ این مال وقتی بود که من سرجوخه ی آشپزخانه بودم.)؛ پایان نقل
نقل از پشت جلد کتاب: (شش وزیر کابینه را ساعت شش و نیم صبح پای دیوار بیمارستان اعدام کردند؛ توی حیاط برکه های آب بود؛ کف سنگفرش حیاط پوشیده از برگهای پژمرده و خیس بود؛ باران یکریز میبارید؛ کرکره ی تمام پنجره های بیمارستان را کیپ بسته بودند؛ یکی از وزرا حصبه داشت؛ دو نفر سرباز آوردندش توی حیاط، زیر باران؛ تلاش میکردند تا پای دیوار سرپا بایستد، اما چمباتمه زد توی گودال آب؛ پنج تای دیگر، آرام، پای دیوار ایستادند؛ بالأخره افسر به سربازها گفت دست بردارند چون نای ایستادن نداشت؛ وقتی نخستین رگبار گلوله را شلیک کردند، سر در گریبان توی گودال نشسته بود) پایان نقل از پشت جلد کتاب
ناریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 09/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
July 26, 2024
“In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure he would never die”—Hemingway, “Indian Camp”
“Dear Jesus, please get me out. Christ, please, please, please, Christ. If you only keep me from being killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everybody in the world that you are the only thing that matters. Please, please, dear Jesus' The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody”--Hemingway
In Our Time is a book I have read several times over the years. In my view, Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of all time. Certainly one of the most influential writers, in terms of style, a kind of tough-minded minimalism that allows for very little commentary, few adverbs. Not flowery or “showing off” as he would have said; straightforward, simple, direct prose. Hem started out as a journalist and maybe his style in part extends out of that reporter’s call for description/observation, in a just-the-facts, ma’am approach. His depictions of women can be problematic, of course. He married many women, he slept with many more. That energy, the fame, who knows why? But I can guess at it through a reading of the prose, those central characters. The joie de vivre and the anguish. And I love the central great novels—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and The Sea—but the real gems are the stories, which I am re-reading.
A couple weeks ago I was heading to northern Wisconsin for a short vacation, so thought to begin re-reading In Our Time, his second book, because it is a north country book. Tomorrow I head for a few days to northern Michigan, to the exact geographical area of these stories—the Petoskey, Michigan region, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Hem spent his early summers. I have a photograph I recently found of my mother holding me in her arms when I was four months old, near Lake Manistique in the U. P. where I stayed in a cabin every year in the summer for more than thirty years with my family. Hem traveled each summer from Oak Park, Illinois where he lived and I now live, to this area in the north where his family had a cottage.
The construction of this book is unique, experimental, even now, mostly short short stories, some of them 2-3 pages, set in northern Michigan, interspersed with even shorter vignettes set in WWI where Hem had served as an ambulance driver. The (mostly) war stories depict violence; there’s a couple stories about bullfighting he would have seen in Spain in the/his early twenties. The domestic stories are the Nick Adams stories, about nature, hunting, fishing, backpacking, skiing, mother and father, friends, drinking, girls. In general one might be tempted to call this Hemingways’s tales of Innocence and Experience, a record of contrasts, but there is trauma in both the Michigan and European stories.
Reading them this time I see these early stories as gems—not all of them amazingly good, but he is already the model in these stories for generations of writers all over the world. What I am reading in the stories now is a prophecy of what is to come: There’s early drinking, early struggles with girls/women, there’s plenty of depression (though in my early reading I might have thought of it as a kind of existential brooding, something I found then more attractive than I might now.). There is plenty of unhappiness in these stories, yes, and at one point Nick asks his father about suicide, which his father did, and Hem himself committed in 1961, after having won the Nobel Prize in 1953. A lifelong struggle with depression leading to suicide, and you can see this in the stories. It was always there for him, a family history of depression and suicide.
But the style of the stories here is wonderful, in the early gems, especially, “The Three Day Blow,” about a break-up with a girl Nick was nearly engaged to; “My Old Man,” a heart-breaking story about a boy’s admiration for his jockey father, who as he got older became corrupt, involved in “funny” business; “Soldier’s Home,” about Nick’s coming home from the war, depressed and alienated, changed; and the wonderful trout-fishing story, “Big Two-Hearted River” (it’s in the U.P., but it’s a lie, a fisherman never reveals his fishing holes; this isn’t his favorite fishing river); "Indian Camp," where Nick's father delivers a baby by c-section with less than adequate resources, let's just say. Not all the stories are great here, but the few great stories hold up the collection as great, and the experimental concept is also great, overcoming some slighter, earlier stories. And there is everywhere his style, his irony, his barely contained emotions, his darkness and isolation.
“Dear Jesus, please get me out. Christ, please, please, please, Christ. If you only keep me from being killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everybody in the world that you are the only thing that matters. Please, please, dear Jesus' The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody”--Hemingway
In Our Time is a book I have read several times over the years. In my view, Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of all time. Certainly one of the most influential writers, in terms of style, a kind of tough-minded minimalism that allows for very little commentary, few adverbs. Not flowery or “showing off” as he would have said; straightforward, simple, direct prose. Hem started out as a journalist and maybe his style in part extends out of that reporter’s call for description/observation, in a just-the-facts, ma’am approach. His depictions of women can be problematic, of course. He married many women, he slept with many more. That energy, the fame, who knows why? But I can guess at it through a reading of the prose, those central characters. The joie de vivre and the anguish. And I love the central great novels—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and The Sea—but the real gems are the stories, which I am re-reading.
A couple weeks ago I was heading to northern Wisconsin for a short vacation, so thought to begin re-reading In Our Time, his second book, because it is a north country book. Tomorrow I head for a few days to northern Michigan, to the exact geographical area of these stories—the Petoskey, Michigan region, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Hem spent his early summers. I have a photograph I recently found of my mother holding me in her arms when I was four months old, near Lake Manistique in the U. P. where I stayed in a cabin every year in the summer for more than thirty years with my family. Hem traveled each summer from Oak Park, Illinois where he lived and I now live, to this area in the north where his family had a cottage.
The construction of this book is unique, experimental, even now, mostly short short stories, some of them 2-3 pages, set in northern Michigan, interspersed with even shorter vignettes set in WWI where Hem had served as an ambulance driver. The (mostly) war stories depict violence; there’s a couple stories about bullfighting he would have seen in Spain in the/his early twenties. The domestic stories are the Nick Adams stories, about nature, hunting, fishing, backpacking, skiing, mother and father, friends, drinking, girls. In general one might be tempted to call this Hemingways’s tales of Innocence and Experience, a record of contrasts, but there is trauma in both the Michigan and European stories.
Reading them this time I see these early stories as gems—not all of them amazingly good, but he is already the model in these stories for generations of writers all over the world. What I am reading in the stories now is a prophecy of what is to come: There’s early drinking, early struggles with girls/women, there’s plenty of depression (though in my early reading I might have thought of it as a kind of existential brooding, something I found then more attractive than I might now.). There is plenty of unhappiness in these stories, yes, and at one point Nick asks his father about suicide, which his father did, and Hem himself committed in 1961, after having won the Nobel Prize in 1953. A lifelong struggle with depression leading to suicide, and you can see this in the stories. It was always there for him, a family history of depression and suicide.
But the style of the stories here is wonderful, in the early gems, especially, “The Three Day Blow,” about a break-up with a girl Nick was nearly engaged to; “My Old Man,” a heart-breaking story about a boy’s admiration for his jockey father, who as he got older became corrupt, involved in “funny” business; “Soldier’s Home,” about Nick’s coming home from the war, depressed and alienated, changed; and the wonderful trout-fishing story, “Big Two-Hearted River” (it’s in the U.P., but it’s a lie, a fisherman never reveals his fishing holes; this isn’t his favorite fishing river); "Indian Camp," where Nick's father delivers a baby by c-section with less than adequate resources, let's just say. Not all the stories are great here, but the few great stories hold up the collection as great, and the experimental concept is also great, overcoming some slighter, earlier stories. And there is everywhere his style, his irony, his barely contained emotions, his darkness and isolation.
April 1, 2019
Hot on the heels of reading 'The Sun Also Rises' & 'A Moveable Feast' (loved them both), I couldn't resist trying some of his short fiction. I had read the odd Hemingway short-story before, but this my first collection, and I wasn't disappointed. Basically this is the book that thrust Hem into the limelight, and set him on a path to write some of the 20th century's best known novels. His style is again a sparse, simple but efficient prose that works so well, and he has that knack similar to Richard Yates of easily conveying deep emotions within a matter of minutes through the great use of dialogue. There is mixture of experimentation and autobiographical elements with themes Hemingway would return to in his later writings - that of war and returning from war, bullfighting, hunting, fishing, difficulties of marriage, and disappointments. One of his strongest attributes here is exploring moral values. Some vignettes / stories connect characters, some don't. All though are classic Hemingway. The pick of the bunch for me were - 'The End of Something', 'Soldier's Home', 'Out of Season', and 'My Old Man'.
June 6, 2021
Nope. Too boring for me. Don't know what I was expecting but this is not what I usually like.
October 3, 2015
I have a deep, unabiding dislike of Hemingway's style. It's sparse, it's soulless, and reads like it was written by a third-grader who just learned to construct sentences.
Whether you like him or not, have a gifset of Nick Miller trying to be Hemingway:
Whether you like him or not, have a gifset of Nick Miller trying to be Hemingway:
October 26, 2022
In Our Time is a collection of eighteen vignettes, presented as chapters, about the years prior to, during, and after the first world war.
Each story is very brief with hardly any context that will allow the reader to get at its intent. These are unhappy vignettes about folks fleeing the war, cabinet ministers being shot against a hospital wall, drunk soldiers trudging to the war front in the dark, a soldier shot in the spine, waiting for an ambulance amongst the dead, another soldier praying for deliverance from death, a hanging, and a failed romance. There are also five gory stories about matadors slaying bulls or being gored to death.
I cannot say I appreciated any of these stories. They are conveyed in a sparse and nonchalant fashion. There is subtle humor in grim situations. I detected a note of elation in ‘potting’ one’s enemies.
I read the edition published in 1924 which apparently contains only vignettes between major stories.
Two stars. More a function of my inability to relate to these vignettes than Hemingway’s skills.
Each story is very brief with hardly any context that will allow the reader to get at its intent. These are unhappy vignettes about folks fleeing the war, cabinet ministers being shot against a hospital wall, drunk soldiers trudging to the war front in the dark, a soldier shot in the spine, waiting for an ambulance amongst the dead, another soldier praying for deliverance from death, a hanging, and a failed romance. There are also five gory stories about matadors slaying bulls or being gored to death.
I cannot say I appreciated any of these stories. They are conveyed in a sparse and nonchalant fashion. There is subtle humor in grim situations. I detected a note of elation in ‘potting’ one’s enemies.
I read the edition published in 1924 which apparently contains only vignettes between major stories.
Two stars. More a function of my inability to relate to these vignettes than Hemingway’s skills.
August 16, 2019
مجموعة قصص تتكون من 17 قصة قصيرة كتبها هيمنجواي في بداية حياته وتحديدا في عام 1925 وتعد أول مجموعة قصصية يصدرها
القصص بها تنوع كبير لكن الحبكات غير ناضجة وينقصها عنصر التجديد والإبداع وإن كان اسلوب الكاتب مميز في وصف المشاعر الانسانية
القصص بها تنوع كبير لكن الحبكات غير ناضجة وينقصها عنصر التجديد والإبداع وإن كان اسلوب الكاتب مميز في وصف المشاعر الانسانية
June 16, 2023
I think there is a common theme that runs through these short stories. Nearly all of them are about people on a leisurely break from life. And even though they are generally having a good time, the sadness from the approaching return to ordinary life keeps creeping up into their thoughts. Or you could say they are about people experiencing happiness but they are saddened by thoughts that this happiness is only fleeting and sadness is just around the corner.
The stories with the Nick Adams character are special. Especially Big Two-hearted River Parts 1 and 2 where Nick Adams goes trout fishing. They are written with a lot of tenderness. I bet Hemingway had a great time writing part 1. The story makes you want to head out into the woods with some canned food and have a good time. So he definitely succeeded.
This man could write!
The stories with the Nick Adams character are special. Especially Big Two-hearted River Parts 1 and 2 where Nick Adams goes trout fishing. They are written with a lot of tenderness. I bet Hemingway had a great time writing part 1. The story makes you want to head out into the woods with some canned food and have a good time. So he definitely succeeded.
This man could write!
June 16, 2023
Another day, another Hemingway short story collection. I like this one a little bit less. Weird thing to admit, seeing as this collection got me really excited to take a look at The Nick Adams Stories as a whole (so that one will be next). There were a lot of stories that were just meh, and a few that were truly fantastic. I liked the contrast between the always bleak nature of the vignettes and the more neutral topics of the stories. You would go from a story about the dissolution of a relationship right into the middle of war.
I read two of my favourite stories of his here, The Three-Day Blow and Soldier’s Home. The two parts of Big Two-Hearted River were pure, gorgeous writings of scenery. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of either of Cat in the Rain or Mr. and Mrs. Elliot. Nothing negative, but they didn’t blow me away.
I read two of my favourite stories of his here, The Three-Day Blow and Soldier’s Home. The two parts of Big Two-Hearted River were pure, gorgeous writings of scenery. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of either of Cat in the Rain or Mr. and Mrs. Elliot. Nothing negative, but they didn’t blow me away.
February 17, 2017
Short review on short stories. I would amend those 3 stars down to 2.5 stars.
These short stories are credited with being the turning point for Hemingway, having made him famous. This is why I chose them for my next Hemingway read.
On the stories themselves. Most of them were a bit bland, not a lot happened in them, and they lacked a certain emotion. There were a couple, however, that I enjoyed - The End of Something, Cross-Country Snow were good. Although these two stories were only a few pages in length, they did manage to portray emotion, which seemed to bring the pages to life.
And regarding his writing. It is of course unique. Once in a while he inserts a brief sentence of only a few words, and it's like being punched in the gut, having the result of really pulling you into the story. Something I noticed that distracted me while reading was his use of the adjective 'very.' He overuses it, even in his dialogue. Hemingway's use of dialogue in these stories was hit and miss. Some stories were well done, others I found the dialogue unnatural. I think, though, that this is likely a reflection of living a century apart. There are obviously going to be colloquialisms a part of 20th century language that don't hold true today.
Next stop on the Hemingway train for me: The Sun Also Rises.
These short stories are credited with being the turning point for Hemingway, having made him famous. This is why I chose them for my next Hemingway read.
On the stories themselves. Most of them were a bit bland, not a lot happened in them, and they lacked a certain emotion. There were a couple, however, that I enjoyed - The End of Something, Cross-Country Snow were good. Although these two stories were only a few pages in length, they did manage to portray emotion, which seemed to bring the pages to life.
And regarding his writing. It is of course unique. Once in a while he inserts a brief sentence of only a few words, and it's like being punched in the gut, having the result of really pulling you into the story. Something I noticed that distracted me while reading was his use of the adjective 'very.' He overuses it, even in his dialogue. Hemingway's use of dialogue in these stories was hit and miss. Some stories were well done, others I found the dialogue unnatural. I think, though, that this is likely a reflection of living a century apart. There are obviously going to be colloquialisms a part of 20th century language that don't hold true today.
Next stop on the Hemingway train for me: The Sun Also Rises.
October 14, 2024
October 14, 2024 Update The link to the pdf copy of this 2015 edition at the University of Victoria no longer worked. I have instead added a link to the 2015 Introduction by James Gifford and a separate link to the Project Gutenberg public domain edition.
The Ur-Hemingway Vignettes
Review of the Modernist Versions Project / University of Victoria facsimile eBook edition (2015) of the 1924 chapbook original
In my initial Goodreads years and my Hemingway enthusiasm I added the original 1924 chapbook edition of in our time (lower case) to the database as it was missing. Since then I have to regularly monitor that it doesn't get merged with the later 1925 or 1930 book of short stories In Our Time (upper case) where the original 18 vignettes became 16 inter-chapters and 2 were expanded into longer short story versions. Call me an obsessive, but I can't see how 18 short vignettes on 32 pages can be considered the same book as another with 14 (15 as of 1930) short stories + 16 vignettes on about 160 to 200 pages in the various later editions.
Hemingway's short vignettes were based around themes that recurred throughout his life. These were people or animals in extreme situations, often at the point of death. The passages are drawn from wars (World War I and the Greco-Turkish War) and their aftermaths, or matadors with horses and bulls in the bullfighting ring. Often they are based on previous newspaper articles that he wrote, some of which are collected in anthologies such as By-Line: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades (1967). Others were expanded into short stories such as the Nick Adams Stories (1966) {Hemingway's proxy Nick makes his first appearances in the vignettes] or novels such as The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929).
The vignettes are an experimental laboratory for what later was called the Iceberg Theory, where the contexts and backgrounds for stories were omitted and were left to the reader's imagination. Using chapter 4 as an example:
This is shortest of the vignettes, so it is also the easiest to copy. 1924 readers would probably easily imagine this as being a scene from the Battle of Mons in World War I, but a century later that is a more difficult mental jump for most. It is left unexplained who Buckley was or why the Germans would keep coming over the wall despite the obvious easy shooting, as if of targets, by the British forces. The reader has to imagine all of that for themselves.
Trivia and Updated Links
The 46 page Modernist Versions Project edition of in our time is freely available (as of early December 2020) at the University of Victoria website here [Link was no longer working and has been deleted] in pdf format. In addition to the original 32 page text, it includes an Introduction, Textual Notes and End Notes by editor James Gifford.
You can now read the Introduction and a portion of the Textual Notes by editor James Gifford here.
You can read a facsimile edition of in our time at Project Gutenberg here.
The Ur-Hemingway Vignettes
Review of the Modernist Versions Project / University of Victoria facsimile eBook edition (2015) of the 1924 chapbook original
In my initial Goodreads years and my Hemingway enthusiasm I added the original 1924 chapbook edition of in our time (lower case) to the database as it was missing. Since then I have to regularly monitor that it doesn't get merged with the later 1925 or 1930 book of short stories In Our Time (upper case) where the original 18 vignettes became 16 inter-chapters and 2 were expanded into longer short story versions. Call me an obsessive, but I can't see how 18 short vignettes on 32 pages can be considered the same book as another with 14 (15 as of 1930) short stories + 16 vignettes on about 160 to 200 pages in the various later editions.
Hemingway's short vignettes were based around themes that recurred throughout his life. These were people or animals in extreme situations, often at the point of death. The passages are drawn from wars (World War I and the Greco-Turkish War) and their aftermaths, or matadors with horses and bulls in the bullfighting ring. Often they are based on previous newspaper articles that he wrote, some of which are collected in anthologies such as By-Line: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades (1967). Others were expanded into short stories such as the Nick Adams Stories (1966) {Hemingway's proxy Nick makes his first appearances in the vignettes] or novels such as The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929).
The vignettes are an experimental laboratory for what later was called the Iceberg Theory, where the contexts and backgrounds for stories were omitted and were left to the reader's imagination. Using chapter 4 as an example:
WE were in a garden at Mons. Young Buckley came in with his patrol from across the river. The first German I saw climbed up over the garden wall. We waited till he got one leg over and then potted him. He had so much equipment on and looked awfully surprised and fell down into the garden. Then three more came over further down the wall. We shot them. They all came just like that. - chapter 4 of in our time
This is shortest of the vignettes, so it is also the easiest to copy. 1924 readers would probably easily imagine this as being a scene from the Battle of Mons in World War I, but a century later that is a more difficult mental jump for most. It is left unexplained who Buckley was or why the Germans would keep coming over the wall despite the obvious easy shooting, as if of targets, by the British forces. The reader has to imagine all of that for themselves.
Hemingway is, then, a far more difficult author than the simplicity of his prose suggests. This is, in many respects, the greatest challenge and the greatest reward for reading Hemingway: he is both extremely easy and extremely difficult. The contrast lies between his clear and simple prose versus his unstated or implicit concerns. This leads many readers to assume they have “understood” Hemingway by simply reading him when we must first recognize how he trains us to be more careful and more critical readers. In this respect, Hemingway is a pedagogical writer insofar as he teaches his readers a new form of attention, a new form of sensitivity to language. - from the Introduction by James Gifford, editor for the 2015 edition.
Trivia and Updated Links
The 46 page Modernist Versions Project edition of in our time is freely available (as of early December 2020) at the University of Victoria website here [Link was no longer working and has been deleted] in pdf format. In addition to the original 32 page text, it includes an Introduction, Textual Notes and End Notes by editor James Gifford.
You can now read the Introduction and a portion of the Textual Notes by editor James Gifford here.
You can read a facsimile edition of in our time at Project Gutenberg here.
November 28, 2016
In Our Time, much like Hemingway's
Farewell to Arms,
is a meditation on suffering. Between the short stories, half page vignettes illustrate tableaus of violence and death taken from fleeing refugees, the bull rings of Spain, and the collapsing monarchies of Europe.
My favorite linked sections of this book followed Nick Adams, in part because his story is full of intriguing holes, and in part because much that concerns him here is so banal and slow in contrast to the vignettes. One gets the sense that Nick is holding a great well of experience inside him, that trout fishing in a river is a great relief from the anxiety of his memories.
Interesting too, on the topic of death and violence, was the means by which the author met his own end. Particularly when the following passage from "Indian Camp" speaks to it directly.
Why did he kill himself, Daddy?"
"I don't know, Nick. He couldn't stand things, I guess."
"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?"
"Not very many, Nick."
"Do many women?"
"Hardly ever."
"Don't they ever?"
"Oh, yes. They do sometimes."
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Where did Uncle George go?"
"He'll turn up all right."
"Is dying hard, Daddy?"
"No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends."
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
My favorite linked sections of this book followed Nick Adams, in part because his story is full of intriguing holes, and in part because much that concerns him here is so banal and slow in contrast to the vignettes. One gets the sense that Nick is holding a great well of experience inside him, that trout fishing in a river is a great relief from the anxiety of his memories.
Interesting too, on the topic of death and violence, was the means by which the author met his own end. Particularly when the following passage from "Indian Camp" speaks to it directly.
Why did he kill himself, Daddy?"
"I don't know, Nick. He couldn't stand things, I guess."
"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?"
"Not very many, Nick."
"Do many women?"
"Hardly ever."
"Don't they ever?"
"Oh, yes. They do sometimes."
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Where did Uncle George go?"
"He'll turn up all right."
"Is dying hard, Daddy?"
"No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends."
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
April 14, 2009
As I am now part of an Ernest Hemingway Short Story book club, I will write reviews of the stories that strike my fancy and add them to the books from whence they came.
Cat in the Rain -- This story represents one of my favourite aspects of Hemingway's work -- his simplicity.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, superfluous in Cat in the Rain. Every word is purposefully placed for its ability to invoke emotion or conjure an image. Reading Cat in the Rain can transport you to another time and place: to a square near the ocean in Italy during an afternoon rainstorm.
But don't just read it once on the page, read it again out loud and be dazzled by the rhythms of the rain that Hemingway embeds in the staccato dripping and dropping and dripping and dropping of his words. He repeats and repeats to make the rain come alive, and unless you read it out loud you can't hear it.
Then when the American girl and her husband talk you can hear truth that few other authors are willing to attempt, and even fewer can achieve with so little said. They love, they want, they are, but the distance between them makes us wonder if they do any of those things together.
And all of this comes down to a cat in the rain, tightening itself into a little ball beneath a cafe table so that no water will touch its fur.
Papa could write.
Cat in the Rain -- This story represents one of my favourite aspects of Hemingway's work -- his simplicity.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, superfluous in Cat in the Rain. Every word is purposefully placed for its ability to invoke emotion or conjure an image. Reading Cat in the Rain can transport you to another time and place: to a square near the ocean in Italy during an afternoon rainstorm.
But don't just read it once on the page, read it again out loud and be dazzled by the rhythms of the rain that Hemingway embeds in the staccato dripping and dropping and dripping and dropping of his words. He repeats and repeats to make the rain come alive, and unless you read it out loud you can't hear it.
Then when the American girl and her husband talk you can hear truth that few other authors are willing to attempt, and even fewer can achieve with so little said. They love, they want, they are, but the distance between them makes us wonder if they do any of those things together.
And all of this comes down to a cat in the rain, tightening itself into a little ball beneath a cafe table so that no water will touch its fur.
Papa could write.
September 2, 2016
Διηγήματα που σε ταξιδεύουν
January 8, 2024
Some good stories here and some not so good ones. The Nick Adams ones especially I can never tell, except for The Killers that one rules, are they naïve or is there something there? But really the point of these stories, even when they were first published, was to see him work on his technique while we wait for him to produce something more substantial. And considering he went to on to pen three of the best novels of the twentieth century, it's worth checking out his preparations.
He's already very good at describing anything he's actually experienced (skiing, fishing, cooking camp food, disappointing women, propping up a newspaper on a breakfast table). He's not good at the invention part of writing, in fact he's downright cruel about it at times (he was mean to Agnes von Kurowsky, vicious to Chard Powers Smith and his wife Olive, bullied his own father, he himself did not catch 'gonorrhea from a sales girl while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park'). And he's struggling between being an upstanding Oak Park boy who mustn't write about some things, a soldier who's seen some things, and the worldly writer who is obligated to write about these things. He's working on the iceberg technique stuff, which is a good way to split the difference of his dilemmas, but sometimes he leaves a little too much out, at least from my perspective decades on.
On the Quai at Smyrna — not really a story but strong imagery, very reminiscent of stuff coming out of Gaza right now, but about Greek refugees after the Greco-Turkish War. Women clinging to dead babies until they’re separated. Horrible stuff. Must’ve been mindblowing back in the day when the newsreels were so tame.
Indian Camp — I go back and forth on this one every time I read it. It feels very simplistic, almost childish. But there is something going on. It’s about the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of North America, and about recognizing mortality. Or so I’ve read. But it always just feels kind’ve simplistic. And Hemingway did kill himself, in the end. I don’t know.
The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife — kind of bullying towards his own father, and of course Hemingway ended up the same way
The End of Something — I like the ruins of the mill as a symbol of the end of the relationship, with her seeing it as a castle because she doesn’t know it's over.
Three-Day Blow — Nice story about getting drunk with your boys. Always starts out fun but then ends with one of you getting morose.
The Battler — Nick meets a hobo and his Black manservant on the road. My favourite Nick Adams story of this lot, but obviously The Killer is the best.
A Very Short Story —Hem’s romance with a nurse
Soldier’s Home — Maybe the most vulnerable this Hemingway gets
The Revolutionist — Very cool obviously but would’ve liked more
Mr and Mrs Elliot — Very rude to 'the Elliots,' who he actually named in the orignial version.
Cat in the Rain — Touching
Out of Season — Hemingway working his own nervousness to good effect
Cross-Country Snow — a fun enough story with a sad enough ending to make it feel like it was worthwhile
My Old Man — probably the best story that isn't based on his own experiences and that's more than a vignette (that is, it's a story of invention, though I think he based a lot of it on a story making the rounds in the tabloids)
Big Two-Hearted River parts one and two: that cooking stuff was so good it made me hungry even after I'd just eaten but I need more than just camping. Yes the grasshopper stuff was cool and I get that it's about recovering from the war but Hemingway isn't good enough of a landscape writer to sustain my interest
The Vignettes — the war stuff was cool but the matador stuff? Come on, man. That's just cruelty. The political stuff might be interesting if there was more of it, but feels out of place in snippets.
He's already very good at describing anything he's actually experienced (skiing, fishing, cooking camp food, disappointing women, propping up a newspaper on a breakfast table). He's not good at the invention part of writing, in fact he's downright cruel about it at times (he was mean to Agnes von Kurowsky, vicious to Chard Powers Smith and his wife Olive, bullied his own father, he himself did not catch 'gonorrhea from a sales girl while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park'). And he's struggling between being an upstanding Oak Park boy who mustn't write about some things, a soldier who's seen some things, and the worldly writer who is obligated to write about these things. He's working on the iceberg technique stuff, which is a good way to split the difference of his dilemmas, but sometimes he leaves a little too much out, at least from my perspective decades on.
On the Quai at Smyrna — not really a story but strong imagery, very reminiscent of stuff coming out of Gaza right now, but about Greek refugees after the Greco-Turkish War. Women clinging to dead babies until they’re separated. Horrible stuff. Must’ve been mindblowing back in the day when the newsreels were so tame.
Indian Camp — I go back and forth on this one every time I read it. It feels very simplistic, almost childish. But there is something going on. It’s about the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of North America, and about recognizing mortality. Or so I’ve read. But it always just feels kind’ve simplistic. And Hemingway did kill himself, in the end. I don’t know.
The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife — kind of bullying towards his own father, and of course Hemingway ended up the same way
The End of Something — I like the ruins of the mill as a symbol of the end of the relationship, with her seeing it as a castle because she doesn’t know it's over.
Three-Day Blow — Nice story about getting drunk with your boys. Always starts out fun but then ends with one of you getting morose.
The Battler — Nick meets a hobo and his Black manservant on the road. My favourite Nick Adams story of this lot, but obviously The Killer is the best.
A Very Short Story —Hem’s romance with a nurse
Soldier’s Home — Maybe the most vulnerable this Hemingway gets
The Revolutionist — Very cool obviously but would’ve liked more
Mr and Mrs Elliot — Very rude to 'the Elliots,' who he actually named in the orignial version.
Cat in the Rain — Touching
Out of Season — Hemingway working his own nervousness to good effect
Cross-Country Snow — a fun enough story with a sad enough ending to make it feel like it was worthwhile
My Old Man — probably the best story that isn't based on his own experiences and that's more than a vignette (that is, it's a story of invention, though I think he based a lot of it on a story making the rounds in the tabloids)
Big Two-Hearted River parts one and two: that cooking stuff was so good it made me hungry even after I'd just eaten but I need more than just camping. Yes the grasshopper stuff was cool and I get that it's about recovering from the war but Hemingway isn't good enough of a landscape writer to sustain my interest
The Vignettes — the war stuff was cool but the matador stuff? Come on, man. That's just cruelty. The political stuff might be interesting if there was more of it, but feels out of place in snippets.
March 20, 2023
Difficult to rate this early collection from a famous American writer. The stories are over 100 years old at this point, and the rude language can be jarring to modern ears. On the other hand, writers like Hemingway were trying to capture the way that people really spoke, and is perhaps displaying authentic language from early 1900. The use of vernacular and realistic speech was a startling development in fiction at the time.
This collection includes the "famous Nick Adams" stories, but I have to say these were not among my favourites. In the last two fishing stories ("Big Two-Hearted River," parts I and II) the protagonist is named Nick, but the pieces, and some of the other Nick Adams stories, feel like sketches intended to be part of a novel that never happened. My favourite in the collection was Soldier's Home which is an early and insightful depiction of the lingering effects of trauma.
This collection, dedicated to his first wife Hadley Richardson, is even more interesting if one knows the background in terms of Hemingway's biography, the sources of his material and inspiration, and where he was when he wrote each of these pieces. For example, he was inspired by events in Europe to write about situations in the U.S.
This is an important work in terms of the development of an influential writer, but not an essential work by this writer. Therefore, rounding down to 3 stars, because I believe winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize should be enough for any writer.
This collection includes the "famous Nick Adams" stories, but I have to say these were not among my favourites. In the last two fishing stories ("Big Two-Hearted River," parts I and II) the protagonist is named Nick, but the pieces, and some of the other Nick Adams stories, feel like sketches intended to be part of a novel that never happened. My favourite in the collection was Soldier's Home which is an early and insightful depiction of the lingering effects of trauma.
This collection, dedicated to his first wife Hadley Richardson, is even more interesting if one knows the background in terms of Hemingway's biography, the sources of his material and inspiration, and where he was when he wrote each of these pieces. For example, he was inspired by events in Europe to write about situations in the U.S.
This is an important work in terms of the development of an influential writer, but not an essential work by this writer. Therefore, rounding down to 3 stars, because I believe winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize should be enough for any writer.
September 10, 2012
Hemingway's minimalist writing style is polarizing - this isn't news. His sparse sentences, staccato pacing and seemingly adjective free narratives aren't for everybody. But if you like this type of writing, this book of stories is for you.
This is the first time in reading Hemingway that it dawned on my just how much like poetry his writing can be (I'm slow - my GR friends have probably written thesis on this). Here's an example, with line breaks at each period:
He did not want any consequences
He did not want any consequences ever again
He wanted to live along without consequences
Besides he did not really need a girl
The army had taught him that
It was all right to pose as though you had to have a girl
Nearly everybody did that
But it wasn't true
You did not need a girl
That was the funny thing
This is the first time in reading Hemingway that it dawned on my just how much like poetry his writing can be (I'm slow - my GR friends have probably written thesis on this). Here's an example, with line breaks at each period:
He did not want any consequences
He did not want any consequences ever again
He wanted to live along without consequences
Besides he did not really need a girl
The army had taught him that
It was all right to pose as though you had to have a girl
Nearly everybody did that
But it wasn't true
You did not need a girl
That was the funny thing
August 29, 2017
این، یک مجموعه داستان کوتاه است.
با خوندن این مجموعه متوجه میشید که همینگوی چرا بین نویسندگان داستان کوتاه اینقدر مطرح شده. داستانهاش، از ساده ترین مسائل و احساسات انسانی صحبت میکنند به شکلی که برای تمام انسانهای دنیا معنا دارند. پر از جزئیات شفاف و خردهکاریهایی که این نویسنده باعث میشه نظرمونو بهشون جلب کنیم. افعال رو بهقدری دقیق توضیح میده که میتونی مثل یک فیلم توی ذهنات تصوراش کنی و باعث میشه خودت هم توی انجام دادن کارهای روزانه دقت بیشتری به خرج بدی و متوجه جزئیات بشی.
جملاتش کوتاه کوتاه و بدون تکلف اند.
اتفاقات گاهی بدون هیچ دلیل خاص یا محکمهپسندی رخ میدن. دقیقن مثل زندگی! (مخصوصن دورهای که همینگوی توش زندگی میکرده)
با خوندن این مجموعه متوجه میشید که همینگوی چرا بین نویسندگان داستان کوتاه اینقدر مطرح شده. داستانهاش، از ساده ترین مسائل و احساسات انسانی صحبت میکنند به شکلی که برای تمام انسانهای دنیا معنا دارند. پر از جزئیات شفاف و خردهکاریهایی که این نویسنده باعث میشه نظرمونو بهشون جلب کنیم. افعال رو بهقدری دقیق توضیح میده که میتونی مثل یک فیلم توی ذهنات تصوراش کنی و باعث میشه خودت هم توی انجام دادن کارهای روزانه دقت بیشتری به خرج بدی و متوجه جزئیات بشی.
جملاتش کوتاه کوتاه و بدون تکلف اند.
اتفاقات گاهی بدون هیچ دلیل خاص یا محکمهپسندی رخ میدن. دقیقن مثل زندگی! (مخصوصن دورهای که همینگوی توش زندگی میکرده)
August 18, 2019
قصص لا بأس بها، لكني توقعت أفضل من ذلك
January 21, 2018
I don't agree with those who try to discredit Hemingway as a mediocre writer. I have talked with and read reviews by these people and I understand their criticisms but their points could apply to any writer. Also, and maybe more importantly, they don't like his false macho affectation. Okayyy. That's fair. But to go so far as to argue that the shouldn't be remembered as a great writer is just plain silly.
Have these people never had a tight-lipped uncle who liked to go fishing?
Or a brother who got into too many fist fights?
Apparently not.
OK, rant over.
In Our Time is one of Hemingway's immortal books. It was his first, a collection of short stories which was like nothing else that came before it. It's hard to believe it was published in 1924, the age of Sinclair Lewis and Edith Wharton.
These stories are like little gusts of Chekhovian sweetness. There are great moments of tenderness and tragedy that seem impossible to fit in the space Hemingway manages. Each one seems to be overflowing. Like it wants to say more but knows it shouldn't. I love stories like this and that's maybe why I am able to give Hemingway the benefit of the doubt overall. Insofar as he is an American Chekhov, I really love his writing. And this is the golden age in Hemingway's career for this sort of thing. At the time of its publication New York Times called "In Our Time," fibrous and athletic, colloquial and fresh, hard and clean, his very prose seems to have an organic being of its own. I think they were right. Had he continued along this line, and avoided his later self-imitations and "sentimentality," I think he would have been a far better writer, and much lesser known.
To me, the bottom line for what makes Hemingway a worthwhile read is that--although his attempts are not always perfect--he makes literature un-literary. "Literature" at its best is always fresh, coming back down to earth to see how things are going and how people are talking to one another, and then going back up for air. Literature that never comes down to earth, but stays suspended in academia, or in esoteric little hipster sanctuaries of trendiness and high-mindedness, never connects for me. I hate those books.
In college I once had a life-defining conversation with an old girlfriend of mine. We were debating whether or not everyone has the ability to have deep thoughts. She said no, not everyone has deep thoughts. I said yes, I think they do--many people just don't know how to talk about them or they'd rather not talk about them. She said she didn't think so. She said there are some people out there, beer-guzzling mouth-breathers, who, honest-to-goodness, just don't produce a single profundity their entire lives. They just sit around and take up oxygen. I said I didn't see it that way. The topic never came up again, and we broke up after only a few months of dating.
Fast forward three years.
Walking around campus one morning, I ran into her again. I hadn't really seen or talked to her for those three years. The conversation was awkward at first. We shifted our weight back and forth. She asked me what I was reading. I said Hemingway. She laughed. Now, she was loosened up. She said isn't his stuff pretty simple and macho? Yes, I said. But there's a lot there if you're willing to look for it. Well, she said she didn't think she'd ever get around to reading him.
Have these people never had a tight-lipped uncle who liked to go fishing?
Or a brother who got into too many fist fights?
Apparently not.
OK, rant over.
In Our Time is one of Hemingway's immortal books. It was his first, a collection of short stories which was like nothing else that came before it. It's hard to believe it was published in 1924, the age of Sinclair Lewis and Edith Wharton.
These stories are like little gusts of Chekhovian sweetness. There are great moments of tenderness and tragedy that seem impossible to fit in the space Hemingway manages. Each one seems to be overflowing. Like it wants to say more but knows it shouldn't. I love stories like this and that's maybe why I am able to give Hemingway the benefit of the doubt overall. Insofar as he is an American Chekhov, I really love his writing. And this is the golden age in Hemingway's career for this sort of thing. At the time of its publication New York Times called "In Our Time," fibrous and athletic, colloquial and fresh, hard and clean, his very prose seems to have an organic being of its own. I think they were right. Had he continued along this line, and avoided his later self-imitations and "sentimentality," I think he would have been a far better writer, and much lesser known.
To me, the bottom line for what makes Hemingway a worthwhile read is that--although his attempts are not always perfect--he makes literature un-literary. "Literature" at its best is always fresh, coming back down to earth to see how things are going and how people are talking to one another, and then going back up for air. Literature that never comes down to earth, but stays suspended in academia, or in esoteric little hipster sanctuaries of trendiness and high-mindedness, never connects for me. I hate those books.
In college I once had a life-defining conversation with an old girlfriend of mine. We were debating whether or not everyone has the ability to have deep thoughts. She said no, not everyone has deep thoughts. I said yes, I think they do--many people just don't know how to talk about them or they'd rather not talk about them. She said she didn't think so. She said there are some people out there, beer-guzzling mouth-breathers, who, honest-to-goodness, just don't produce a single profundity their entire lives. They just sit around and take up oxygen. I said I didn't see it that way. The topic never came up again, and we broke up after only a few months of dating.
Fast forward three years.
Walking around campus one morning, I ran into her again. I hadn't really seen or talked to her for those three years. The conversation was awkward at first. We shifted our weight back and forth. She asked me what I was reading. I said Hemingway. She laughed. Now, she was loosened up. She said isn't his stuff pretty simple and macho? Yes, I said. But there's a lot there if you're willing to look for it. Well, she said she didn't think she'd ever get around to reading him.
June 28, 2016
I had been going along in my English major career under the assumption that Hemingway just wouldn't be my cup of tea. His reputation, from what I'd heard, was (and still is) one which championed the art of gritty narrative, the bare-bones of a structured plot, and fast-paced, uncensored dialogue. I had read a few of his short stories, and while I acknowledged their strength in minimalism and simplicity, I was never blown away by anything he wrote. Critical enthusiasm for his work was lost on me. I didn't get it.
Until I read this book.
Now, I love Hemingway.
But my affection for the former journalist and WWI ambulance driver has not sprung from the same well of fondness most English majors draw from. All this talk of his prose being "lean" and "tough"; the "sparse" characters; the basic and unpretentious syntax; these kinds of comments provoked nose-wrinkles, slanted eyebrows and internal eye-rolling from my past, Hemingway-less self. These criticisms demean the thought behind beauty of his writing! They imply barbarism towards language, as if Hemingway turned away from complexity out of rebellion or spite!
Stuff and nonsense. Hemingway is hardly the hero of simplicity for simplicity's sake. Each sentence, although written in the thorough vernacular, is deliberately crafted and scientifically weighted for and within the story. The short, descriptive and declarative sentences carry a certain gentleness -- inimitable and kind, manifesting that certain calmness necessary for truth-telling. Hemingway is unclouded, not harsh. The narrative is loyal to events, not emotion. It's genius.
For all you readers avoiding Hemingway because of his cut-and-dry reputation, I am here to clarify the situation. There is so much more to notice and appreciate in his writing besides its obvious lack of clauses, semi-colons, adverbs and SAT vocabulary. Look for the courage, the sadness, and the joy found in these simple stories, and pause your life. Set the book down. Take a deep breath. Just feel like a human.
Until I read this book.
Now, I love Hemingway.
But my affection for the former journalist and WWI ambulance driver has not sprung from the same well of fondness most English majors draw from. All this talk of his prose being "lean" and "tough"; the "sparse" characters; the basic and unpretentious syntax; these kinds of comments provoked nose-wrinkles, slanted eyebrows and internal eye-rolling from my past, Hemingway-less self. These criticisms demean the thought behind beauty of his writing! They imply barbarism towards language, as if Hemingway turned away from complexity out of rebellion or spite!
Stuff and nonsense. Hemingway is hardly the hero of simplicity for simplicity's sake. Each sentence, although written in the thorough vernacular, is deliberately crafted and scientifically weighted for and within the story. The short, descriptive and declarative sentences carry a certain gentleness -- inimitable and kind, manifesting that certain calmness necessary for truth-telling. Hemingway is unclouded, not harsh. The narrative is loyal to events, not emotion. It's genius.
For all you readers avoiding Hemingway because of his cut-and-dry reputation, I am here to clarify the situation. There is so much more to notice and appreciate in his writing besides its obvious lack of clauses, semi-colons, adverbs and SAT vocabulary. Look for the courage, the sadness, and the joy found in these simple stories, and pause your life. Set the book down. Take a deep breath. Just feel like a human.
April 15, 2021
This is a wonderful collection of short stories that cover many many topics. It covers periods of Hemingway‘s party times in Spain and later moves through is outrageous drunken times ( although this. Does last the rest of his life).
Providing support and developed characters are pretty enjoyable.
I recommend
Providing support and developed characters are pretty enjoyable.
I recommend
September 23, 2018
از اعجاز داستان های همینگوی که تا الان خوندم( پیرمرد و دریا - در زمان ما) همین قدر که منی که تو عمرم ماهیگیری نرفتم موقع ترسیم صحنه ماهیگیری و فرار ماهی و... استرس میگرفتم:))
نمیدونم پشت این داستان چه مفهوم خاصی بود که منتقدها روش اصرار کردن چون عادت به خوندن نقد، قبل از خوندن کتاب ندارم. دید رو محدود میکنه. اما همینقدر که منِ فراری رو آشتی داد با ادبیات آمریکا، برام معجزه ست.
متنی از کتاب :
نمیدانم چرا وقتی بعضی ها دهان باز میکنند تا همه چیز طرف را از او نگیرند دست از سرش بر نمیدارند.
نمیدونم پشت این داستان چه مفهوم خاصی بود که منتقدها روش اصرار کردن چون عادت به خوندن نقد، قبل از خوندن کتاب ندارم. دید رو محدود میکنه. اما همینقدر که منِ فراری رو آشتی داد با ادبیات آمریکا، برام معجزه ست.
متنی از کتاب :
نمیدانم چرا وقتی بعضی ها دهان باز میکنند تا همه چیز طرف را از او نگیرند دست از سرش بر نمیدارند.
December 22, 2023
This short story collection is my first time reading Heningway. I saw other reviewers say to start with other collections, but i liked starting out with his early works as i think reading this after one of those collections would have decreased my enjoyment of this one. The Nick Adams stories were good, though I didn't know a story about going fishing could be that long 😂 I think the best stories out of the group were Soldiers Home and My Old Man.
January 23, 2021
Free In Our Time
Review of the AmazonClassics Kindle eBook edition (2021) of the Boni & Liveright original In Our Time (1925)
The Hemingway industry shows no signs of slowing down, even as we approach the centenary of his first published works. His forever publisher Scribner will issue yet another repackaging of short stories The Hemingway Stories: As Featured in the Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on PBS (expected March 2, 2021) to coincide with a new 6-hour documentary on PBS (expected April 5, 2021). The projected 16 volume / 20 year project of the Complete Letters of Ernest Hemingway is only up to The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 5, 1932-1934: 1932-1934 as of 2020. The Ernest Hemingway Library Edition of reissues expanded with early drafts and deletions is perhaps only a third of its way to completion. A seemingly infinite number of biographies continue to be written with The Man Who Wasn't There: A Life of Ernest Hemingway (2020) and Ernesto: The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba (2019) being the most recent.
AmazonClassics have gotten in on the act by issuing a Kindle only reissue of the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of the "In Our Time" vignettes and short stories. They call it the "New York edition" to distinguish it from the original 1924 Paris chapbook edition in our time (lower-case letter title) which contained only the original 18 vignettes. This first American edition added 14 short stories, expanded 2 original vignettes into short stories and used the 16 remaining vignettes as inter-chapters. When Scribner took over Hemingway's publishing it added an additional short story "On the Quai at Smyrna" for the 1930 American edition In Our Time.
Hemingway's early short stories are among my favourites of his writing. Any collection with Indian Camp, The Battler, Soldier's Home, Cat in the Rain, Out of Season and Big Two-Hearted River will rate an easy 5-stars from me. In Our Time also acts as somewhat of a novel-in-short-stories as 7 of the 14 have the Hemingway proxy character of Nick Adams as their explicit protagonist and several of the others would seem to have Hemingway/Adams as an anonymous or renamed character. The overall arc takes Nick from the immortality of childhood in the face of death seen in Indian Camp through to the chastened world-weary Adams returned from the horrors of World War I and seeking revitalization while fishing in the Big Two-Hearted River.
Trivia and Link
I read In Our Time (1925) in its AmazonClassics edition which is available free for Amazon Prime members through Amazon Kindle https://www.amazon.com/b?node=1866070... (link is to Amazon USA, although I used Amazon Canada).
Review of the AmazonClassics Kindle eBook edition (2021) of the Boni & Liveright original In Our Time (1925)
The Hemingway industry shows no signs of slowing down, even as we approach the centenary of his first published works. His forever publisher Scribner will issue yet another repackaging of short stories The Hemingway Stories: As Featured in the Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on PBS (expected March 2, 2021) to coincide with a new 6-hour documentary on PBS (expected April 5, 2021). The projected 16 volume / 20 year project of the Complete Letters of Ernest Hemingway is only up to The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 5, 1932-1934: 1932-1934 as of 2020. The Ernest Hemingway Library Edition of reissues expanded with early drafts and deletions is perhaps only a third of its way to completion. A seemingly infinite number of biographies continue to be written with The Man Who Wasn't There: A Life of Ernest Hemingway (2020) and Ernesto: The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba (2019) being the most recent.
AmazonClassics have gotten in on the act by issuing a Kindle only reissue of the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of the "In Our Time" vignettes and short stories. They call it the "New York edition" to distinguish it from the original 1924 Paris chapbook edition in our time (lower-case letter title) which contained only the original 18 vignettes. This first American edition added 14 short stories, expanded 2 original vignettes into short stories and used the 16 remaining vignettes as inter-chapters. When Scribner took over Hemingway's publishing it added an additional short story "On the Quai at Smyrna" for the 1930 American edition In Our Time.
Hemingway's early short stories are among my favourites of his writing. Any collection with Indian Camp, The Battler, Soldier's Home, Cat in the Rain, Out of Season and Big Two-Hearted River will rate an easy 5-stars from me. In Our Time also acts as somewhat of a novel-in-short-stories as 7 of the 14 have the Hemingway proxy character of Nick Adams as their explicit protagonist and several of the others would seem to have Hemingway/Adams as an anonymous or renamed character. The overall arc takes Nick from the immortality of childhood in the face of death seen in Indian Camp through to the chastened world-weary Adams returned from the horrors of World War I and seeking revitalization while fishing in the Big Two-Hearted River.
“Is dying hard, Daddy?”
“No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick. It all depends.”
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
- excerpt from Indian Camp
He walked along the road feeling the ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill. His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It was all back of him. - excerpt from Big Two-Hearted River
Trivia and Link
I read In Our Time (1925) in its AmazonClassics edition which is available free for Amazon Prime members through Amazon Kindle https://www.amazon.com/b?node=1866070... (link is to Amazon USA, although I used Amazon Canada).
October 23, 2013
Wow. I am surprised by how much I enjoyed this. My favorite stories are the two Big-hearted River stories at the end.
Since I wrote that, I have been trying to understand why this book has such meaning for me and I still don't have words. Hemingway gets me, I think. Or, his getting himself down on paper, the way his characters feel and react to both extreme and mundane circumstances, is fundamental to humanity, so fundamental that it's difficult articulate and seeing any approach to such articulation feels like a sudden intimacy between us, as though he really does get me. The feeling of interior similarity I get, especially in the last two stories, to Nick, is like a friendship. It makes me happy. To be happy in the circumstances in our time, after having experienced the extremities of what there is to experience in our time, is pretty freaking special and beautiful and rare and to be cherished. I think that's why I love this so much. Somehow the simplicity and accuracy of the language and the honesty of emotion without much extra cerebral interference has created a perhaps unlikely friendship between Hem and me.
Also, I really dig mountains and streams and trees and earth and Hem does too, so that helps.
Since I wrote that, I have been trying to understand why this book has such meaning for me and I still don't have words. Hemingway gets me, I think. Or, his getting himself down on paper, the way his characters feel and react to both extreme and mundane circumstances, is fundamental to humanity, so fundamental that it's difficult articulate and seeing any approach to such articulation feels like a sudden intimacy between us, as though he really does get me. The feeling of interior similarity I get, especially in the last two stories, to Nick, is like a friendship. It makes me happy. To be happy in the circumstances in our time, after having experienced the extremities of what there is to experience in our time, is pretty freaking special and beautiful and rare and to be cherished. I think that's why I love this so much. Somehow the simplicity and accuracy of the language and the honesty of emotion without much extra cerebral interference has created a perhaps unlikely friendship between Hem and me.
Also, I really dig mountains and streams and trees and earth and Hem does too, so that helps.
May 18, 2021
After watching Ken Burns's wonderful PBS documentary Hemingway, I decided to give the infamous author a try. I was astonished -- the man lived such an amazing and daring life only for it to come to a miserable and tragic end. I read in class a couple of years ago his short work A Clean, Well-Lighted Place and I must admit I was not blown away. His writing didn't capture me. I didn't appreciate the simplicity. So after watching the film I drove over to the library. And I'm glad I did.
The book is a short collection of vignettes that follow the life of a man named Nick. We meet him as a young boy when he witnesses death for the first time and then follow as he becomes a veteran of WW1. Most of the stories are snapshots of a moment in time, where almost nothing significant occurs. It's Hemingway's straightforwardness that brings these moments to life, without the need for flowery prose. He paints the scene on the canvas of the minds eye wonderfully; the flowing rivers, the leaves blowing in the wind, the creaking of old wooden floors. Its these moments that bring the vignettes to life.
I plan on reading his other works chronologically. If his other books are like this then he will have gained a new fan.
The book is a short collection of vignettes that follow the life of a man named Nick. We meet him as a young boy when he witnesses death for the first time and then follow as he becomes a veteran of WW1. Most of the stories are snapshots of a moment in time, where almost nothing significant occurs. It's Hemingway's straightforwardness that brings these moments to life, without the need for flowery prose. He paints the scene on the canvas of the minds eye wonderfully; the flowing rivers, the leaves blowing in the wind, the creaking of old wooden floors. Its these moments that bring the vignettes to life.
I plan on reading his other works chronologically. If his other books are like this then he will have gained a new fan.
April 25, 2017
Hemingway at his most experimental. A fantastic book, written before he was "Hemingway."
February 7, 2022
آقای همینگوی به بهترین وجهی از عهده ی کار بر آمده است. هیچ چیز مهم نیست همه چیز اتفاق می افتد. فرد می خواهد ازاد باشد. فقط از یک چیز اجتناب می ورزد: پایبند شدن، پایبند چیزی مشو. اگر چیزی تو را پایبند کرد، آن را رها کن. به چیزی دل مبند ، بند را پاره کن و رها شو. با این فکر که به جای دیگری پناه بری، رها شو.
رها شو به خاطر رها شدن. بزن به چاک! "خب پسر، باید بزنم به چاک" اوه، گفتن این حرف چه قدر لذت بخش است.
داستان های آقای همینگوی به این دلیل عالی هستند: چون بسیار کوتاه، مانند روشن کردن یک کبریت، یا کشیدن یک سیگار دلچسب هستند، و تمام.
عشق جوانی نیک مثل دور انداختن ته سیگار تمام می شود. دیگر برایم لطفی نداره - حس می کنم همه چیز زیر و رو شده.
از نگاه اچ. دی. لارنس
رها شو به خاطر رها شدن. بزن به چاک! "خب پسر، باید بزنم به چاک" اوه، گفتن این حرف چه قدر لذت بخش است.
داستان های آقای همینگوی به این دلیل عالی هستند: چون بسیار کوتاه، مانند روشن کردن یک کبریت، یا کشیدن یک سیگار دلچسب هستند، و تمام.
عشق جوانی نیک مثل دور انداختن ته سیگار تمام می شود. دیگر برایم لطفی نداره - حس می کنم همه چیز زیر و رو شده.
از نگاه اچ. دی. لارنس
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