Customer Reviews

The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway - The Finca Vigia Edition, Book Club

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Hemingway's short stories were always a bit more finely crafted than his novels. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway allows the reader to examine and even partake in the development of Hemingway as a writer; from his early Nick Adams stories, a few of which went on to become The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell To Arms, To Have And Have Not; to the mature Hemingway who wrote about his experiences as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War and later in Europe between the wars. This work contains some of the finest shorts of American literature. (Read The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber; The Snows of Kilimanjaro; A Clean Well Lighted Place; Big Two-Hearted River (parts I & II); Hills Like White Elephants--too many good ones to mention them all.) There are some poor stories as well but even these are well constructed. In short, the definitive volume of Hemingway--better than any single novel or other collection. A must have.... (I'm holding mine in my hand as I type with the other--) Little known fact: The Finca Vigia Edition contains an editorial change in the story A Clean Well Lighted Place--a moved line of dialogue--which was made by a silly editor after Hemingway's death and which renders the text incorrect with respect to his orignal published manuscript. In fact there are no correct versions of this short story presently in print. The accurate version, though, may be found in the Library of Congress.

Hemingway is one of the finest writers this country has every produced. In these politically correct times, he was fallen into disfavor, and that is a crying shame. His terse, lean lines are so easy to mock today, but what people forget is that he created that style, molded it and trimmed it down from the long-winded, more European style of writing that was so popular before his advent. As a short story writer, he is the master. Not a wasted word, and every word carved in its perfect place. When a Hemingway character plunges their arm into a cold stream, the reader can feel the ice cold numbing the fingers. His short story, "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber" turned me onto reading as a teenager. So much came from him, and so much still comes from him. Raymond Carver, James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard and many others all walk a clear path that he cut through thick brush.

The greatest short story writers history produced so far; Chekov, Gorky, Korolenko, Maupassant, Bashevis Singer, William Trevor and of course Hemingway, were more than anything else masters of this type of fiction. Even if they all wrote other great pieces, they were (Trevor still is) truly dedicated to the short story. Ernest Hemingway even said that he had "never yet set out to write a novel - it's always a short story that moves into being a novel". Hemingway's short stories are of the type of fiction that grows on you - becomes better with time - and can be read over and over again. You are brought into the "Hemingway world", have a scene or an event described so vivid that you are almost present, and when the story is over not much might have happened, but you have been there - you felt it and saw it - it all happened there in front of you. Such a big collection of stories over decades of writing will have a few pieces less good than some of the other most brilliant ones, but they are all interesting. From "A very short story" - only two pages long, but with the essence of what really happened between Hemingway and the Red Cross nurse in Italy, that later was to be A Farewell to Arms - to the best known, like "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", "Hills like White Elephants", "Cat in the Rain" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Personally I have many other favourites and I will probably come back to them and keep reading Hemingway stories for the rest of my life.

Hemingway's greatest format was always the short story. With the exception (at least in my mind) of The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls (The Old Man And the Sea, although great is overrated at the same time), the tension and economy of line required of the short story form became muddled as Hem tackled the novel.

Although this collection is not complete- missing here are two of my favorite Nick Adams stories- it definately contains Hemingway's finest work. My personal favorite, amoung many many choices included here is both parts of "Big Two Hearted River". Although I am not a fly fisherman, I am a human being and Nick's sense of loss and reflection as it becomes manifested in the wilderness resounds beautifully.

Hemingway is often Thoreau with out the self consciousness.

In re-reading these stories it continued to amaze me how utterly accessible and entertaining Hemingway's short stories remain to this day and how utterly dry, academic and pretentious all the "scholarship" has tried to make him in the unsufferable Lit classes I have often endured.

Hemingway is a great story teller who relates simple narratives that sensually create a spiritual experience. His line of action is clear and devoid of any digression. His avoidance of psycho-babble (thank God he didn't live long enough to experience the 1970's!) and his desire to place things grounded in the reality of doing (actors can learn volumes from reading Hemingway) makes him truly timeless.

There are many great writers who write as if they were talking directly to the audience in a barroom or fireside chat. What I find interesting about Hemingway is a strange void of "talkiness". I never get the sense that he could easily be telling me this story as a dramatic monolouge. His style often manages to transcend spoken language and commune directly with the readers's experience through the written word. In that sense, he is a true author using the written word as a full tool.

I discovered this while trying to adapt some of his short stories into a dramatic monolouge/performance pieces. Hemingway doesn't work as well as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Twain, Dylan Thomas or even Ken Kesey. There isn't an oral tradition stored up waiting to be unlocked in Hemingway's work. They are short stories not tall tales (deconstructionist/feminist/new age/PC/Multi-culti critics leave that last claim alone!)

Maybe that is why Hemingway hasn't really ever been successfully translated to the screen.

At any rate, these collected stories are not meant to be seen or heard, they are must reads. Enjoy and re-discover.

Ernest Hemingway was the writer I idolized the most when I was going to school and reading the great writers. It was Hemingway and Faulkner at the top, and nobody else quite ascended to their lofty perch. Hemingway developed a style of writing stripped of excessive descriptions combined with the deft, almost unnoticed repetition of key words. His contribution to literature as a stylist is incalculable. He taught twentieth-century authors how to write dialog, and his influence on famous writers around the globe outshines perhaps that of anyone else. This simple yet power-packed method of writing has aged well over the years, and the stories don't seem dated at all to modern readers. Although he wrote several highly regarded novels, many believe Hemingway's terse, no-frills writing style was best suited for short stories, and the evidence in this volume is hard to argue with. I'll highlight a few of his most famous stories:

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Harry, a failed writer, ruminates on his wasted literary talent while on safari in Africa. His leg has become infected and he awaits a plane to take him away for medical treatment before his health becomes critical. After he reminisces about many things in his life he could have written about but didn't, the plane finally arrives to pick him up, and what a ride it is! This is an example of what Hemingway called the "wow" ending, and this just may be the best that was ever written. I can't imagine anyone interested in literature not having read this story.

The Short, Happy Life of Francis McComber

Did she or didn't she? McComber and his wife are on safari in Africa, led by a veteran guide who knows how to hunt and how to accommodate tourists looking for a bit of adventure. Like Snows, the ending is shrouded in mystery as the reader is left wondering why things ended the way they did, and who's to blame.

The Killers

Hemingway often wrote according to the principles of his famous "iceberg theory": "There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows," he said. "Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg." This iceberg method of writing is showcased in "The Killers," of which Hemingway said he left out more than just about any other story he wrote. On one level, the story is about a boxer who got on the wrong side of the mob in 1930s Chicago; on another, it refers to Hemingway's literary battle with his mentor, Sherwood Anderson. The scholarly critics are still scratching their heads over this masterpiece.

Big Two-Hearted River

Nick Adams, back home from the war, fishes and eats in a ritualistic manner that suggests he has suffered some sort of psychological trauma that he needs to overcome. But was the problem induced by the barbarism of war or by earlier family-related ordeals?

This is one of a handful of the best short story collections out there. Don't miss it.

Honestly, except for The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's novel have begun to feel a little dated. His style can't seem to sustain complex characters for several hundred pages. It starts to feel clipped, a little glib.

Not so in his short stories. Here is Hemingway at his finest, his most focused - not a single unnecessary word, everything important is in there and left unsaid, left for the reader to find.

"She was the biggest whore I ever saw in my life and the biggest woman."

Come on, who else writes sentences like that! They always seem so awkward and twisted around, but somehow just perfect. There was a quote from Hemingway that I always liked, about how icebergs moved with their stately grace because 90% of the ice was underwater; you could only see the little tip, but feel the massiveness of the rest of it, somehow.

His stories have a certain tossed off feeling, but if you look at his papers, some of them were written more than twenty times. He was very careful to get things exactly right. He never says "this man is lonely," or "this woman is desperate" - but he always succeeds in getting it across - and that makes it all the more powerful.

Other than the famous long ones, some of my favorites are: Old Man at the Bridge, Soliders Home, The Killers, and The Light of the World. Go out and buy his stories. His reputation may be sinking a little in academia, but these stories will be read as long as anyone cares about literature in the 20th century; things this good don't die, no matter what the critics say about them.

There are some fine reviews here already. This must be the BEST Hemingway collection out there,starting with the preface by John, Patrick, and Gregory Hemingway. Honestly, it is difficult in the TV-age perhaps for many to appreciate what Hem meant to his generation. There seems to be no author alive (at least American) who represents his era like EH. It may be that some of his novels today may seem a little dated ("Sun Also Rises","Green Hills", "Across the River"-which was panned in the 50's, even "Old Man in the Sea"), but his best stories will always stand the test of time. The first piece here "The Short Happy Life..." I found truly startling long ago,and still do. Who else could describe such a bitter marriage in a big game hunting environment? Not to mention, imagining how animals think! Even a very short piece like "The Killers" has been made into at least two semi-classic movies. And is there a better description of a young man alone in the woods than "Big Hearted River"? Just about all of EH's lifetime interests are here,from Indians in Michigan, the downtrodden with a heart of gold,skiing in the Alps, the struggles of newly weds, father and son relationships, the mindless boredom of war, you name it, the list goes on...This is the best book by our greatest writer, and is almost a necessity for anyone of any age!

No other writer has ever said so much with so few words. This is the best short story writer that ever lived. The novels are great too, especially those first two. The Hemingway style is often talked about but you cannot understand it fully until you have studied these stories. Hemingway often said the greater part of his writing was elimination and the discerning reader will greatly appreciate all he has done to give us such crystal sentences of such sensual and emotional power. They are subtle these stories but that is their power. Hemingway does not rely on tricks as say a nineteenth-century short story writer might, and he does not give you a little moral at the end. His stories work so well for what they refuse to do and that is to tell you how to react or to set you up so that you see just what the author wants you to see. Hemingway wants to show life as we live it and so all the artistry of the previous century is stripped away. Hemingway gives you an experience raw and sometimes the experience is not fully interpretable, and perhaps the truest thing and only thing is simply the emotional feeling the experience leaves us with. Many of his stories are about experiences many have had like the end of our first love and Hemingway tells it so simply and perfectly you will be left saying to yourself,"yes, thats how it is." I don't think too many short story writers are essential reading but there is one who is, Hemingway.

If ever you've wondered what made Hemingway the renowned writer that he was, you could do worse than to pick up "The Complete Short Stories". Here, you will experience first hand the tough, terse prose and the short, declarative sentences that won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

In this definitive collection, you will not only find some of Hemingway's classics, like 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' and 'Hills Like White Elephants', you will also find much previously unpublished work, some little more than a page long (like Old Man at the Bridge). This is one of those books that you can dive into for a few minutes at a time to enjoy, not only the short story, but also the power and beauty of the written word. Here is Hemingway in his most potent form - not a single unnecessary word - and with everything important left unsaid, but with all the clues in place for the reader to find.

A must for any lover of literature.

I never thought I would ever attempt to review Hemingway, but since my feelings about his prose are so ambivalent, I decided to try. "Forty Nine Stories" was the second volume by Hemingway I read, the first being "The Old Man and the Sea", which I had to read in the grade school, and did not quite understand at the time. My parents' private library was filled to the brink, and Hemingway and other esteemed American authors have been placed at the front; worn-out copies, tired beyond measure with many readings they had to suffer through. Disappointed with the novella I had to read at school, quite early I started to devour the contents of the aforementioned library, despite my mother's warnings that it might not be something I could handle at such an early age. I don't know, perhaps to prove otherwise, I plunged deep into "The Great Gatsby" by Scott Fitzgerald and the Forty Nine Stories. The first story in this collection knocked me out, literally. 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' introduced me to the adult literature, along with some other volumes I courageously attempted to read at about 11. No other piece of writing by this author ever matched this first, head-on impact. Even nowadays, when I have read the whole volume of "The Complete Stories of Ernest Hemingway" both in Polish and in English - twice, I still can't find anything coming ever close to this masterpiece. A married American couple embarks on a safari in Africa, and use the help of a professional hunter. This simple scene serves as a proxy for the overwhelming per-exemplum picture of a convoluted relationship between men and women. That story haunts me to this day. Ever since I wondered why the lady in question behaved as she did, why was all this so complex, and whether I would have to face such a difficult task of satisfying a femme. It seemed tough to me at 11, and even now, almost two decades later, it has a tint of mystery the existence of which I can't deny. I have gone through various stages of forming opinions with respect to this story. I took sides, I claimed a thorough understanding of the situation, to dismiss it clockwise as time passed. A truly beautiful aspect of the whole affair with 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber', to me, is that Hemingway nowhere seemed to preach in one direction or another. It takes a genius to write a short story in a plainest of languages, a story which leaves a man wondering all his life about the issues being a part of another man's imagination, a fictional world of no apparent relevance in a day-to-day life.

Sometimes his early stories have much in common with shorthand notes made by a traveling journalist, but then it's hard to find an equivalent despite the overwhelming number of traveling journalists who attempt to write now and then. Last, but not least, if you are fond of the romantic outlook on Spain, and are completely foreign to the land and its inhabitants, Papa's stories and novels will be an invaluable resource, though completely fictional. Sometimes, it is better to read about the land than to visit it yourself and burst the bubble of happy euphoria. Trust me, it really is. Papa loved Spain and its people, as is clearly evident in his writings. In "The Forty Nine Stories", there is a small masterpiece about a boy with a dream. He wants to be a matador. His dream costs him his life. Didn't you cry, having read this story? I did, tough guy that I am. Apart from the first story in this outstanding collection, this one scarred my memory for ever. Still, after all those years, I want to reach out, and prevent the knife from entering the soft insides of the boy's belly. I want to kneel right there, and hold the dying boy, a little man with a little dream. This story reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen, although completely different in style and tone and subject matter. To read a work of art is to achieve a new level of understanding the world, both in an introspective, intuitive way, and in an external, more evident way.

Such is Papa Hemingway; your feelings fluctuate, and in time, you develop a special fondness for the author, that cozy, warm attitude reserved for authors whose works influenced your life, had taken over your imagination like the mob had taken over the Bastille. Hemingway is worth coming back to, if you do not let yourself be discouraged at an early stage. Do not take a word for granted, explore Papa yourself, and "The Forty Nine Stories" is a grand point of departure for a very long journey.

A final note: I recommend the Finca Vigia edition, since it contains the original first forty nine stories, along with numerous stories published later, and a grand preface by Scribner himself.