To Have and Have Not (Scribner Classics) [Hardcover]

Ernest Hemingway (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 6, 1999 | Series: Scribner Classics

To Have and Have Not is the dramatic, brutal story of Harry Morgan, an honest boat owner who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who swarm the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair.

In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the "haves" and the "have nots" and creates one of the most subtle and moving portraits of a love affair in his oeuvre. In turn funny and tragic, lively and poetic, remarkable in its emotional impact, To Have and Have Not takes literary high adventure to a new level. As the Times Literary Supplement observed, "Hemingway's gift for dialogue, for effective understatement, and for communicating such emotions the tough allow themselves, has never been more conspicuous."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

First things first: readers coming to To Have and Have Not after seeing the Bogart/Bacall film should be forewarned that about the only thing the two have in common is the title. The movie concerns a brave fishing-boat captain in World War II-era Martinique who aids the French Resistance, battles the Nazis, and gets the girl in the end. The novel concerns a broke fishing-boat captain who agrees to carry contraband between Cuba and Florida in order to feed his wife and daughters. Of the two, the novel is by far the darker, more complex work.

The first time we meet Harry Morgan, he is sitting in a Havana bar watching a gun battle raging out in the street. After seeing a Cuban get his head blown off with a Luger, Morgan reacts with typical Hemingway understatement: "I took a quick one out of the first bottle I saw open and I couldn't tell you yet what it was. The whole thing made me feel pretty bad." Still feeling bad, Harry heads out in his boat on a charter fishing expedition for which he is later stiffed by the client. With not even enough money to fill his gas tanks, he is forced to agree to smuggle some illegal Chinese for the mysterious Mr. Sing. From there it's just a small step to carrying liquor--a disastrous run that ends when Harry loses an arm and his boat. Once Harry gets mixed up in the brewing Cuban revolution, however, even those losses seem small compared to what's at stake now: his very life.

Hemingway tells most of this story in the third person, but, significantly, he brackets the whole with a section at the beginning told from Harry's perspective and a short, heart-wrenching chapter at the end narrated by his wife, Marie. In between there is adventure, danger, betrayal, and death, but this novel begins and ends with the tough and tender portrait of a man who plays the cards that are dealt him with courage and dignity, long after hope is gone. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

Minor novel by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1937. Set in and near Key West, Florida, the novel is about a cynical boat owner whose concern for his rum-soaked sidekick and love for a reckless woman lead him to risk everything to aid gunrunners in a noble cause. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (July 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684859238
• ISBN-13: 978-0684859231
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.7 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#3 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#24 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#30 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#33 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#88 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction

#3 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#24 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#30 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#33 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#88 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars IF THIS IS HIS WORST, THEN NOBODY DOES IT BETTER!! October 1, 1999

By Michael B.

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've always been a fan of Hemingway's The Sun also Rises and a Farewell to Arms. I wanted to read another of his books, and since I loved the Bogart and Bacall movie I purchased this despite the typical literary review that calls To Have and Have Not his worst novel. This book is great!! It's gritty, realistic, and the characters are consistent in their characterizations and actions throughout. The bar dialogue, Harry's actions as he delves into crime, they're all dead on. The plot-line really comes together with the juxtaposition of the rich and the poor (I dare you to not be disgusted by the "vital" concerns of the wealthy in the last few chapters). Hemingway's depiction of Harry's suffering wife is perhaps the *ONLY* completely believable female representation I have *EVER* read. This book is macho, poignantly sad, exciting, and full of heart wrenching loneliness throughout.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book. August 14, 2002

By Angry Mofo

Format:Paperback

To Have And Have Not is too fragmentary to be Hemingway's best novel. It's divided into three episodes, which I think were written at completely different times, so Hemingway's objectives might have changed halfway through. The first episode was meant to stand on its own merits as a short story, but Hemingway liked it so much he came back to it later and added two more. That said, it's certainly a fine novel - gripping, moving and very well-written at every step of the way. It revolves around Harry Morgan, an honest man turned into a smuggler by necessity. In the context of the whole novel, the first episode serves mainly to establish his person and show what sort of man he is - his reluctance to get into illegal activities, his strength, his survival instinct and the cruelty that it sometimes results in, and his human qualities. This reads like a self-contained short story with no real point other than an action-filled scenario. The second and shortest episode is the weakest part of the novel - it's a cross-section of a day in Morgan's life after he already takes up smuggling. It certainly shows the risks he has to take, but doesn't serve to do much other than explain a certain point in the third episode.

The third episode, where the real meat of the story is, is the best. It shows the further developments and the conclusion of Morgan's criminal career. It is also where the book's title comes in - here we see the contrast between those who have and those who have not. This comparison makes it easier to understand by contrast just how inevitably Morgan was driven to the life he now leads. Though Hemingway could have treated this issue by simply depicting the rich people as bad and Harry as good, he instead develops the story with tremendous emotional complexity - in a chapter dedicated to the former, Hemingway gets inside the heads of many well-off Americans and shows you their thoughts and fears. You might end up sympathizing with them more than with Harry, even though their glaring weaknesses are relentlessly brought to light. They are shown to be just as much victims of circumstances as Harry Morgan - while this does not exonerate them of their foibles, just like it doesn't exonerate him of his crimes, it makes all of them easier to understand. Nor does Hemingway paint the Marxist rebels that Morgan agrees to transport to Cuba in black and white - some are ruthless mercenaries, but some genuinely seek to make the world better, and others are just there by chance. The tragedy of the book is that all these people, who with a few exceptions really weren't bad sorts, were driven by much more powerful forces against one another, and all ended badly. Here we have Harry Morgan, a strong and intelligent man who really didn't want anything other than to have enough to subsist for him and his family, and he ends up hopelessly alone up against both the law and the lawless. His last monologue, where he ruefully summarizes his life, is one of Hemingway's finest moments.

Here I must add, as an afternote, that this book conclusively proves that those people who like to claim that Hemingway's treatment of women is somehow "sexist" or "disrespectful," or that his female characters are "stereotypical" or "weak," have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Harry Morgan's wife doesn't have a large role in the book, but there is one crucial scene that revolves solely around her. In it, she shows titanical inner strength; she is possibly the strongest character in the novel, stronger than Harry. Yes, her role in life is "stereotypical," but that is due to the _realism_ of the story - in those days, in those parts of the world, that was the way things were, and that's that. It is undeniable that Hemingway treats her with great respect, admiration and fairness. Thank you very much.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the Ink on Paper October 3, 2003

By Patrick Shepherd VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Rough. Hard. Dirty. Physical. Tough. And also lyrical, simple, emotional, indelible. All characteristics of Hemingway's writing, all present in this book. A simple story of Harry Morgan, sometime fisherman forced into smuggling and illegal immigration just to feed his family, a man who spirals down the slippery road of 'the end justifying the means' till there is nothing left but survive at any cost.

The story is told as three separate time-segments in Harry's life, which forces a certain disjointedness to the tale. But it also allows Hemingway to illuminate Harry's story with different segments of the Cuban and Key West societies at different times with changing social conditions. There are many character vignettes, people captured sometimes in only a few paragraphs, people who are desperate, silly, egotistical, idealistic, cynical, worn-out, greedy, dissolute, resigned, driven, and just coping. Albert, a man doing relief work for less than subsistence wages, is one of the clearest and most poignant images, hiring on as mate to Henry even though he knows the voyage is supremely dangerous. Within this short portrait of this man, we see not only the extremes that desperation will drive a man to, but also Hemingway's commentary on social/political organizations and economic structures that give rise to such desperation. This was quite typical of Hemingway, as he never beat his reader's over the head with his political philosophy, but showed the underpinnings of his reasoning through the circumstances of his characters.

Throughout this work, there is the sense that there is more here than what the words on the page delineate, a theme of people from all walks of life and all economic circumstances who are caught in the implacability of fate. All of these people have their own dreams, their own methods of dealing with the vagaries of life, and each is limned by the ultimate depression of life limited to only a short span.

Morgan's wife, though relegated to only a small part on these pages, shines through as one of the most engaging and durable people here, supportive of her husband's dreams, willing to forgo anything more than minimal material wealth, able to put aside her husband's foibles, and having the inner strength to continue when all her world collapses around her. The contrast between her and many of the other characters here is striking, a fine illustration of what really comprises the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

This book is not as powerful as For Whom the Bell Tolls, mainly due to its fragmented story structure and lack of any clear objective for its main characters, but is still a fine book with many nuances hiding within its simple story. This is not a book for those who like happy, uplifting stories, but it does much to illuminate both the best and the worst of humanity's fight with the curse of living and the insurmountable wall of dying.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)