From the Bookshelf of The Importance of Reading Ernest…

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway,

John Hemingway (Foreword)

Start date: September 30, 2009

Finish date: October 30, 2009

Discussion: The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Discussion leader: Stephen

Why we're reading this: Our current story: The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Others we've read from this book: Night Before Battle; The Sho…more
[close] Our current story: The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Others we've read from this book: Night Before Battle; The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber; Nobody Ever Dies; Fathers and Sons; The Capital of the World

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Showing 2 of 2 topics — 42 comments total

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Flashbacks
By Stephen · 14 posts · 59 views

last updated Feb 12, 2010 12:19PM

First Impressions
By Stephen · 28 posts · 29 views

last updated Nov 22, 2009 01:54PM

What Members Thought

Mar 25, 2008 Brad rated it it was amazing

Shelves: to-read-again, hemingway, short-story, faves

Night Before Battle -- I was thinking last night, while we were watching M*A*S*H*, about Hemingway's preoccupation with war.

There is an episode of M*A*S*H*, not the one we were watching, where they make a thinly veiled attack on Hemingway's war writing. A famous journalist/author with a red beard and huge physical presence comes to the 4077th and has a run in of philosophy with Hawkeye and BJ (I think it was BJ), and he's written off as a bloodthirsty exploiter of warfare.

As a take on Hemingway Night Before Battle -- I was thinking last night, while we were watching M*A*S*H*, about Hemingway's preoccupation with war.

There is an episode of M*A*S*H*, not the one we were watching, where they make a thinly veiled attack on Hemingway's war writing. A famous journalist/author with a red beard and huge physical presence comes to the 4077th and has a run in of philosophy with Hawkeye and BJ (I think it was BJ), and he's written off as a bloodthirsty exploiter of warfare.

As a take on Hemingway, I think M*A*S*H* was pretty unfair, but it has made me seriously consider -- both in the past and again last night -- what Hemingway saw in war that made it such an important part of his writing.

And I think we see much of what motivates Hemingway in "Night Before Battle." Hemingway is interested, above all things, on what motivates people's emotions, and there are few more powerful settings for overwhelming emotion than war. And since war is an experience that Hemingway was familiar with at first hand (he was a genuine hero in the First World War, after all), it makes sense that Hemingway would focus on war and its aftermath as the background upon which to set his examinations of human emotion.

In "Night Before Battle," Hemingway is dealing most poignantly with the emotions of Al Wagner, the Tank Commander who's convinced he will die the next day in an attack that he knows should not be made. Al moves from feeling "wet," sure that he will die and genuinely afraid of what's to come, to an acceptance of his fate. But all around Al swirls a cast of wounded people making their way the best they can while fighting what most of them know is a lost cause. We get glimpses of the emotional lives of a number of people: the divisive Comrade in the bar, Manolita, a Spanish girl flirting with the English newspaperman, Baldy, the drunken pilot, and Henry the filmmaker. None are as thoroughly drawn as Wagner, but they're all dealing with their own emotional despairs in whatever way they can.

For a man who so many people imagine as the very symbol of American masculinity, Hemingway's stories reveal a sensitivity to emotions and understanding of pain that is unparalleled by his peers. He just happens to use war as the touchstone for his examination of emotion, and it is difficult for me, in the face of a story like "Night Before Battle," to see his work as a glorification of war.

Hemingway didn't love war, he just happened to know it. What Hemingway loved was how people responded to the horrors of war, so...if anything...he's glorifying the human spirit in times of adversity. ...more

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Apr 28, 2009 Daniel Villines rated it really liked it

In a way, it's almost an injustice to read these stories straight through, from cover-to-cover. Each story offers a unique experience in transforming words into imagery in a way that is unique to Hemingway. To simply read one story and then continue on to the next without time for reflection deprives the reader of some Top-Chef caliber, food-for-thought. Even now, my initial reading of this collection comes back to haunt me, from time-to-time, with ah-ha moments. ...more

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Jun 10, 2009 Barbara marked it as to-read

Shelves: i-put-it-on-the-hold-shelf-for-now, short-stories, 2009

This is my first voyage into Hemmingway's work since my days in college. It is amazing how much more they means as an adult and without an English professor waiting to hear and "destroy" your interpretation of his work. I read Fathers and Sons first and feel that I need to read it another time or two before I can comment. There is a lot packed into a few short pages. ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Robert rated it it was amazing

July 2011 will be my Hemingway month. I read many of Hemingway's works like many people did, when I was young and when I was in school. But perhaps this isn't the best way or at least not the best for me because its only now, this month makes it fifty years after his death, that I can really appreciate him.

I recommend looking past Hemingway the myth and into Hemingway the writer because he was a damn good one. His short stories are some of the best he has to offer and some of the best anywhere. ...more

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Aug 17, 2009 Kevin J. Rogers rated it it was amazing

I probably learned more about writing from these fifty-four stories than anywhere else, although I don't know that Hemingway would approve of my style. Unless, of course, he noticed the simplicity within the complex sentence structure. In any event, the art of omission is an important tool for a writer to have in their toolbox, and I don't think I would have ever understood that without having been exposed to these tight, finely crafted stories at a young and impressionable age. ...more

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May 26, 2012 Brunhilde rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, well-read

I know I read this book many, many years. But maybe I didn't hit every story. So I am having a go again.
Every time I read Hemingway, I am left with this thought--I don't think he is trying to tell me anything deep. He just wants to relay the most honest and true reactions and thoughts of humans and he does. ...more

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