Rating: 
Summary: the misunderstanding of women publicized
Review: although this is not hemingways best novel it is pretty good, maybe it would be better if he would have managed to finish it himself.shows exactly how women can go crazy at any given moment and makes me feel sorry for him at the same time. although the scenario is one better fantasized than practiced a man can dream
Rating: 
Summary: Why was this left unpublished by Hemingway.... ?
Review: I have read a lot of Hemingway. I have enjoyed it all. But I have to say this particular book left me the least satisfied of all of them.
As I read this I didn't realize that Hemingway actually lived an episode like this during his 1st or 2nd marriage. I discovered this after reading the book in one of his biographical accounts. It seems that he wrote this one to process out his inner feelings about the actual relationship he lived through. I wonder how he felt in retrospect? At times his main character David seems bitter about the whole thing. At other times he is definitely caught up in it. He is written much like a puppet, controlled by his wife and the circumstances he runs into.
Catherine is one of the more complex female characters that Hemingway ever portrayed. She reminds me of a more fleshed out Brett, from The Sun Also Rises. Catherine has a very nihilistic view of life. She seems driven to do everything in her power to destroy herself and all who cross her path. She wants pleasure. She wants to feel good about herself, but just can't seem to find a way to acheive it. Poor Catherine... I couldn't help but feel for her the whole way through the book. She seems lost and unwilling to find her way or be found.
I wonder if Hemingway was simply journaling on this experience, never wanting to share it at all? I guess we'll never know...
After hearing the fact that this is a reflection of his real life experiences, I understand why it left me feeling odd. Reading it is almost voyeuristic or like eavsdropping. If you read it, keep in mind it was left unpublished by the master himself... Enjoy the twists and turns of an insatiable spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: A SEXY MODERN NOVEL THAT'S REFRESHINGLY DIFFERENT
Review: A posthumous work, possibly Hemingway's finest achievement. This tender love story about a torrid triangular relationship is unlike any of his better known books. A surprisingly modern novel in which the famously 'macho' author gets in touch with his feminine side, it caused quite a stir in literary circles when first published in 1986; not least for its erotic hedonistic content.
Set in the early 1920s, young lovers David Bourne, a writer, and his beautiful wife Catherine are enjoying an idyllic honeymoon on the French Mediterranean coast ... until David decides it's time to get back to work again on his next book...setting is enchanting and makes you want to visit the tiny seaport village of le Grau du Roi; I did, actually, but found it disappointingly touristy (as most famous places in fiction are apt to be nowadays) and is no longer the quiet, sleepy, undiscovered Eden depicted in the novel. Hemingway himself honeymooned there with his second wife Pauline and the events in the story are based loosely on his memories of this Mediterranean trip.
The Garden of Eden was a labour of love for Hemingway, a novel he worked on on-and-off over the last 15 years of his life between other books that were published such as The Old Man and the Sea. Some critics who have read the entire unfinished manuscript at the John F Kennedy Library were unhappy with the way it was whittled down in shape to a third of its original size for the final published version. Others, like myself, who haven't yet viewed the manuscript, think Scribers editor Tom Jenks did a wonderful job cutting and condensing to make it such a beautiful book. That 'one true sentence' Hemingway strove so hard to write has never been so apparent as in this deceptively simple sparse prose; easy to read is hard to write, trust me, and I'm in constant awe of what Hemingway was able to achieve with this, his greatest work, I feel.
Lastly, did you know that the unedited manuscript also followed the story of another young couple, whose lives intertwined with David and Catherine? Nick Sheldon, a painter, and his wife Barbara, who were living in a small rented apartment in Paris; they were modelled on Hemingway and his first wife Hadley. These other two central characters probably got the chop because their storyline wasn't developed enough - or perhaps the story didn't work as well with them in it. Who knows? Maybe one day Scribners will publish the original manuscript in its entirety. I hope so, but doubt it. Let's just be thankful for what we do have.
Rating:
Summary: Hemingway lived longer than I thought
Review: This posthumous work might be my favorite. After not having read much of him in several years, this title was suggested to me by a friend as a hidden gem. Well, maybe not well hidden, but it was a work released without Hemingway's knowledge after his death and I tended to avoid those. What a terrible mistake! At once his most sensual and disturbing tale, Garden of Eden is a descent into madness and loss that leaves the reader on much shakier ground than much of his other macho corpus. It's a tale that will long haunt me and perhaps even drive me to read some of the other works that I've passed over. Why isn't this a terrific film yet?
Rating:
Summary: A Favorite from a Favorite Writer
Review: Not much could be done, I suppose, with a ponderous posthumous work uncharacteristic and unpopular with an embedded base of rabid fans. Hemingway inspires a kind of religious fervor unrivalled among dead American authors, and I don't envy the guy who had to mold a novel out of an unfinished and irregular manuscript. These allowances aside, what results from this two-headed effort is a puzzling, simplistic, wonderful, unnerving, personal, and disturbing portrait of a young married couple on a honeymoon in the south of France. It begins, as you would expect a Hemingway piece to begin, with fishing. The narrative, after only a few pages, takes the reader into a place rarely seen in Hemingway's universe - the bedroom - and makes that bedroom almost the focal point of the novel. What goes on in that room? We never really know what passes between husband and wife. We hear them change names - man to woman and woman to man - and we know that, somehow, the unsettled writer David writes better because of it.
This sexual ambiguity becomes an almost unpleasant undercurrent in the novel, and the adventurous wife introduces a third term in the boudoir before it is over. What redeems the novel is, first of all, that Hemingway encapsulates the myriad emotional forces in such terse prose that the effect is almost dizzying. It's almost as if Hemingway has attempted to re-write a Henry James novel, summarizing pages of thought into a short personal observation and an offhand comment. Second, the brief interludes in Hemingway's writing studio are closer to the author's own writing process than we've ever seen. The juxtaposition hints at a link between what happens in the bedroom and what happens on paper.
Perhaps the greatest frustration of this novel is exactly how much has been edited out. According to Mark Spilka, the manuscript contains almost equal mention of a second couple, a parallel plot with an opposite resolution. Clearly, the addition of these characters would have helped the finished product. If you're ever in Boston, stop by the Kennedy Library and take a peek at the un-expurgated manuscript. It might be worth it.
The published version, though, is an essential ingredient to understanding the psychology of a great writer, and remains a probing and very contemporary exploration of gender construction and relationships.
Rating:
Summary: Life is a Dream within Another Dream
Review: ... According to my recollection, Hemingway never used such a Ying\Yang motif in any of his other works; it was not part of his repertoire. There's no doubt that Hemingway wrote the inner story of truth (Sorrow on the Savanna), but I wonder if someone decided to add this story in the midst of a world of Hemingway's that needed some moral backbone. But, if it has, which I doubt if anyone could be so brazen, the book is not impugned in any way. Rather we should be eternally grateful that Nature granted us, as mere mortals, such profound insight into her truths. If Hemingway left a farewell note, this book would've served such a purpose most admirably.
Rating:
Summary: A Hemingway masterpiece
Review: ...I saw The Garden of Eden in our bookshelf, and thought, hmm..haven't heard about this one before, and started to read it. It instantly attraced me, the way Hemingway describes the beautiful surroundings, the Côte d'Azur, but what caught me the most was the quite special and daring story. We follow newlywed writer David Bourne and his rich wife Catherine on their honeymoon on the riviera. Cathrine has alot in common with Brett in The Sun Also. She is very seductive and sensual, and maybe a little out of balance. One day she brings with her Marita, another young woman they both start to pursue. The Garden of Eden is a journey trough sexuality, insanity, self realization. It's a must read for every Hemingway fan!
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Summary: One of Hemingway's best!
Review: As a big fan of the 'literary lion' of the last century, I have read almost everything he wrote. This book came out 25 years after his death and shows a sensitive side to his writing never previously seen. 'The Garden of Eden' is a twisted love triangle which actually gives the women characters in it a clear voice. He was always roundly criticized for the women characters in his stories being too one-dimensional. Not the case here. He himself described this novel as "....the paradise a man must lose...." This book is so far different in every aspect from his other works that it is worth the read on that basis alone. While I never read his other post-humous work 'Islands in the Stream', I did manage to read 'True at First Light.' Unfortunately, this manuscript should've remained "lost." It was really just a biography of one of his last African safaris with his wife Mary rather than a novel. Anyway, the twists and turns presented by the above title makes it an intriguing and quick "page-turner." If you are a Hemingway fan, you'll love this refreshing change of pace.
Rating:
Summary: A must have...
Review: This book is truly fantastic and I recommend it to anyone. It always amazes me what Hemingway does for his audience. He allows his reader to be completely involved and enthralled with his works. We are in France and Spain, we see what Catherine looks like, we can taste the food that they eat, and feel the cool breeze of the ocean. I always become hypnotized after reading Hemingway. The "Garden of Eden" is like "The Sun Also Rises" in pure Hemingway style, however the content is extremely sensual. It will take you on a journey that you will truly never forget and will want to revisit time and time again. Bravo papa!
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: My second favourite Hemingway book after The Sun Also Rises. Like many Hemingway books, a good read.
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