Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant writer with a few blemishes
Review: At his best, Hemingway is not to be rivaled. His spare, gritty style is at its best in "Killers". However, there are a few stories that could have used a little more in the way of a story line, especially the celebrated "Hills Like White Elephants". But I quibble...go out and get this one.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant writer with a few blemishes
Review: At his best, Hemingway is not to be rivaled. His spare, gritty style is at its best in "Killers". However, there are a few stories that could have used a little more in the way of a story line, especially the celebrated "Hills Like White Elephants". But I quibble...go out and get this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Surprised
Review: Ernest Hemingway was a master of the short story. Many of them (e.g. Hills Like White Elephants, A Clean Well Lighted Place, My Old Man) show him at his best. They are like prose poems, with every word appropriately placed, and with memorable characters, dialogue, irony, atmosphere and plot. His terse, simple style fit the short story beautifully. His novels suffer at times, but his best short stories are true masterpieces. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Hemingway at His Best
Review: Ernest Hemingway was a master of the short story. Many of them (e.g. Hills Like White Elephants, A Clean Well Lighted Place, My Old Man) show him at his best. They are like prose poems, with every word appropriately placed, and with memorable characters, dialogue, irony, atmosphere and plot. His terse, simple style fit the short story beautifully. His novels suffer at times, but his best short stories are true masterpieces. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: it gets better everytime i come back to it
Review: Every time I reread this collection of short stories I find that I love it that much more. Hemingway's stories covered all range of topics, but mostly he deals with the human heart, in its relation to nature and with others. There is no need to talk about his style of writing because his 'tough, terse' style is legendary. I do wish that "The Old Man and the Sea" were included here instead of by itself. I tried to pick my favorite Hemingway stories and I couldn't narrow it down to any less than 21. "An African Story", "The Battler", "The Butterfly and the Tank", "Cat in the Rain", "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", "Fathers and Sons", "Fifty Grand", "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", "Hills Like White Elephants", "Indian Camp", "The Killers", "The Last Good Country", "The Light of the World", "My Old Man", "One Trip Across", "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", "The Snows of Kilamajaro", "Soldier's Home", "The Three-Day Blow", "A Train Trip", and "Up in Michigan".There are few writers that I've found that can handle the short story as well as Hemingway. If you are interested check out the short fiction of Franz Kafka, John Cheever, Shirley Jackson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain.
Rating:
Summary: Hemingway Holds His Own In The Short Story Form
Review: Hemingway is best known for his novels, like "A farewell to Arms", "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and "The Old Man and the Sea", but he also wrote a handful of true masterpieces in the short story form, most notably "The Snows of Kilimamjaro." And he wrote many competent stories still worth reading today. What is most pleasing is his use of short sentences and simple syntax, simple style. There's nothing pretentious or wordy about Hemingway's fiction, and it is this uncluttered naturalness of his writing style that has so influenced succeeding generations of novelists and storytellers. As a writer of novels and stories, he helped make the clear, modern fiction style of writing popular, avoiding "cheap meaningless words and stylistic embellishments." Most of his short fiction is set in Italy and Spain, like the story "Hills Like White Elephants." David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"
Rating:
Summary: Hemingway Holds His Own In The Short Story Form
Review: Hemingway is best known for his novels, like "A farewell to Arms", "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and "The Old Man and the Sea", but he also wrote a handful of true masterpieces in the short story form, most notably "The Snows of Kilimamjaro." And he wrote many competent stories still worth reading today. What is most pleasing is his use of short sentences and simple syntax, simple style. There's nothing pretentious or wordy about Hemingway's fiction, and it is this uncluttered naturalness of his writing style that has so influenced succeeding generations of novelists and storytellers. As a writer of novels and stories, he helped make the clear, modern fiction style of writing popular, avoiding "cheap meaningless words and stylistic embellishments." Most of his short fiction is set in Italy and Spain, like the story "Hills Like White Elephants." David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"
Rating:
Summary: A true original - Master of the Short Story
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Influential of the Lost Generation at His Peak
Review: Hemingway was the great craftsman of the short story. A profound influence on nearly every writer who followed--influencing the likes of Ken Kesey in spirit and saturating the works of Raymond Carver--Hemingway's style and ethos are consistently powerful. This collection should prove to anybody that, whatever claims have been made about him in the nearly forty years since his death, his prose still glimmers with clarity and subtlety. It's hard to say which stories are his best--I have a personal affinity for "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "Snows of Kilimanjaro," and "The Big Two-Hearted River." Any reader of English-language prose should at least attempt to skim Hemingway's milieu--he is, after all, possibly the most influential writer of English prose since Shakespeare. The short stories, briefer and more finely crafted than the novels, are a good place to start.
Rating:
Summary: A must read featuring Hem's finest work
Review: 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.
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