Rating: 
Summary: The single finest edition of Hemingway's work.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Hemingworld
Review: Hemingway's writing is a grand example of stylistic dichotomy: His prose is as austere and utilitarian as a barn, yet his stories, unique and instantly recognizable as his own, pound with energy, drama, and almost excessive bravado. He wastes no time on literary pretension and gets right down to business; writing, drinking, and living life to the fullest are inextricably entwined, and nothing matters more than a well-worded and well-placed line of dialogue. Hemingway's subject matter is easy to summarize: he writes about the things he actively enjoys. His short stories cover safaris, hunting, fishing, the outdoors ("Big Two-Hearted River"), boating, horse racing ("My Old Man"), bullfighting ("The Undefeated"), boxing ("Fifty Grand"), war, lowlife crime ("The Killers"), even a couple of fairy tales. Basically, Hemingway can turn anything adventurous and daring into reading material for the armchair weekend warrior. With a few exceptions, the stories take place either in the plains of Africa, throughout war-torn European countries, or in and around Michigan. While some of the stories profess nothing more than pure narration, the recreational activities of the characters usually serve as a backdrop against which they face private conflicts or ethical dilemmas. Realism is emphasized, and only "Cat in the Rain" can be said to have a conventional happy ending, albeit one that glosses over the heroine's real problems. Hemingway is more interested in the seedy side of life, portraying people on the fringes of society: vagabonds, smugglers, expatriates. An important distinction about his war stories is that he tends to write not about soldiers, but about fighters -- individualistic rebels who are compelled by the strength of their political convictions and revel in the camaraderie on and off the battlefield, often with a bottle of fine wine. The two stories that bookend this collection are indicative of the diversity of Hemingway's thematic repertoire. The title character of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" exposes his cowardice to his wife and loses the real trophy -- her love -- to their safari guide, even while regaining his dignity in a final effort that is too little, too late. Hemingway appears to reflect himself in "The Strange Country," in which an acclaimed cosmopolitan writer takes a cross-country road trip with a much younger girl in a series of vignettes that contrasts the comfort of American domesticity with the imminent dangers of pre-World War II Europe. This is the ultimate expression of Hemingway's restlessness: The world was too small to contain him; life was too slow to keep up with him.
Rating:
Summary: Hemingworld
Review: Hemingway's writing is a grand example of stylistic dichotomy: His prose is as austere and utilitarian as a barn, yet his stories, unique and instantly recognizable as his own, pound with energy, drama, and almost excessive bravado. He wastes no time on literary pretension and gets right down to business; writing, drinking, and living life to the fullest are inextricably entwined, and nothing matters more than a well-worded and well-placed line of dialogue. Hemingway's subject matter is easy to summarize: he writes about the things he actively enjoys. His short stories cover safaris, hunting, fishing, the outdoors ("Big Two-Hearted River"), boating, horse racing ("My Old Man"), bullfighting ("The Undefeated"), boxing ("Fifty Grand"), war, lowlife crime ("The Killers"), even a couple of fairy tales. Basically, Hemingway can turn anything adventurous and daring into reading material for the armchair weekend warrior. With a few exceptions, the stories take place either in the plains of Africa, throughout war-torn European countries, or in and around Michigan. While some of the stories profess nothing more than pure narration, the recreational activities of the characters usually serve as a backdrop against which they face private conflicts or ethical dilemmas. Realism is emphasized, and only "Cat in the Rain" can be said to have a conventional happy ending, albeit one that glosses over the heroine's real problems. Hemingway is more interested in the seedy side of life, portraying people on the fringes of society: vagabonds, smugglers, expatriates. An important distinction about his war stories is that he tends to write not about soldiers, but about fighters -- individualistic rebels who are compelled by the strength of their political convictions and revel in the camaraderie on and off the battlefield, often with a bottle of fine wine. The two stories that bookend this collection are indicative of the diversity of Hemingway's thematic repertoire. The title character of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" exposes his cowardice to his wife and loses the real trophy -- her love -- to their safari guide, even while regaining his dignity in a final effort that is too little, too late. Hemingway appears to reflect himself in "The Strange Country," in which an acclaimed cosmopolitan writer takes a cross-country road trip with a much younger girl in a series of vignettes that contrasts the comfort of American domesticity with the imminent dangers of pre-World War II Europe. This is the ultimate expression of Hemingway's restlessness: The world was too small to contain him; life was too slow to keep up with him.
Rating:
Summary: Papa at His Best
Review: Hemingway, with his unique journalistic style, demonstrates in his short prose the efficient use of word and image to portray deeply enigmatic (and usually tragic) characters, situations, and human relationships. Reflective of both Hemingway's personal angst as well as the demons that haunted his times, the stories outline the love, joy, anger, frustration, and lonliness that have accompanied humanity from the start of time. Hemingway would have spoke to the Homeric Greeks as well as he speaks to us today.
Rating:
Summary: His real masterpieces
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Hemingway, Ugggggggh!!!!
Review: I had to read these stories in my American Literature class and I dreaded each time I had to pick the book up. Hemingway writes in a series of fragmented sentences that seem as if a 3rd grader wrote them. His stories are cold and unfeeling. My prof. lectures that it isn't what Hemingway writes that is important, it is what he leaves out. If he left out anymore he would have no stories to tell.
Rating: 
Summary: The short happy life of Francis Macomber
Review: I like Hemingway, I have never developed the passion for him that so many others have had. The Old Man and the Sea was really, really well done, as was For Whom the Bell Tolls. As for most of the other works, well I just never saw the superstar status. This is why the short story/long novella The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber caught me completely off guard. If you're thinking about buying this collection, buy it for no other reason than to read this incredible piece of fiction. Hemingway has been called by many the great word economist, and in this instance I completely agree. Just about every word is completely vital to this overall story. Hemingway could've, and probably should've been greedy with this piece. He could've added a couple hundred words here and there to produce a novel, he didn't so far as I know. What he did was leave behind a jewel, a short story that has affected me like no other story I have ever read. SHL of FM is my favorite story of all time, and it casts such a large shadow that the next one is about 12th.
Rating:
Summary: A sea shell with a few small pearls
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT! I loved it!
Review: I'm not big on short stories in general, but Hemmingway is a master
Rating:
Summary: An education in style
Review: 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.
|
