short stories

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.

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.

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"