Men Without Women: Ernest Hemingway (Arrow Classic S)

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Joseph Wood Krutch called the stories in Men Without Women "Sordid little catastrophes" involving "very vulgar people,” an assessment I find that observation ungenerous and vulgar in its own way, to miss the subtley and elegance of the prose, to miss the humanity and vulnerability underneath the bravado and bullfighting and boxing. I know Hemingway is out of fashion at the moment as supposed misogynist and drunk, but I think its somewhat too narrow to dismiss him altogether. However, This influential 14-story collection includes some of the Nobel laureate’s most notable short fiction, including “Hills Like White Elephants” and “Fifty Grand,” which a Cosmopolitan editor praised as “one of the best short stories that ever came to my hands.” Read by an Earphones Award–winning narrator.

I'm not really sure I see Hemingway's brilliance just yet. An idea or a quote will flit through when you least expect it and then the spark just goes out. Yes,’ said the girl. ‘Everything tastes of liquorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe. ’ Sex in fiction is not the same as sex in real life: when Catherine and David play with gender, they are not just a straight couple wandering into faintly kinky waters. They are transforming, hiding shifting bodies, loves and queerness behind Hemingway’s stark sentences. The scene is, unmistakably, a fantasy of gay sex, and a microcosm of Hemingway’s anxiety, tension, and fascination with the muddy waters of queer sexuality. He is drawn towards queerness and repelled in the same moment; he can accept a romantic male friendship, but squirms at that last step toward transgression. The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.The Old Man and The Sea is one of my favourite books ever written, yet ashamedly I haven't explored much else of Hemingway other than The Sun Also Rises (which is also an incredible read). I get that there was lots of symbolism and big themes in these little nuggets, but for me, there are more enjoyable ways to consider them. Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?”—is a line from one of the few women who speak in the book, appropriately telling off a blowhard (male) soon-to-be-ex. In “Yesterday”, Tanimura, who is from Kansai, divests himself so completely from the Kansai dialect that no one in Tokyo can believe he comes from there; while his friend Kitaru, in the attempt to become a serious supporter of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team, submerges himself in the Kansai dialect to the point where he seems to have been born there. Meanwhile, the narrator of “An Independent Organ” is teasing us: “I’m sure you’ll understand that the veracity of each tiny detail really isn’t critical.” All that matters, surely, is that “a clear portrait should emerge”.

It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig ,’ the man said. ‘ It’s not really an operation at all.’ Well,’ the man said, ‘if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.’

I really enjoyed this! I don't know what new I can say about Hemingway's writing that already hasn't been said, but let me try. The writing of this book was immaculate! It was elegant, easy, and it felt as if each word used in the prose had a purpose, which was soo satisfying to me. I did not want to read this book fast. I wanted to devour every word that I was presented. Classic short stories from a master of American fiction exploring relationships, war, and sportsmanship. I’m a girl,” Catherine explains. “But now I’m a boy too and I can do anything and anything and anything.” The novel descends into a strange, erotic half-dream where Catherine and David meld and melt into each other. The sex they have changes: Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899. His father was a doctor and he was the second of six children. Their home was at Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.