In Our Time

This is not my review, it belongs to D. H. Lawrence (b1885-d1930) as I read it in the book 'Selected Literary Criticism', edited by Anthony Beal. I'm copying Lawrence's review of Hemingway's 'In Our Time' here because it is an outstanding review others who come to Amazon ought to read: " In Our Time is the last of the four American books, and Mr. Hemingway has accepted the goal. He keeps on making flights, but he has no illusion about landing anywhere. He knows it will be nowhere every time. In Our Time calls itself a book of stories, but it isn't that. It is a series of successive sketches from a man's life, and makes a fragmentary novel. The first scenes, by one of the big lakes in America--probably Superior--are the best; when Nick is a boy. Then come fragments of war--on the Italian front. Then a soldier back home, very late, in the little town way west in Oklahoma. Then a young American and wife in post-war Europe; a long sketch about an American jockey in Milan and Paris; then Nick is back again in the Lake Superior region, getting off the train at a burnt-out town, and tramping across the empty country to camp by a trout-stream. Trout is the one passion life has him--and this won't last long. It is a short book: and it does not pretend to be about one man. But it is. It is as much as we need know of the man's life. The sketches are short, sharp, vivid, and most of them excellent. (The 'mottoes' in front seem a little affected.) And these few sketches are enough to create the man and all his history: we need know no more. Nick is a type one meets in the more wild and woolly regions of the United States. He is the remains of the lone trapper and cowboy. Nowadays he is educated, and through with everything. It is a state of conscious, accepted indifference to everything except freedom from work and the moment's interest. Mr. Hemingway does it extremely well. Nothing matters. Everything happens. Pne wants to keep oneself loose. Avoid one thing only: getting connected up. Don't get connected up. If oyu get held by anything, break it. Don't be held. Break it, and get away. Don't get away with the idea of getting somewhere else. Just get away, for the sake of getting away. Beat it! `Well, boy, I guess I'll beat it." Ah, the pleasure in saying that! Mr. Hemingway's sketches, for this reason, are excellent: so short, like striking a match, lighting a brief sensational cigarette, and it's over. His young love-affair ends as one throws a cigarette-end away. `It isn't fun any more.'--`Everything's gone to hell inside me.' It is really honest. And it explains a great deal of sentimentality. When a thing has gone to hell inside you, your sentimentalism tries to pretend it hasn't. But Mr. Hemingway is through with the sentimentalism. `It isn't fun any more. I guess I'll beat it.' And he beats it, to somewhere else. In the end he'll be a sort of tramp, endlessly moving on for the sake of moving away from where he is. This is a negative goal, and Mr. Hemingway is really good, because he's perfectly straight about it. He is like Krebs, in that devastating Oklahoma sketch: he doesn't love anybody, and it nauseates him to have to pretend he does. He doesn't even want to love anybody; he doesn't want to go anywhere, he doesn't want to do anything. He wants just to lounge around and maintain a healthy state of nothingness inside himself. And why shouldn't he, since that is exactly and sincerely what he feels? If he really doesn't care, then why should he care? Anyhow, he doesn't."

This is a fine collection of (exceedingly) short stories that deal with existential themes: nature, alienation, and death. In between the stories Hemingway includes even shorter vignettes of cruelty. Brief comments on the stories (with some plot spoilers) follow: "On the Quai at Smyrna" - An American encounters casual cruelty among the Turks and Greeks during World War I. "Indian Camp" - Nick Adams and his father, a scientific man who is quite detached from other people, visit an Indian camp where his father performs a Caesarian without anesthetic. While he performs the operation, the baby's father kills himself by cutting his throat with a straight razor. "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" - Nick's mother is revealed to be weak willed and self-deceiving, and we are not too surprised to learn that Nick prefers his father's company. "The End of Something" - The adolescent Nick ends a relationship with a girl. Before the end comes, Hemingway provides a typically economical but touching depiction of Marjorie, his girlfriend, as they row across a lake with their lines in the water: "She was intent on the rod all the time they trolled, even while she talked. She loved to fish. She loved to fish with Nick." "The Three-Day Blow" - Nick and his friend Bill drink quietly in front of a fireplace during a storm - they are just learning to drink - and later disregard an important gun safety precaution. "The Battler" - Nick encounters a damaged former prizefighter. "A Very Short Story" - (Well, they almost all are.) An American develops an affection for an Italian nurse and expects to marry her, but she loses interest after the end of the war. "Soldier's Home" - A young man returns home after World War I, disillusioned and alienated. "The Revolutionist" - Not really a story at all but a very brief character sketch of a young communist traveling through Italy after World War I. "Mr. And Mrs. Elliot" - A young poet supposes himself to be a superior sort of person but turns out to be ordinary. "Cat in the Rain" An American wife tries to rescue a kitten from the rain. "Out of Season" - A young man wants to go fishing but then decides not to. "Cross-Country Snow" - Nick Adams and a friend go skiing in Switzerland and find it to be a very satisfying experience. "My Old Man" - A man's father dies in an accident, tragically, since his son knows that he is crooked. "Big Two-Hearted River: Part I" - Nick Adams returns to his home ground for a solitary camping trip. "Big Two-Hearted River: Part II" - He goes fishing too.

Well written stories from the early 20th century. A good example of Hemingway's style. The stories are believable and enjoyable. Wasn't comfortable with the flashbacks to the Spanish Civil War or the bullfighting tales. I'm sure there is a hidden meaning there.

Like all of Hemingway this is full of imagery, the use of connotative language and enuendo. Like all his works real art.

I bought a collection of short stories ( This is My Time ) that made reference to Hemingway's In Our Time, when I realized I had somehow managed to wend my way through school never having encountered Hemingway. I looked up the book, In Our Time, and after recovering from the initial shock of seeing Simon and Schuster's shameful price of $10.99 for a slim volume of short stories, bought the volume. I read the first story, On the River Quai at Smyrna, and was a bit perplexed as the story begins abruptly without a clear setting, plot, or defined characters. It ends as it began. Next I found under the heading of Chapter 1 a sort of military vignette in but a single paragraph. Then a story titled Indian Camp began. This was an interesting story of a doctor and his young son coming to the aid of a pregnant Indian woman. This is more along the lines of what I had expected. I was pleased until the heading Chapter 2 appeared, yet again with another military vignette in a single paragraph. Okay, now I knew the author was toying with me and this collection was purposeful and complex. I would need some help to understand the author's plan and methodology. To this end I bought a dead tree book ( Hemingway's Short Stories (Cliffs Notes) ) to help me. I also found an online site called SparkNotes. These were indispensable to fully appreciate this collection of stories. The main insights gained were that the stories present the chaos and terror of World War I and that the character Nick Adams is partially autobiographical. There is much to commend this small collection and I encourage others to dig in and discover Hemingway.

Most of the stories in here show the usual Hemingway brilliance, but there’s a few that were harder to get into than usual — stories where I had to hop on Google after reading to figure out wtf I just read and what the point of it was. Still a great overall read. Just didn’t enjoy it as much as his other works.

I’ve only just come to appreciate Earnest Hemingway and his contemporaries. I’m a female combat veteran of OEF and 43 yo now, living in Boston for the first time and just left a job at Harvard. I’m trying to write a novel I’ve been considering since I was in Afghanistan 15 years ago, and paying $200/mo for guidance because I have to write it and I just can’t - even though I have extensive writing experience as a local journalist, since my late teens. One of my writing assignments is to choose a “hero book,” and I chose “The Sun Also Rises.” I’m so glad I did. That is what it took for me to appreciate Earnest Hemingway.

First time reading Hemingway and I don't see the appeal. Maybe this just wasn't the best place to start. I'll try a novel or a collection of short stories next I guess but it'll be a while before I do.