In Our Time

DNF at 103 pages. I know. I know. Who DNFs Hemingway? Admittedly, I probably should have picked one of his more popular works for my "first Hemingway", and I am not giving up on him yet. I may even revisit In Our Time when I'm older and will hopefully be able to better appreciate these stories. But for right now, this collection of short stories (some of which appear to be loosely related, but I'm honestly lost on how they all connect) was just too bland for me to continue reading. I didn't really see anything "happening" plot-wise, and I didn't connect or relate to the characters. Although Hemingway's brevity is iconic, and I appreciate how he manages to squeeze some semblance of a story and emotions into his no-nonsense sentences, I feel like a lot of the beauty of writing is lost? Usually, when I read long sprawls of prose and there's a shorter, hard-hitting sentence, the impact of that sentence on me is amplified. When all of the sentences are short, it just starts to feel choppy and uninspired. I'm hoping that this was just one miss for me and that I'll enjoy the rest of Hemingway's works more, because so many people are inspired by and can learn from his writing.

I’m not one for short stories usually, but these all seemed interconnected. They seemed to be more about the feeling of them, seeing the scene in your mind, than about the story being told. The characters are as vivid with a few lines as if a whole novel had been written about them.

It was okay. I knew going into this that Hemingway's prose is very succinct. There is little left to the imagination, because frankly, there really isn't any imagination at all. In Our Time is essentially little vignettes into the lives of various people, sometimes named, sometimes not. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting. I started to play a bit of a game to try to see where Hemingway was getting at with each individual story. Some were more eloquent than others, and some I just didn't understand. There is something to be said about an author who is so stoic in his work. It obviously speaks to the kind of man he was, but what I appreciated about it is that despite the lack of colorful language, his work still manages to stay relevant and appreciated. It makes me wonder about the time that this was first published; Did people in the twenties receive his work well? Did it require the decadence of the time to wear off, into the more prudent mentalities of the thirties and forties, for our society to reflect the melancholic nature of his work and ultimately appreciate it more? If anything, I still look forward to seeing what Hemingway can do in a novel format, where more explanation and characterization is permitted. I did not dislike In Our Time, and there were many moments where I actually enjoyed it. In terms of my attempt to read more classic literature, this one will not be looked upon in vain. A little disappointing at times maybe, but still an interesting foray into the world of Hemingway.

While Hemingway is most well known in popular culture for his novels, his short stories are often found to be his strongest, most poignant works. This first collection, In Our Time, was largely written in Paris while he just a 20-something reflecting on his life experiences. It was very well reviewed when published and remains just as respected today. (Jim Mustich recommends three Hemingway works in his 1,000 Books to Read, one of them being this one.) Appropriately, I started reading it at a trendy little cafe — small tables, lights strung over the patio, hefty mugs of black coffee and expensive pastries galore. It wasn't Paris, but I sure imagined it to be. I was immediately drawn in to the stories. From the first sentence Hemingway captivated me. "Indian Camp," "Soldier's Home," "Big Two-Hearted River" — these stories are indelibly stuck into my memory not only for their masterful, concise prose, but for their lack of easy interpretations too. In fact, Hemingway often cut the parts of the story that would have made their meaning less ambiguous; he made them muddier on purpose! I quite appreciated this, actually, and it's why his stories (and novels) have been talked about for nearly 100 years. About half the stories feature the character Nick Adams — perhaps the most autobiographical protagonist that Hemingway ever wrote. These stories were particularly enjoyable for me; they feature Nick as a young boy, and then man, who has grown up the Midwest, chasing outdoor pursuits, with an interlude of war experience tossed in. "Big Two-Hearted River," in particular, featured such vivid descriptions of Nick's fly fishing outing that I was damn near sure I could smell the fish while sitting in an adirondack chair on my front porch. There's underlying meaning to the story, sure, but it's really just about Nick enjoying the outdoors and recuperating. It made me want to go fishing(!), which is not a feeling I often have. I'm so glad I finally got into Hemingway's short stories, and while they weren't all winners, I'll certainly be revisiting bits from In Our Time.