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Hemingway’s first published work, a collection of short short stories, really 18 vignettes. You can read this book in a half-hour because almost all are less than a page.

NOTE: There are more than 200 editions of this book. I read the one published originally in 1924, which is short and just contains the 18 vignettes. Another edition was originally published in 1925, containing short stores as well, such as Two Big-Hearted River. Modern editions of both versions sometimes have the same cover, so it is confusing.



Here we see an introduction to many of the themes that Hemingway would carry through to later works. We meet Nick, a wounded soldier who is probably the Nick of the Nick Adams short stories and the novel, In Another Country.

There’s a lot of drinking. In the very first story we meet a battery of French soldiers on their way to the front. All are drunk, especially the leader. Nick has been shot in the spine, but the narrator tells us that things are “going well.��

Several stories involve matadors getting gored, dying, getting crap thrown at them in the ring - or all three.
One is autobiographical. A wounded American soldier falls in love with his Italian nurse. They agree she will come to the States and marry him. Instead, when he’s back home, he gets a Dear John letter. This is exactly what happened to Hemingway when he fell in love with his Italian nurse after we was wounded in Italy and was recovering in a hospital in Milan.



Two solders talk about making “a separate peace,�� a title later used in John Knowles�� famous novel.

There is a lot of violence, appearing random, disconnected and place-less. Four German soldiers climbing over a garden wall are shot one by one. Six cabinet ministers are lined up against a hospital wall and shot. We don’t know what country, who they were, or who shot them. An American soldier shoots and kills two Hungarians robbing a cigar store, apparently just because they were “wops.�� In a county jail in the US, five men are hanged, three of them Negroes. A man wounded and immersed in fighting begs and makes promises to Jesus to get him out. He gets out and forgets his promises by nightfall.



Are these good stories? Yes and no. They are typical Hemingway but too short, even for short stories, to make much out of them or to develop any feeling for the characters. Still worth a read.

Top photo from unsplash.com
Middle photo of WW I soldiers from knowledge.ca
Hemingway's 1923 passport photo from wikipedia