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This Finca Vigía edition of the Complete Short Stories includes every former collection, from In Our Time (1925), to Men Without Women (1927), to Winner Take Nothing (1933), and other late or previously unpublished works of short fiction (e.g., “Three Shots��, the removed first section of “Indian Camp��).

Many of these stories deal with recurring themes: chiefly the violence and traumas of the Great War (“A Very Short Story��, “Soldier’s Home��, “In Another Country��, “A Way You’ll Never Be��) and the complicated and often unhappy romantic relationships (“The End of Something��, “Out of Season��, “Cat in the Rain��, “Hills Like White Elephants��, “A Canary for One��, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber��). Other significant subjects include physical, often borderline masochistic, activities, like hunting (“The Snows of Kilimanjaro��, “The Short Happy Life��), fishing (“Indian Camp��, “Big Two-Hearted River��), bullfighting (the inset vignettes from In Our Time), boxing (“The Battler��, “The Killers��, “Fifty Grands��), skiing (“Cross-Country Snow��), horse-riding (“My Old Man��), or binge drinking (“The Three-Day Blow��, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place��).

One of the primary trademarks of Hemingway’s stories is that they encapsulate a moment, a tranche de vie, often semi-autobiographical; Nick Adams, the author’s alter ego is a recurring character. But, contrary to a common preconception, Hemingway’s protagonists aren’t the burly alpha males one might expect; these men are broken, wounded, weak, even a bit daft, and try to find refuge in sports, the outdoors, male camaraderie, and drinking. The female characters, however, are often relatively more assertive and level-headed, if not castrating and predatory (e.g., the mother in “Soldier’s Home��, Margot in “The Short Happy Life��).

As everyone knows, Hemingway’s style is uncomplicated, economical, “journalistic��, flat, almost ascetic—in line with the works of Stephen Crane, Jack London or Isaac Babel, for instance. The stories often begin in medias res, lack any plot, and end ambiguously—perhaps like a literary equivalent to ’s melancholic pictures of anonymous common people.

Still, simplicity of expression doesn’t necessarily equate with clarity of intention. Another essential aspect of Hemingway’s writing technique is the use of “objective correlatives�� (external focalisation and concrete imagery instead of the description of feelings) and his “theory of omission�� or “iceberg theory��:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.
(Death in the Afternoon)

Hemingway was probably pushed in that direction by his early mentors, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, and used it persistently in his stories. Hence, presumably, his decision to edit “Three Shots�� out of “Indian Camp��, thus cloaking the initial topic of the protagonist’s fear of death in the final anecdote and elevating the story to a mini-masterpiece. Ditto with the magnificent “Big Two-Hearted River��, where Nick Adams�� attempt to heal his war traumas is literally submerged in the detailed description of physical, tactile sensations throughout his fishing expedition in the wilderness. Such a technique has been incredibly influential on American writers since then (e.g., Cormac McCarthy’s The Road).

This “beating about the bush��, so to speak, by focusing on incidental facts, inconsequential conversations, and concrete imagery while avoiding the essential point, demonstrates a sense of self-restraint, understatement, and constant sobriety on the author’s part. It can do wonders when the underlying subject matter is brutal, as is sometimes the case. Yet, it doesn’t always work with the same degree of success: in “Hills Like White Elephant��, the couple’s conversation is unintelligible and frankly frustrating if one doesn’t guess that they are talking about abortion—it’s like eavesdropping on a random conversation in a public space. Similarly, the reader may wonder what the point actually is in a story like “A Canary for One��. In cases like these, one cannot but remember what Nietzsche said of poets: “they all muddle their water that it may seem deep.�� (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II,39).