Malcolm's Reviews > To Have and Have Not
To Have and Have Not
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by

Meh.
It starts very strongly -- good character development, definite Hemingway commentary tone -- lots of Hemingway Southern Hemisphere fun in Cuba.
But midway -- he just sort of wanders off and starts pointing his Hemingway at anything that moves. He introduces secondary and tertiary characters with incredible detail, but with no discernible purpose.
It's not one of his better books, and ends leaving you wondering how much better it would have been if the writing from about the second third on was more substantially interconnected.
What's great about this book, if you want to enjoy it/study it/comment on it -- is that he really does scatter shot his Hemingway. You could tear out just about any page of this book, and it's pure him. His meaningless meandering details are done with true depth and edge ... but they really never imbue the reader with any concern for the characters that he sort of follows randomly.
It would be the equivalent of going to a train station, closing your eyes, opening them, writing something about the first person you see, closing them for another hour, opening them again, writing about the first person you see and so on ... but meanwhile, there's a CRITICAL character standing off to the side smoking a cigarette doing absolutely nothing.
Go read The Old Man and the Sea -- or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" ... leave this for the poor sots at school who are forced to read everything by him.
It starts very strongly -- good character development, definite Hemingway commentary tone -- lots of Hemingway Southern Hemisphere fun in Cuba.
But midway -- he just sort of wanders off and starts pointing his Hemingway at anything that moves. He introduces secondary and tertiary characters with incredible detail, but with no discernible purpose.
It's not one of his better books, and ends leaving you wondering how much better it would have been if the writing from about the second third on was more substantially interconnected.
What's great about this book, if you want to enjoy it/study it/comment on it -- is that he really does scatter shot his Hemingway. You could tear out just about any page of this book, and it's pure him. His meaningless meandering details are done with true depth and edge ... but they really never imbue the reader with any concern for the characters that he sort of follows randomly.
It would be the equivalent of going to a train station, closing your eyes, opening them, writing something about the first person you see, closing them for another hour, opening them again, writing about the first person you see and so on ... but meanwhile, there's a CRITICAL character standing off to the side smoking a cigarette doing absolutely nothing.
Go read The Old Man and the Sea -- or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" ... leave this for the poor sots at school who are forced to read everything by him.
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Reading Progress
January 5, 2009
– Shelved
Started Reading
January 8, 2009
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Finished Reading
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Jered
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rated it 3 stars
Jun 13, 2010 10:31AM

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I am now both convinced and yet unconvinced that I should venture into reading this particular Hemingway experiment ??
Umm. Thanks.
I think? : )


