Helpful Score: 1
This was only my second Hemingway, and while his style is a bit hard to grasp sometimes, it was good reading. What seems like a low-key adventure is really a lesson in the intertwinings of the lives of people in old Key West and Cuba, and a nice break from Papa's usual backdrop of Europe.
This was the second Hemingway I had ever read (after Old Man and the Sea). I like the way his characters talk like real people did in that time period, and I enjoy his overall writing style. I recommend this as a nice quick read for anyone who has never read any Hemingway.
A strange book. Its mainly written as conversations with the slang of the waterfront. Don't get why its a classic. Book review says Hemingway's gift for dialogue, guess its how you look at it.
Quick read. Great story!
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT by Ernest Hemingway is an unflinchingly racist product of its time.
The scary part is that many people today have inherited this painfully elitist mentality, but in the age of political correctness, it often takes secret recordings to expose the type of thinking that was published quite plainly here in the 1930s from a Nobel Prize winner, who is still today one of America's most celebrated storytellers.
I read this for a 'Most Popular Book Set in Your State Challenge' in my online book club, The Reading Cove. This cynical, disjointed book that uses 'nigger' and 'chink' as nouns almost gleefully in nearly every other line, is today in 2016 the most popular book set in the state of Florida.
What's it about? Basically about a crummy, homicidal sailor named Harry Morgan trying to survive in the Depression-era by using his boat to transport illegals and/or liquor between Cuba and the Florida Keys. He and his wife are basically trashy and poor, yet they never miss the opportunity to be gross elitists.
Harry suffers major setbacks, but keeps trying to make a go of things on his boat...you can't help but wonder why he didn't at least attempt to seek other work. But in the end, he got what he had coming, IMO. Racism aside, he wasn't a sympathetic character, even the narrative seemed to find him lacking, as it strayed to other pointless character POVs throughout the middle.
So overall, I couldn't recommend this story, but I suspect men can enjoy it more than women. While there was some dry humor sprinkled in, it's poorly structured, lacks focus and seems to explore the woes of the 'have nots' much more readily, with only a rushed, tacked-on glimpse at the 'haves' towards the end. C-.
The scary part is that many people today have inherited this painfully elitist mentality, but in the age of political correctness, it often takes secret recordings to expose the type of thinking that was published quite plainly here in the 1930s from a Nobel Prize winner, who is still today one of America's most celebrated storytellers.
I read this for a 'Most Popular Book Set in Your State Challenge' in my online book club, The Reading Cove. This cynical, disjointed book that uses 'nigger' and 'chink' as nouns almost gleefully in nearly every other line, is today in 2016 the most popular book set in the state of Florida.
What's it about? Basically about a crummy, homicidal sailor named Harry Morgan trying to survive in the Depression-era by using his boat to transport illegals and/or liquor between Cuba and the Florida Keys. He and his wife are basically trashy and poor, yet they never miss the opportunity to be gross elitists.
Harry suffers major setbacks, but keeps trying to make a go of things on his boat...you can't help but wonder why he didn't at least attempt to seek other work. But in the end, he got what he had coming, IMO. Racism aside, he wasn't a sympathetic character, even the narrative seemed to find him lacking, as it strayed to other pointless character POVs throughout the middle.
So overall, I couldn't recommend this story, but I suspect men can enjoy it more than women. While there was some dry humor sprinkled in, it's poorly structured, lacks focus and seems to explore the woes of the 'have nots' much more readily, with only a rushed, tacked-on glimpse at the 'haves' towards the end. C-.
The basis for the wonderful Bogie/Bacall '40's movie, this is the dramatic brutal story of Harry Morgan and his shady efforts to keep his family at least on the crest of the 'have nots' by running contraband between Key West and Cuba...
C'mon, it's Hemingway!
I thought this was an excellent novel by Hemingway as good as some of his best including "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "Old Man and the Sea". It was a gritty story of Harry Morgan, a deep sea fishing guide, trafficker in rum and illegal immigrants, who struggles to make ends meet during the tough times of the Depression. Hemingway's descriptions of deep-sea fishing in the first part of the novel were great and this is about the only part of the story that ended up in the movie with Humphrey Bogart (who plays Harry Morgan) and Lauren Bacall. I happened to have a DVD of the movie (which I have always liked) and rewatched it in between reading the book. The movie takes place on Martinique and includes a political cloak and dagger story about the corrupt government there. The novel takes place in Cuba and the Florida keys and is much more hard-hitting than the movie with Morgan running contraband between Florida and Cuba. Morgan is also happily married in the novel and the Bacall character is nowhere to be seen. Morgan is obviously one of the "have-nots" in the book which also has a chapter or two devoted to the "haves" -- the rich yacht owners who come to Florida who don't seem to be any better off or happier than the poor have-nots. Overall, I would give this a high recommendation.
Classic Hemingway. If you like Ernest, you'll like this book. Recommended.
