Recently Read: In Our Time

In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway is the first book I have finished from my college English class. It was Hemingway's first novel in 1925. If you are unfamiliar with the structure of this novel, it is rather short and is made up of short chapters that are separate short stories within themselves. There are short vignettes in front of each chapter. There is a lot of debate on whether to classify this work as a novel or a collection of short stories. If you have read this work, let me know what your thoughts on this matter are.  

This is the second Hemingway work I have read, the first being The Old Man and the Sea. I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. A lot of Hemingway's works have themes of nature and are nature based which I tend to find a little boring. This book had those themes as well, but they were not in every story. I was interested to find connections between the vignettes and the stories and between the stories themselves which kept me eagerly reading on to the next story. I really sympathized with the character of Nick Adams even though the reader doesn't know much about him. If you have never read a Hemmingway and are interested in reading him, I would suggest this as a starting point.

 

On a side note, If you are interested in Hemingway's personal life and his relationship with his first wife. I would recommend The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. This is a fictionalized account of Hemingway's relationship with his first wife Hadley, and their time in Paris. This is one of my favorite books I have read and I really enjoyed both the writing style and the subject.

Oh and by the way, young Ernest was very, very handsome.