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mmillerb's review against another edition
America’s funniest writer and most embarrassing cultural export
zcashman's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
kmjmg's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Awful book. Only finished reading it because Hemingway is my favorite author.
newishpuritan's review against another edition
3.0
As a tragic romance, this has insuperable problems: the age difference between Cantwell and Renata is grotesque, so that it reads like a projected male fantasy rather than a credible description of two fully realised characters. And the repetitious banal dialogue doesn't help the case for this as a great love affair. I get that this is a trademark of Hemingway's style: here it feels mannered and implausible. Late in the novel, there's a long dramatic (more or less) monologue about the post-D-Day military campaign in France, which is then continued as silent internal monologue. I see some other reviews here complain about this section because they can't imagine why Renata would want to hear it. But this was probably the best part of the book for me: Cantwell feels most authoritative and convincing when he's talking or thinking directly about his military experiences.
But I didn't (re-)read this book as a romance, or even as a Hemingway novel, but rather as a novel about Venice, one of a relatively small canon in English, and considered in that light, it's more successful – certainly it was a ubiquitous part of the small selection of English titles on sale in the city's bookshops during the decade I spent researching Venetian history. The novel shows a side of Venice that has become cliched – but in part, I think, because of its treatment here. The story focuses on locations I studiously avoided – Harry's Bar, the Gritti Palace Hotel – both way out of my price league (though perhaps less so in the immediate post-war years in which this story is set, before mass tourism had re-established itself). I've also never been in a water taxi or a gondola, the preferred modes of transport for our protagonists, who turn their noses up at the very idea of a vaporetto. And everyone is seemingly either a tourist (bad, to be avoided), an aristocrat, or a servant of some kind, the latter all fully content with their life of service, and delighted with the condescension and noblesse oblige of the protagonists – Cantwell is treated as a sort of 'natural' aristocrat by everyone he meets in Venice, since everyone is seemingly aware he fought nearby in the First World War; Hemingway always notes how much he tips.
But there's a little more to the portrait of the city than that: we also get the car garage, the fish market, an early morning traghetto crossing (I said I'd never been in a gondola, but I used the traghetti all the time). And it seems telling that we're teased with a possible visit to Florian to see the floods in San Marco, but the visit is then cancelled as being too boring and obvious. Venice here feels like it has *some* relation to lived experience, even if of a privileged and rarefied kind. And paradoxically, one of the things that makes this work is the sense that the city is actually a village, whose sense of community is constituted by the backstage gossip of the waiters and gondoliers.
But I didn't (re-)read this book as a romance, or even as a Hemingway novel, but rather as a novel about Venice, one of a relatively small canon in English, and considered in that light, it's more successful – certainly it was a ubiquitous part of the small selection of English titles on sale in the city's bookshops during the decade I spent researching Venetian history. The novel shows a side of Venice that has become cliched – but in part, I think, because of its treatment here. The story focuses on locations I studiously avoided – Harry's Bar, the Gritti Palace Hotel – both way out of my price league (though perhaps less so in the immediate post-war years in which this story is set, before mass tourism had re-established itself). I've also never been in a water taxi or a gondola, the preferred modes of transport for our protagonists, who turn their noses up at the very idea of a vaporetto. And everyone is seemingly either a tourist (bad, to be avoided), an aristocrat, or a servant of some kind, the latter all fully content with their life of service, and delighted with the condescension and noblesse oblige of the protagonists – Cantwell is treated as a sort of 'natural' aristocrat by everyone he meets in Venice, since everyone is seemingly aware he fought nearby in the First World War; Hemingway always notes how much he tips.
But there's a little more to the portrait of the city than that: we also get the car garage, the fish market, an early morning traghetto crossing (I said I'd never been in a gondola, but I used the traghetti all the time). And it seems telling that we're teased with a possible visit to Florian to see the floods in San Marco, but the visit is then cancelled as being too boring and obvious. Venice here feels like it has *some* relation to lived experience, even if of a privileged and rarefied kind. And paradoxically, one of the things that makes this work is the sense that the city is actually a village, whose sense of community is constituted by the backstage gossip of the waiters and gondoliers.
rcthomas's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed the pace of book, though I have to say I don't think this is one of Hemingway's best. The protagonist is an interesting character who is constantly revealing more about himself and how he got to be the older man he is in the novel. There's nothing really remarkable about the book, but its a quick read and a very enjoyable one.
jenn_stark's review against another edition
4.0
Not my absolute favourite of Hemingway's, but I thought it was true to his writing and as a whole a wonderfully crafted novel.
logancoxx's review against another edition
1.0
Eh - just not it. An old man, talking about war and his young lover. It’s also super repetitive
hlawler94's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25