"The Nick Adams Stories" Ernest Hemingway

I wish I could remember when I read "The Sun Also Rises."  As my friend Alan say, "It was one or two life times ago."  When I was a young adult I read a lot of literature, such as Hemingway's work, that was deeper than I could fathom at the time.  However, I can remember the crispness of Hemingway's prose.

I didn't know what to expect in the Nick Adams stories.  In the past couple of years I have read other semi-biographical stories by male authors, Norman's Wilgus Stories and "My Name is Aram" by Saroyan, and those are what I had in mind when I started.

This particular collection includes sketches that had been written but not originally published.  Also, the stories were put into chronological order of Nick's life regardless of when they were published.  In some cases, I couldn't tell how old Nick was supposed to be, and not sure how they knew what order to put them unless they followed Hemingway's life, which would make sense.  Several of the sketches were unfinished, like "The Last Good Country," but I wasn't bothered by that.

In fact, "The Last Good Country" was my favorite of the longer pieces.  Nick and his sister, Littless, are heading out cross country so that Nick can escape being picked up for poaching.  She begs and conspires to come along on the trip, and he is preoccupied with keeping her happy with the outing.  Their relationship is very close, possibly stepping over the line into incest but I interpreted the talk of love and marriage by Littless as simply a way to express her devotion to her brother.  Some critics argue that the gender confusion and eroticism in the story were too close to the truth and kept the writer from extending this sketch to a full length novel.  Regardless, the story wins for its descriptions of the beauty and devastation of the land.

My favorite short piece immediately follows, where Nick describes how he feels crossing the Mississippi for the first time.  I've lived close to the Mississippi all my life, and I know how much it means to me each time I cross, so this first experience for Nick as a young man crossing the river of legends, possibly over a bridge I have crossed myself, is close to my heart.

Fishing!  I wasn't expecting so much talk about fishing!  Hemingway must have loved the water and the battle between man and animal.  I kept picturing Brad Pitt from the movie "A River Runs Through It," but there were a few times that I wished the narrative would move on.  I can relate to the experience intellectually, but lost patience a little.  Later, while Nick is in Italy after being injured in the war, he returns to fishing.  Suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep deprivation, Nick dreams of lecturing Italian troops about the best way to catch insects for bait.

This was a quick read, with mostly shorter works and just a few long pieces.  I also have a copy of Hemingway's short stories, and will pull it out to put on the "read soon" shelf.  I will also look for "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Sun Also Rises" to reacquaint myself with his novels.