It took me a long time to "get into" this book. I was looking for a strong theme between the stories, and I didn't find it. Finally, the beautiful writing overtook the lack of connection (at least that I could find) between the stories and I began to enjoy it.
I am so, So, SO glad that I slogged through the confusion of not understanding the book's theme. The payoff at the end was tremendous. I don't believe I've ever read a more absorbing story than the two part, "Big Hearted River." Hemingway's writing is so clear, so transparent, that I felt I was actually on the river with Nick. Here's an example of the shining prose, describing Nick's interaction with a trout:
"He hung unsteadily in the current, then settled to the bottom behind a stone. Nick reached down his hand to touch him, his arm to the elbow under water. The trout was steady in the moving stream, resting on the gravel, beside a stone. As Nick's fingers touched him, touched his smooth, cool, underwater feeling he was gone, gone in a shadow across the bottom of the stream."
When I finished the book, I still didn't have a sure idea what the theme was. I thought about it for awhile and decided that all of the stories were about men with whom Nick served during WWI. I was wrong. In fact the book's theme is much looser: "In Our Time" (just after WWI) is the theme. Good name then, eh?
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