In Our Time.

I have been a fan of Ernest Hemingway after reading his books in my late teens.  I have found as much as I enjoyed them I never really came back to them until now.

Reading them with life experience behind me has given me a different insight to much of his writing but not more so than probably my favourite book of his In Our Time.

For such a famous author with so many known books behind him I am still yet to come across anyone who has read this which is why I have chosen to blog about it.

If you have read it I would love to know your take, if not then I hope to inspire someone to pick it up.

The uncertainty about the future, destiny, death, problems within relationships, youth, fatherhood are all very striking and complex  topics. Hemingway covers them with such a strong and insightful way.

There isn’t a direct approach to the problems within the relationships, he takes it on indirectly we never really find out the root of the problems within the characters.

In "Indian Camp," we see  Nick's father teaching him about childbirth and tries to answer Nick's questions about death.

 The father figure always seems somewhat distanced from Nick, and the things he tells him don't make any sense to him as a child.

 I see Hemingway trying to portray the innocence of a child yet the the experience of the father and how difficult it is to communicate effectively .

Nicks father always comes across as a little preoccupied which hinders their understanding of each other.

Like many young people, Nick refuses to believe that he could die.

But with time throughout the book we see how fate troubles young people, it always has and always will, but as (we) men get older  (we) they learn to deal with fate as part of life.

This theme also arises in "My Old Man," but the youthful innocence  has disappeared by the end of the story. We see Nick and George in discuss the downside of relationships. For George relationships threaten his independence which suggest a whole feeling of unhappiness, the words Hemingway uses do not suggest to the reader there is a bright side to relationships for George.

Why does marriage fail? Hemmingway suggests it is like war, it is hard to communicate and it can not be sorted in a direct manner.

 As with ‘’The End Of Something’’ Nick and Marjories relationship ends very abruptly but even when together the tend to side with conflict.

In "Three-Day Blow" Nick struggles with the loss of Marjorie because he believes it to be a permanent and final loss.

But he sees he holds his destiny in his own hands, and that there is a  possibility of "a way out" to getting back with Marjorie, so he starts to feel much better.

 Suggesting there are many things that are lost which are not reversible, even though  his feelings in that moment; nothing is lost forever… in contrast to earlier on where we see his feelings that everything has been lost forever….

There is a lament to the passing of time, we see this in some of the shorter stories.

 Ad Francis's mental capacity in the "Battler" or the love between the unnamed soldier and Luz in "Another Short Story." These are projected as small losses  within the larger loss of life that runs throughout the book but  is arguably some of the strongest most thought provoking scenes in the entire book.

Death and loss is covered  by: war, suicide, execution, accident, and bullfighting but they are certainly not the only type of loss able to cause human pain and suffering….

There is no denying it Death plays a major and complicated role from the very start of In Our Time.

 In "The Quai At Smyrna" the English naval officer remembers the horrors of war.

 Mothers would not give up their dead babies.

 In "Indian Camp" the father of the newborn baby commits suicide, we are lead to believe  from the torture of listening to his wife's screams.

 Death represents a dark side, but seen through the eyes of a youthful  Nick there is something brighter about it.

 I would think this is due to his insistence when Nick asks his father about death,  believes he will never die.

For me, the scenes of the bullfighting repulsed me. 

 Death is celebrated as a victory whenever a bull is killed.  If  a matador is killed he gets replaced by someone new.

Hemingway suggesting a correlation from this to war.

When soldiers on one side die, the enemy claims it as a victory, even though both sides are part of the same race and that soldier is then replaced by another and so on… suggesting there could be justice in killing?...

There is a sense of escapism  to the book in the form of fishing and skiing which keep popping up throughout the stories.

They represent an escape  from the problems of society and relationships and they stand as a beacon to happiness.

In "Cross-Country Snow" Nick and George discuss the future and the possibility of skiing again, and although Nick says they must do so, he refuses to promise.

He recognizes the uncertainty of the future.

It is suggesting it is important that we all have some kinda escapism but we see Nick start to isolate himself from society, he likes to fish on his own…. But is this always a good thing??

 In "The End of Something" Nick and Marjorie are able to exist together as they fish for trout, but once they sit by the fire they end their relationship….

A book with strong emotion which makes you think and reading it 12 years later then when I first did provides  a greater insight to life experience and relationships.

I think Hemingway may just have known what he was talking about.?