tBlog - Ernest Hemingway: Introduction to the Novels

Ernest Hemingway – Reading Suggestions

Since he wrote the real story first, he said, the destruction and changing of it that he did at the end did him no harm. I could not believe this and I wanted to argue him out of it but I needed a novel to back up my faith and to show him and convince him, and I had not yet written any such novel.
--Hemingway on F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway

Taboo Monkey on Three Novels:
1. The Sun Also Rises
2. A Farewell to Arms
3. For Whom the Bell Tolls

Suggested Reading Index

Hemingway's Novels

Ernest Hemingway aficionados have a hard time picking and choosing when it comes to creating "essential Hemingway" lists. However, while this particular aficionado believes Hemingway's genius shines most truly through some of the other formats in which he chose to write, I'll also suggest there are three Hemingway novels that deserve their place as some of the most important works of American fiction.

Hemingway's whittled, declarative prose makes reading any of his work a compelling, intuitive experience. True, the value of his commitment to simple, true sentences and the recognition of omission in fiction is found most clearly in his short fiction; and this revolutionary style dramatically affected the course of American Literature. Ernest Hemingway's contribution, however, provides much more than a stylistic sensibility. Hemingway produced three potent, occasionally flawed but unwaveringly brilliant novels that not only demonstrate the concise, focused power of his prose, but also isolate, embody, and eventually immortalize the post World War I ex-patriot scene, and what is now known as the "Lost Generation."

Taboo Monkey on Three Novels:
1. The Sun Also Rises
2. A Farewell to Arms
3. For Whom the Bell Tolls

Old Man Discussions:
1. The Story Before the Story
2. The Simple Story
3. Critics, Symbolism, Shit

Read Five Hemingway Stories
Full Text Stories

Suggested Reading Index