The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition

In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

In this definitive collection, you will not only find some of Hemingway's classics, like 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' and 'Hills Like White Elephants', you will also find much previously unpublished work, some little more than a page long (like Old Man at the Bridge). This is one of those books that you can dive into for a few minutes at a time to enjoy, not only the short story, but also the power and beauty of the written word. Here is Hemingway in his most potent form - not a single unnecessary word - and with everything important left unsaid, but with all the clues in place for the reader to find.

A must for any lover of literature.


A must read featuring Hem's finest work   May 5, 2001
J. Remington (Adams, Oregon USA)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Hemingway's greatest format was always the short story. With the exception (at least in my mind) of The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls (The Old Man And the Sea, although great is overrated at the same time), the tension and economy of line required of the short story form became muddled as Hem tackled the novel.

Although this collection is not complete- missing here are two of my favorite Nick Adams stories- it definately contains Hemingway's finest work. My personal favorite, amoung many many choices included here is both parts of "Big Two Hearted River". Although I am not a fly fisherman, I am a human being and Nick's sense of loss and reflection as it becomes manifested in the wilderness resounds beautifully.

Hemingway is often Thoreau with out the self consciousness.

In re-reading these stories it continued to amaze me how utterly accessible and entertaining Hemingway's short stories remain to this day and how utterly dry, academic and pretentious all the "scholarship" has tried to make him in the unsufferable Lit classes I have often endured.

Hemingway is a great story teller who relates simple narratives that sensually create a spiritual experience. His line of action is clear and devoid of any digression. His avoidance of psycho-babble (thank God he didn't live long enough to experience the 1970's!) and his desire to place things grounded in the reality of doing (actors can learn volumes from reading Hemingway) makes him truly timeless.

There are many great writers who write as if they were talking directly to the audience in a barroom or fireside chat. What I find interesting about Hemingway is a strange void of "talkiness". I never get the sense that he could easily be telling me this story as a dramatic monolouge. His style often manages to transcend spoken language and commune directly with the readers's experience through the written word. In that sense, he is a true author using the written word as a full tool.

I discovered this while trying to adapt some of his short stories into a dramatic monolouge/performance pieces. Hemingway doesn't work as well as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Twain, Dylan Thomas or even Ken Kesey. There isn't an oral tradition stored up waiting to be unlocked in Hemingway's work. They are short stories not tall tales (deconstructionist/feminist/new age/PC/Multi-culti critics leave that last claim alone!)

Maybe that is why Hemingway hasn't really ever been successfully translated to the screen.

At any rate, these collected stories are not meant to be seen or heard, they are must reads. Enjoy and re-discover.