The Nick Adams Stories

I liked the early stories best, when Nick was a boy. The later stories are more complex and challenging. A Big Two-Hearted River is strange tale of a young man by himself fly fishing. I have heard it described as an attempt at self-therapy. He has been through some sort of traumatic life episode and he is trying to heal himself by fishing and camping and being very methodical in everything he does. The Killers is good but not subject matter I am interested in.

Am enjoying the short stories, give a clue on how he started novels.

That's Nick Adams, in conversation with his friend George, in Cross Country Snow, one of the 24 short stories assembled for this collection of Hemmingway's shorter work. Written in the early part of the 20th century, these stories are pervaded by a wistful and romantic vintage feel.Only 16 of the stories were published in Hemmingway's lifetime; the remaining eight were released posthumously and combined with their predecessors to make up a complete volume following the life of the Nick Adams character.The stories chronicle a series of rites of passage, initiation, and comings of age. Nick's character clearly incorporates many autobiographical elements, and provides insight into the inner life of the author. The stories are grouped into sections: The Northern Woods, On His Own, War, A Soldier Home, and Company of Two. The actual stories present vignettes from early life in northern Michigan, adolescence and early independence, wartime injury, peacetime recovery, and the uncertain resolution of family.My favorites are Indian Camp, The Last Good Country, and Big Two-Hearted River. In Indian Camp, Nick accompanies his father, a doctor, who delivers a baby by caesarian section in primitive conditions. The Last Good Country has him on the run from the law, and contrasts the corruption of civilization with the innocence and purity of the wild. Big Two-Hearted River is about recovery, healing, and cleansing, in the context of a solitary post war fishing trip.This is the first of Hemmingway's fiction that I have read since the mandatory exposure of high school English, and I'm eager to go back after all these years.

To me, this book is so eloquent I am reluctant to review it because it will be impossible to do it justice.It is a collection of short stories from earlier works of Hemingway. In each of them, a thoughtful reader can gain insight into Hemingway and him/herself.The following is from "Indian Camp." In it, Nick is a very young boy, and, with his physician father, he has been present at a difficult childbirth and found the victim of a suicide. Dawn is approaching and he is in the canoe with his father rowing back across the lake.Quote:"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?""Not very many, Nick."..."Is dying hard, Daddy?""No, I think it's pretty easy Nick. It all depends."They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.UnquoteRegardless of how you feel about Hemingway, this is a poignant look into the soul of the man, and ourselves. Hemingway's family was plagued by suicide, including that of his physician father, and, like all of us, Hemingway was once a young child coming to grips with the idea of mortality, in a world still fresh and fascinating and frightening.Other stories deal with the joys of a life full-lived, an appreciation of the natural world around us, and our "quiet desperation," in love, life, and death."The Nick Adams Stories" is high on my "Top Ten List."

This edition presents the Nick Adams stories in the order of his apparent age in each story. It also has a brief editorial preface explaining this and the inclusion of unpublished material. It would have been helpful for me if information about the publishing dates had also been provided to better understand the development of the character. The character of Nick and the tenor of the other characters in the unpublished "The Last Good Country" reflects a juvenile machismo that I just do not see if further stories. The older Nick character and the others in "Now I Lay Me" presents a much more rounded and mature masculinity. Was this a refection of a development in Hemingway himself? It would have been nice to see the chronological order of the writing of these stories to understand developments such as this.

Book arrive promptly but rather than being in Used Very Good condition it was stained and somewhat smelly.

I’ve read the big 4, so I thought I would venture out and read some of his others. This bored me and so I couldn’t even find the energy to continue. I guess they all can’t be zingers.

Love Hemingway’s memorable, semi-autobiographical Nick Adams stories like “Indian Camp” and “Big Two-Hearted River”? Well, here’s all of Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories in one volume, and compiled in chronological order from Nick’s youth to adulthood. Another of my personal favorites is “Soldier’s Story”, about a young soldier who has returned from war and struggling to assimilate back into his family and community.

I wanted to read just one story in this book for research purposes and so a tatty secondhand copy arriving quickly was all I wanted. And it was what I got - good value for me. Anybody want to buy it off me giving me a profit?

I am not a lover of short stories so it was a bit disappointing for me.

This book was listed as "NEW" and regrettably, the book was not new at all. The book had a strong musty smell like it had been stored in a damp basement. The pages were all yellowed with age. And the back cover was creased in two places and there was a deep scrape.The delivery was lightning fast but I am disappointed with the condition of the product. I paid for new.

Ich liebe die Kurzgeschichten von Hemingway. Ihre Sprache scheint einfach und schlicht, aber sie haben beträchtlichen Tiefgang und berühren sehr, z. B „Indian Camp“.

very good