Product Description

Harry Morgan was hard, the classic Hemingway hero, rum-running, gun-running and man-running from Cuba to the Florida Keys in the depression. He ran risks, too, from stray coastguard bullets and sudden double-crosses. But it was the only way he could keep his boat, keep his independence, and keep his belly full. "This active, passionate life on the verge of the tropics is perfect material for the Hemingway style, and the reader carries away from the book a sense of freshness and exhilaration; trade winds, southern cities and warm seas all admirably described by the instrument of precision with which he writes." - "New Statesman".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18009 in Books
• Published on: 1994-08-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
'This active, passionate life on the verge of the tropics is perfect material for the Hemingway style, and the reader carries away from the book a sense of freshness and exhilaration; trade winds, southern cities and warm seas all admirably described by the instrument of precision with which he writes.' -- New Statesman"

About the Author
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Chicago in 1899 as the son of a doctor and the second of six children. After a stint as an ambulance driver at the Italian front, Hemingway came home to America in 1919, only to return to the battlefield - this time as a reporter on the Greco-Turkish war - in 1922. Resigning from journalism to focus on his writing instead, he moved to Paris where he renewed his earlier friendship with fellow American expatriates such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Through the years, Hemingway travelled widely and wrote avidly, becoming an internationally recognized literary master of his craft. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.

Customer Reviews

Depression Era Perils in The Florida Straits
This short novel was written when Hemingway was living in Key West and paying regular visits to Cuba, before moving, lock, stock, and barrel, to Havana in 1939. The author was a keen deep-sea fisherman himself, who craved a laid-back tropical lifestyle between bouts of high adventure. To Have and Have Not draws heavily on his intimate knowledge of early nineteen-thirties life in the Florida Keys, the north coast of Cuba, the Gulf Stream in between, the fishing boats that worked these waters, and the men who owned and manned them.

This was the time of the Great Depression. Harry Morgan has been bilked of his dues for a fishing charter out of Havana. Broke, he turns to smuggling with its inevitable risks, in order to support his family, while the author treats the reader to a simply told, suspenseful, and sometimes poignant morality tale. A tale with a rich share of characters ranging from down-and-out "rummies", Cuban revolutionaries, bar-owners, drunken authors, customs men, and an inevitably crooked lawyer, to wealthy owners of luxury steam-yachts.

Interestingly, if a little quirkily structured, the book is divided into three parts. The first is told in the first person, most of the remainder in the third. To Have and Have Not should be viewed as a product - as well as a story - of its time, particularly in respect of terminologyy that would today be seen as highly racist and derogatory. Not "Papa's" best work, but most assuredly a yarn that held this reader's attention throughout.

Beyond the Ink on Paper
Rough. Hard. Dirty. Physical. Tough. And also lyrical, simple, emotional, indelible. All characteristics of Hemingway's writing, all present in this book. A simple story of Harry Morgan, sometime fisherman forced into smuggling and illegal immigration just to feed his family, a man who spirals down the slippery road of 'the end justifying the means' till there is nothing left but survive at any cost.

The story is told as three separate time-segments in Harry's life, which forces a certain disjointedness to the tale. But it also allows Hemingway to illuminate Harry's story with different segments of the Cuban and Key West societies at different times with changing social conditions. There are many character vignettes, people captured sometimes in only a few paragraphs, people who are desperate, silly, egotistical, idealistic, cynical, worn-out, greedy, dissolute, resigned, driven, and just coping. Albert, a man doing relief work for less than subsistence wages, is one of the clearest and most poignant images, hiring on as mate to Henry even though he knows the voyage is supremely dangerous. Within this short portrait of this man, we see not only the extremes that desperation will drive a man to, but also Hemingway's commentary on social/political organizations and economic structures that give rise to such desperation. This was quite typical of Hemingway, as he never beat his reader's over the head with his political philosophy, but showed the underpinnings of his reasoning through the circumstances of his characters.

Throughout this work, there is the sense that there is more here than what the words on the page delineate, a theme of people from all walks of life and all economic circumstances who are caught in the implacability of fate. All of these people have their own dreams, their own methods of dealing with the vagaries of life, and each is limned by the ultimate depression of life limited to only a short span.

Morgan's wife, though relegated to only a small part on these pages, shines through as one of the most engaging and durable people here, supportive of her husband's dreams, willing to forgo anything more than minimal material wealth, able to put aside her husband's foibles, and having the inner strength to continue when all her world collapses around her. The contrast between her and many of the other characters here is striking, a fine illustration of what really compromises the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

This book is not as powerful as For Whom the Bell Tolls, mainly due to its fragmented story structure and lack of any clear objective for its main characters, but is still a fine book with many nuances hiding within its simple story. This is not a book for those who like happy, uplifting stories, but it does much to illuminate both the best and the worst of humanity's fight with the curse of living and the insurmountable wall of dying.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

heart rending
Harry is a man just trying to make a living wage, to support his once beautiful wife and three daughters. He does what he has to do and has no pity. Here I feel Hemmingway has shown us the man that all men hope that they could be, yet are glad they are not. Also thrown in on top of this there are stunning descriptions of writers, bar owners and all the characters and characterisations that there are to love about Hemmingway.