Product Description

The erotic novel that Hemingway suppressed during his own lifetime is set in the Cote d'Azur in the 1920s and tells the story of David Bourne, his glamorous wife, and the dangerous sexual games they play. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95643 in Books
• Published on: 1995-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Sex/Art/Love/Madness = Papa maps this dark tangle. Whew!
Simply-told though filled with dark implications, this lean-but-lyrical gem is as strong as vintage Hemingway. In this posthumously-published novel, Papa explores the many manifestations of desire as it excites, inspires, nurtures & drives us mad--often all at once. Set in the 1920's on the Cote d'Azur, it chronicles the honeymoon of David Bourne, a writer, & his lovely, impulsive wife Catherine. As her strange compulsions take her on a slide toward either freedom or insanity, David struggles to follow her and still practice his chosen craft. Soon after another woman enters their relationship, the struggle becomes one for control of David's art through his love for both Catherine & Marita, the newcomer. This is a love-triangle with three complete sides (as they pair & repair), and how each of these characters chooses to resolve their struggle belies the more prurient aspects of the book: this is less erotica than a story of how the dark & bright sides of desire inform lives, how they empower & weaken us, and how love may not be enough--even 'true' love. As entertaining as any romance, though much more provocative, this book is a masterpiece (despite the controversy surrounding it).

Moveable Paris, the sequel
I've sometimes suspected that Hemingway actually said all he was going to say in "Big Two Hearted River, I and II." Reading this "Garden of Eden," a startlingly vivid but still posthumous cut and paste job, I did get feeling that this writer was trying to break some new ground. But the characters never get very far away from their drinks before they turn back and tread through the already established Hemingway routines. To name just a few problems, the story of the elephant that David Bourne "must" tell is derivative of Faulkner's "The Bear." The images of 1920s Paris and youth as Eden, of course, might work for some readers, but I find them self aggrandizing, as usual. And the style is the drone of the same old machinery. E.L Doctorow, in a review, suspects that Hemingway was trying something radically new here that didn't work. Not that his earlier stuff was bad, but some kind of major about face, some kind of turning his back on his own reputation, probably would have been neccessary for Papa to do what he really wanted to do here.

the garden of eden indeed
This was the most amazing book I have ever read. even now, more than a year after having first read it I keep thinking of it. It was so beautifully written and completely pulls the reader into the setting, to where you become a part of the story also. Wonderful, beautiful book.