Islands in the Stream: A Novel (Scribner Classics)

I wish Amazon would incorporate 1/2 stars but I guess that would make things even more complicated. This is one of my favorite Hemingway books and one of the few published posthumously that lives up to his legacy.
The book, broken into three distinct sections, recounts chapters in the life of Thomas Hudson, a somewhat thinly veiled version of Hemingway. That's not to say that this is a story about Hemingway himself, but its pretty clear there is a lot of Hemingway in Hudson.
The first section, considered by many to be the best (and, as a I recall, the focus of the film made of the book), takes place in Bimini, where Hudson is leading a fairly idyllic life. The second is centered in Cuba but has an entirely different tone from that of the first. Whereas the "Bimini" section is almost light-hearted and somewhat breezy, the tone of the Cuba section has changed dramatically. Hudson is now a depressed individual having lost a son in an accident. He has a reunion with his first wife, but even though she is the love of his life, he knows it won't end happily. The third part, "At Sea," recounts Hudson's efforts as a Nazi sub hunter.
Hemingway is at his best throughout much of the book, his men are all striving to prove that they are, well, men, or at least the ideal of what a man should be in Hemingway's eyes. And naturally enough, no Hemingway man, in this case Hudson, would be complete without a little tragedy in his life. "At Sea," while powerfully told, seems somehow incomplete, which may well be the case since I do not think Hemingway completed the book before his death. In fact, the ending seemed extremely abrupt and left me wondering, did Hudson survive his wounds?
Still, this is some of Hemingway's best work. A must read. The only reason I did not give it five stars is because of the abrupt ending and a few other brief passages in the book that seem somehow incomplete and unfinished.

Those who read this book deserve to know that it's not a finished work. It was published posthumously from Hemingway's manuscripts, meaning it's not in the form he would have chosen and doesn't have the credibility as a Hemingway work that the novels published during his lifetime did. None of us can say what Hemingway would have kept or eventually cut from this work before he let it go to publication. Indeed, any careful reading reveals all sorts of passages or ideas he obviously lifted and used in A Moveable Feast. The fact that they remain here only shows that he hadn't yet gotten back to turning this manuscript into a finished form.

That said, this is a wonderful book and I feel great fondness for it. Yes, it's uneven as a novel, but that is to be expected in an unfinished work that the author has not had a chance to edit. More importantly, for me, is it offers some writing that is simply among Hemingway's best. The first few pages are practically an object lesson on how to drag readers into your fictional world. (Note to teachers of creative writing.) Over and over in the book are examples of how Hemingway learned about how to use concrete images from his friend the poet Ezra Pound, from the "needles" of the water in his shower, to the case of Coca-Cola he obtains for his boys' visit, to his gin and tonic at the bar "opening the pores" of his stomach. TS Eliot's objective correlative (which he also learned from Pound) on display in a novel.

Does it work as a novel? No. The story is uneven. The fundamental concept is the story of a man with three sons who loses all of them, and how he copes. Personally, it doesn't work for me. As a father I believe his experience would have been more traumatic than could be coped with by the old Hemingway stoicism. But again, this isn't a finished work. Hemingway didn't have a chance to go back and make the plot work. So the book can't be judged on that basis, I don't believe.

All it can be judged on is the quality of the writing. And I think a person wishing to learn how to write English prose can do a lot worse than study this book. There are wonderful things here from a writer's perspective. And on how it makes you feel about the protagonist. Even when he's thinking or feeling or acting in a way that I think totally unrealistic, I still believe Tom Hudson is totally real. THAT is why Hemingway was so good.

Geez people,
Give the man a break! Did Hemingway have this published? NO!!! Did he even consider it complete? NO!!!

It was simply family members and friends who weren't finished collecting cash under Hemingway's name. He did not want it published! It is simply a manuscript that got published and not a novel. Remember this.

So, all your blistering commentaries on the book need to be taken under this consideration... the book is, in Hemingway's eye, not a final product. And to be honest, for an incomplete product, it's still better then most anything written today.

Next time you bake a pie I'm gonna come over when it is halfway finished, try it and tell you what a sucky baker you are. Or better yet, when you are up late at night working on your beautiful "literary" review, I am going to come over before you edit, spell check and re-read and tell you your review is amateurish and that your skills have decreased.

Sheesh, people.

Geez people,
Give the man a break! Did Hemingway have this published? NO!!! Did he even consider it complete? NO!!!

It was simply family members and friends who weren't finished collecting cash under Hemingway's name. He did not want it published! It is simply a manuscript that got published and not a novel. Remember this.

So, all your blistering commentaries on the book need to be taken under this consideration... the book is, in Hemingway's eye, not a final product. And to be honest, for an incomplete product, it's still better then most anything written today.

Next time you bake a pie I'm gonna come over when it is halfway finished, try it and tell you what a sucky baker you are. Or better yet, when you are up late at night working on your beautiful "literary" review, I am going to come over before you edit, spell check and re-read and tell you your review is amateurish and that your skills have decreased.

Sheesh, people.

I had given up on Hemmingway; his too macho writing and lifestyle bored me - and then I read this amazing book - and am again fascinated by this insightful and clever writer. I am ashamed to admit that my view of Hemmingway had been influenced by the way often weak men have used him to hide behind: "No, I'm not an animal killing, family-leaving egoist; I'm a free spirit like Hemmingway".. Read this fabulous book if you want to get the popular Hemmingway-noise washed away by the great Masters own words; you'll understand men and the world a bit better for it.

Hemingway's last novel, published several years after his death, is a story in three parts. Not surprisingly, the main character, Thomas Hudson, seems to be very Hemingway-like. In the first part of the book, Hudson is a painter enjoying a leisurely, rustic lifestyle on the island of Bimini as war clouds gather in Europe. The story moves on to an extended drinking bout in a Havana bar in the second part of the story. Some of the conversation in this segment is amusing, insightful, and memorable. Some of it is depressing, but all of it is likely to hold the reader's interest. For my money, it's the third part that makes this novel so compelling. "At Sea" is the story of Hudson's grim hunt to confront a German u-boat crew that has come ashore in Cuba after their boat has been sunk. In somewhat predicatble fashion, Hemingway serves up a large portion of tragedy and angst in this section. But it is a gripping tale, and one that I found myself drawn to at every available opportunity, several times postponing my dinner until 8 or 9 p.m. as I picked it up immediately upon arriving home from work.

This is a painful review to write... because I usually like Hemingway's delivery so much. I hadn't read the book in maybe twenty-five years and thought I'd give it another shot, especially after having watched the movie once again. The movie, with George C. Scott, is one of my favorites. This patched-together novel -- patched together post-mortem by Hemingway's last wife, Mary -- is a sad state of affairs. Especially disappointing, as the other reviewers will testify, is the mid-chapter entitled Cuba. Hemingway would NEVER have wanted this to go to print without major, major, editing. It is boring, self-serving, stilted, and damn near unreadable. Even the dialogue, for which the Hem was so famous, is stupid, and practically nonsensical. People just don't talk that way; even if, as the chapter goes, they've been drinking all day, and are just killing time in a bar. Even worse, this is the chapter that then introduces us to Tom Jr.'s Mom, the long-lost love... Mary should have just cut this chapter out altogether, and the whole thing would have made as much sense and it would have read much smoother... and ultimately, the reader would have come away much less severely disapointed in how it shows what Papa became at the end of his life, both a hack and a parody of himself. Now, having said all that, the first chapter, Bimini is really wonderful, and makes the basic foundation for the movie (and the fish fighting scene was the inspiration that became The Old Man and The Sea). And the last chapter, At Sea, finishes it all up rather nicely; again (kind of like Watchmen, if you're a fan), the movie was actually better than the novel, for the simple reason that it took the best and tossed the rest, and even changed plotlines to make it all come together (spoiler alert: there was really no reason to kill off the younger boys in a castoff car accident somewhere in Europe -- letting them go on would have made Tom Jr.'s wartime death more tragic -- and believable). I'll end it all with letting you know that Tommy Lee Jones was intent on doing a re-make of the movie, closer to the patched-up wreck of a novel, with the good parts left intact, maybe even playing Thomas Hudson himself... but after trying to get a script together from this mess and not being able to succeed, and with Time marching relentlessly on, he couldn't pull it off and it died on the shelf. A shame.

Like a lot of people, I love Hemingway novels. This one is really a good story, takes you to Key West, then Cuba, takes you out fishing on the seas and then searching for Germans in the Caribbean. It's all the stuff Hemingway is so good at describing, and like so many of his books the hero is a character you can really relate to with flaws and real issues to deal with. It's not quite on a par with his very best like The Green Hills of Africa, A Moveable Feast or The Sun Also Rises, but it is a really good story.

I loved this book. I read it while I was at the Gulf Coast and I could really come to terms with the imagery of the white sand and the sea breeze from Bimini and Cuba. The book is divided into three sections and each has its own tone but they are all Hemingway and give one a wistful feeling of the atmosphere that he provided in his other books. I could see the main character (who is obviously Hemingway) clearly going about his days drinking, carrousing, reminiscing, and feeling without showing. I loved the discussions about James Joyce! The book has a couple of shocks and surprises which give the novel its increasingly melancholy tone. I found that while I was at the Gulf Coast I could not put this book down. I carried it everywhere and could not pull myself away from it. I have enjoyed several Hemingway novels but this has to be one of my favorites. Truly a book for those who love to read Ernest Hemingway.

The first time I read 'Islands in the Stream' I just could not get into it. The first part was wonderful, the second part was bland, and I didn't even finish the last part. Looking back on it, I read the book too fast and looked over important dialogue that makes this story great.

The other night I picked this book off my bookshelf on a whim. I started reading it and could not put it down...I looked up at the clock and two hours had gone by in a flash.

The novel starts out in Bimini where painter Thomas Hudson lives. He leads a very simple/enjoyable life. Towards the end of part one, a tragic event occurs which changes Hudson's life dramatically. The second part deals with love and loss. The last part is about Hudson's secret anti-submarine mission off the coast of Cuba.

The story is very well rounded. It has many three-dimensional characters that stay with you. The imagery makes you feel like you are right there.

There is a reason that this book has so many high ratings on amazon: It is, in my opinion, one of Hemingway's finest works.

5/5