(2.5 stars) I get what he was going for: the aimless plot reflecting the behavior of the Lost Generation and all that and he succeeded. HOWEVER, it did not make it an enjoyable book to read. Also his prose was pretty poor compared to A Farewell to Arms which was disappointing. ( )

I don't think I really like Hemingway that much.
However, this was an important one to have read. ( )

I have read and enjoyed a couple of Ernest’s books. Something like 40 years ago l read For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea. Recently re-read The Old Man and the Sea.

This was a tough read for me, mostly bored by it until the trip to Spain. I would have enjoyed such an adventure in my youth. Some rather odd and annoying characters.

My next book is definitely going to be faster paced. ( )

I'm not a Hemingway fan but I did really like this book. I liked the spare writing, and I especially enjoyed what it was about -- the lost generation of the 20s. I suppose what really made it interesting for me was that the story takes place in Paris and in Spain, and I am a Francophile and live in Spain. For anyone who likes this book for similar reasons, I would recommend his Moveable Feast as a followup. That is a memoir of those same years and is fascinating.

And if the subject continues to interest you, I recommend the non-fiction Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway's First Wife by Gioia Diliberto. Then, to top it off, there's the fictional The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. But like reading a book before seeing the film version, if you're going to read about Hadley, read the non-fiction first. ( )

Rereading this book again after many years, I began to see Hemingway as a Seinfeld-ish writer in that his books on the surface are not really about anything. The story is slow and the action is limited. The characters are interesting but in an almost superficial way. While there are emotions expressed, most of the characters emotions seem to be fueled by alcohol (or lack thereof). For its time, I am sure this was a new way of telling a story but taken out of that context new readers would probably class the book as "boring." In addition, there is language and events (bull fighting and running of the bulls) that many would see as outdated and unnecessary events. In fact, there is a character who pushes the idea that bicycle racing is "the only sport in the world" which may indicate a change of attitude about those events even at the time the book was written. ( )