Islands in the Stream (1970)

In his later years, Hemingway had begun planning to write a series of war novels about the land, sea and air. The plan never fully materialized. The land plot, greatly reduced in scope, morphed into Through the River and Into the Trees. The air plot simply died. Of the three plots, Hemingway was only able to move forward aggressively with the sea.

The sea section Hemingway conceived as a trilogy: “The Sea When Young”, “The Sea When Absent” and “The Sea in Being”. He did not, however, publish all three sections. The first two he set aside, bundling them together into a bank vault. He had more confidence in the third section and published it in 1952 with the title of The Old Man and The Sea.

Almost a decade after his death, his fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, and his publisher, Max Scribner, decided to publish Hemingway’s roughly finished pieces that he had essentially warehoused. “The Sea When Young” was retitled “Bimini” and became the first part of the novel now titled Islands in the Stream. The second piece was retitled “Cuba” and became the second part. To provide a conclusion to the first two sections, they dusted off another unpublished story that Hemingway had in manuscript called “Sea Chase” and retitled it as “At Sea”.

Stitched together into a single book, the three parts of Islands in the Stream tell the story of Thomas Hudson at different moments of his life. In “Bimini”, set before the Second World War, Hudson spends a summer on that isolated Caribbean Island with his three sons, dealing with both his love for the three boys and the distress of his failed marriages. In “Cuba”, with war waging in Europe, Hudson begins the slow process of managing grief after learning of the death of his oldest son, killed in battle. The last section finds Hudson actively involved with the war off the north coast of Cuba, chasing the German survivors of a sunken U-boat.

Even recognizing that Hemingway himself may not have been convinced of their quality, the three sections have developed an audience that sees in them strength and beauty. There is much of Hemingway’s creative talent throughout the novel’s length. In the first section, for example, Hemingway describes breathtakingly one of the son’s battles with a marlin, a bit reminiscent of Santiago’s battle in The Old Man and the Sea.

In the second section Hemingway recreates the all-consuming inaction of grief. Hudson moves almost mechanically through his day, surrounded by his cats and his alcohol. Traveling from his home to the local tavern, Hudson reflects on the Cuban people between those two points:

This was the part he did not like on the road into town. This was really the part he carried the drink for. I drink against poverty, dirt, four-hundred-year old dust, the nose-snot of children, cracked palm fronds, roofs made from hammered tins, the shuffle of untreated syphilis, sewage in the old beds of brooks, lice on the bare necks of infested poultry, scale on the backs of old men’s necks, the smell of old women, and the full-blast radio, he thought. It is hell of a thing to do. I ought to look at it closely and do something about it. Instead you have your drink the way they carried smelling salts in the old days.

Poverty at his very threshold and Hudson can only drink to shut out that reality and the pain of his own losses.

In the third section Hemingway recounts a Hudson consumed by pursuit. Here there is a reminiscence of the texture and tension of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Here also is displayed Hemingway’s skill with dialogue. Hudson had found in the chase—and, finally, in death—an alternative to the deadening impact of drink.

For all its strength, Islands in the Stream is not the best work in which to first encounter Hemingway. It is a bit unpolished in spots, in need of a better editor like Max Perkins who, before his death, helped hone so much of Hemingway’s writing.
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ספר מיותר למדי של המניגווי. שלושה חלקים קשורים בקו​שי ביניהם על ידי הגיבור, צייר המניגוויי בשם תומס ה​דסון שמאבד שתי נשים שלושה בנים ולבסוף את חייו. גנש​ים מופיעים ונעלמים בלי פשר. המעט סיפור שיש לא תמיד​ ברור, הכתיבה נקראת לפעמים כמו פרודיה על המינגווי.​ מעל לכל מפריע לי המאצ'ואיזם המופרע והיחס הכמעט דת​ ( )

This is the most honest book I've ever read. It's based on his own experiences as a fisherman, sub hunter, and artist. But he seems to put a lot of his private melancholy into this one, more than his other works. I give it a five, though I think it was longer than needed. I suspect he would have edited it down even more than his heirs did. I also appreciate the rare book that can combine nature, romance, and adventure with equal depth in the same story. ( )

The posthumously published work of Hemingway, of which was originally written in the early 1950's. This story, much like other novels of Hemingway, focuses on one central and stoic figure. The book is divided into three acts, the beginning appearance and story that introduces the character of Thomas Hudson. Young and able, Hudson first appears as a strong individual whose background deals with art, set against a tranquil and remote island. As the second act progresses, Hudson learns about the death of his son, whom had served in the second World War. Hudson thus, becomes distant and becomes submersed in an alcoholic state. The final act encompasses the pursuit of a German war ship, the coming-to-terms of his childrens death, and death of Hudson. ( )

I must say that while this was not an action packed novel, something about the story telling made me compelled to read on. There were one or two scenes which were hysterically funny and others that were so descriptive that I thought they would never end.
In the end I think it was a good book which I enjoyed reading and have recommended to several thoughtful readers. ( )