Men Without Women

These 14 short stories from Ernest Hemingway, first published collectively in 1927, are not entirely devoid of women, but they certainly are bent towards the masculine. There is a certain rugged pathos to stories about an aging bullfighter (“The Undefeated”), a boxer who decides to throw a fight (“Fifty Grand”), soldiers maimed in WW1 (“In Another Country”), a drug addict (“A Pursuit Race”), and hitmen terrorizing a diner while waiting for their target (“The Killers”, my overall favorite). Hemingway gets in a direct critique of Mussolini and the fascists effect on Italy (“Che Ti Dice La Patria?”), and more subtly given the era, also touches on homosexuality (“A Simple Enquiry”) and abortion (“Hills Like show more White Elephants”).

As with his other work, there is great economy with language, and I liked how what some of the stories were really trying to say required thought and interpretation. There are times when Hemingway provides contrasts without directly linking things, such as that between characters thinking of “Them Indians” as drunken trouble-makers, and a boy secretly loving one of them (“Ten Indians”). In another story, characters view peasants as “beasts,” whereas a couple of skiers had a carefree winter while a poor peasant was snowed in with his wife’s corpse in a shed (“An Alpine Idyll”). In a third, we get the lightweight reporting of a magazine on various topics which also seems like empty chatter, followed by the gravitas of a dying bullfighter known for his courage (“Banal Story”).

Overall, I don’t think there are any masterpieces here, but the quality level is uniformly high, and it’s worth reading. show less

I read a couple of Hemingway novels in high school and since, and I absolutely loathed them... so I was surprised to find I kind of like the stories here! The novels felt stiff and artificial, particularly the female characters -- perhaps this collection is saved by not having any. People think of Hemingway as an icon of indomitable machismo, but I see in these stories an overwhelming panic about masculine performance and the possible failures thereof.

The trouble I have with Hemingway is that I'm just not interested in much of the subject matter, which makes for a tedious read. Bullfighting, boxing, yawn. And there's so much left unsaid, which works some of the time if the reader has knowledge or interest in the context, but not if she doesn't. "Hills Like White Elephants" is told without once naming the literal elephant in the room. But the bullfighting stories, I can't even picture what's happening, although I do get the gist. The stories all have male narrators, with women appearing as minor characters, if at all. But oddly, despite the fact that the story topics don't interest me, I can still feel the seriousness of Hemingway's intention. I can feel that he's trying to say show more something, even if I don't know what it is.

Edit: It's been weeks since I read this collection, and there's one story I still think about. The Major, an army officer who has been wounded in the hand, who has lost his wife, still returns to the medical center where his hand is manipulated by a machine as part of his physical therapy. This image, of the man who has given everything but is still caught up in the machine, has really stuck with me. show less

**spoilers**
The atmosphere in these stories is raw, without illusions and cynical. Most characters are not too upset about their disenchanted world. Ok, they’re grumpy or gloomy, but they give a shrug and carry on.
The narrator keeps from committing himself, delivering his sober prose stoicly like his characters. But between the lines he shows compassion. Every once in a while he abandons his short sentences for longer ones, more lyrical. This happens with Manuel the aging bullfighter (“The Undefeated”) who is in for a hopeless defeat. Before the bull tosses Manuel, Hemingway slows down the narrative to highlight Manuels competence, one last time. Manuel faces the bull and takes in every detail: ‘He knew all about bulls.’
A show more character resembling Manuel is Jack, the boxer in “Fifty Grand”. Jack is also heading for certain defeat. Not only is he old like Manuel and does he have to fight a young brute, but he also suffers from insomnia which makes it almost impossible to train. But the nice thing about these stories is that characters are never completely the same. Whereas Manuel is victimised by a commercial and cynical organizer of bullfights, Jack is commercial and cynical himself. He bets on his own defeat, putting in fifty grand. What a fright if he almost wins, against all odds, because his opponent commits an enormous ‘foul’, hitting heavily below the belt. Luckily Jack can persuade the referee that it’s insignificant, and the game continues. Afterwards he says: ‘It’s funny how fast you can think when it means that much money.’
The atmosphere is not always determined by sturdy men going about their crude business. In the anti-fascist story ‘Che Ti Dice La Patria?’ the first-person narrator playfully teases his traveling companion. In ‘A pursuit Race’ a just as playful (but also very drunk) racing cyclist gets into an absurd conversation with his coach. And in the famous ‘Hills like white elephants’, one of the few women in this collection utters the maybe not exactly playful, but certainly not sturdy or crude phrase: ‘Will you please please please please please please please stop talking?’
There are many sides to these stories and they all tingle with life. show less

I must admit that, whilst reading parts of this book, I thought that Men Without Women would be the first Hemingway experience I've had that I disliked (it is the seventh book by the man that I have read). A fair proportion of the stories here are simply dull, lacking direction and not even offering any coherent symbolism or thematic depth as redemption. Many other reviewers have praised the included stories 'Hills Like White Elephants' and 'The Killers', and though I liked 'Hills', these two stories didn't exactly blow me away. Others, such as 'Che Ti Dice La Patria?' and 'A Canary for One', don't really have anything to recommend them, whilst 'A Simple Enquiry' was just strange and right out of left-field.

Sometimes the strangeness is show more fine and pleasing, as with 'A Pursuit Race', a story about a drug addict who happens to talk through a white bed-sheet (!?) and 'Today is Friday', which has three Roman soldiers winding down after work and talking about that Jesus bloke they put up on the cross (You see me slip the old spear into him?" (pg. 120)). I did like the two sports-related stories: 'The Undefeated', about a bullfighter, and 'Fifty Grand', about a boxer. I found the latter to be the most accessible and pleasing of the selections on offer. But, all told, if you're looking for a collection of Hemingway's short stories, you might want to check out The Snows of Kilimanjaro first, which I found to be a stronger offering." show less

I read this collection of 14 short stories in part to compare it to Haruki Murakami's recent collection that borrowed the title. These are indeed primarily stories of men without women. I can see even a few bits to compare, probably coincidental, such as the story of the boxer in '50 Grand' who is off training and misses his wife every day and writes her letters. I enjoyed reading this, but this is not the best Hemingway and some of the stories are just little slips of things that didn't grab me. Still, it is Hemingway. There are enough good ones, thought provoking vignettes, in here to put this at the high end of an OK read so I'm giving this 3 1/2 stars.

Sometimes when I read Hem's stories I feel like a little kid again listening to show more my grandpa tell stories. show less

This was my first introduction to Hemingway’s writing, so it took some time to get used to his masculine characters (or, misogynistic as we’d interpret it now). It also didn’t help that the first story, The Undefeated was my least favourite story of the bunch, but after that it got so much better. I finally got to read and analyse classics like Hills Like White Elephants, A Simple Enquiry and The Killers.

What I like about Hemingway’s short stories is the simplicity on the surface. At first I didn’t understand what message he was trying to convey, but once you’re able to look past the subtleties, Hemingway’s talent shows through. Literature in its most interesting form is when it leaves you with more questions than show more answers, and Hemingway excels at doing exactly that. I think I’ll come to appreciate these short stories when I read them more often and that prospect excites me. show less