The Garden of Eden

Another good addition to my leather book collection.

I am so pumped to get this novel! I'm even more excited to get it in this hardcover edition! I have to admit I was ecstatic to open the box and find this book in the shrink wrap! I haven't opened it yet, as I am waiting until I plan to actually read it! But I can say one thing for certain: it was well worth the 4 or 5 day wait to hold it in my hands! And I am really anxious to start reading it! You can't go wrong buying & reading a Hemingway novel! The way I see it is every time you read a Hemingway you actually become a better human being in ways few people can even understand!

if Hemingway had really completed it after rewriting & editing & soul searching, and so on... We will never know. It generally holds one's interest but doesn't really go where I think it would have had the author finished it. Is it based on "real" life...? Does it really matter. It isn't first-rate Hemingway but it could have been. It may have been too intimate for a time of transition - between the classics & the up and comers who wanted to explore what was only hinted at previously.

Knowing this novel's troubled publication history and the story of its severe editing (one critic says it is not true to Hemingway's intentions) makes commentary on it somewhat of a risk. I approached with caution but immediately like many found myself under the spell of this work. Hemingway's sublime tersefulness is there as well as his rich if troubled humanjty. Relationships between men and women in love were always one of his most revisited themes and here they are captured in a dangerous swirl of shifting identities and loyalties. It is his most sexual book. The Garden of Eden is exactly that... The book makes you want to throw up everything and rush to the South of France.... to live and lie in the heart and arms of a wildly impassioned beautiful lover, or two.... But of course without the arguments, confusion, and suffering.... The novel is gripping, even entrancing. The meditation on the art of story-telling is just one of its engaging asides.

Critics pounced when this posthumous work came out -- editors had cut the original by 2/3 to make the unfinished story work, but this is my fave Hemingway. Young writer is on honeymoon. Mornings, he writes about tracking a bull elephant in Africa with his father. Afternoons, he's skinny dipping and making love with his new wife and a "girl" the wife picked up. On one level it's the height of machismo -- elephant hunt, two beautiful women in thrall. On another level, it's about the demise of machismo. The boy on safari doesn't want to kill the elephant that his father is hell bent on destroying. The man on honeymoon doesn't want his macho self destroyed. Some critics said it's about a "difficult woman." To me, it's about the "new woman" of the 1920s who can do whatever the hell she wants in spite of daddy's clueless old school machismo.

Hemingway's writing is always a pleasure but this book isn't one of his best efforts. It's a worthwhile read for those of us who have read his others.

Very quirky exploration of Hemingway's uneasiness with his sexuality as it relates to his masculinity . . . I felt the author's unease as he was entering into 'swapped' gender roles, forced upon him by Katherine(Devil), his jealous, destructive(castrating)wife. It is with the introduction of Nina, that we(the audience)begin to feel a shift in David Bourne's creative, personal and sexual life: a calm and security anchored by Nina's love for him, that allows him to escape from the toxic hold of Katherine, and to ascend to his creative heights and sexual security. Very different from any Hemingway that I've ever read. Yeah, there's some fishing, big game hunting and minor carousing that takes place.But, I feel that Hemingway's(reputedly)small(4.5-5.0 inch)penis is at the center of this; that and his relationship to his father as revealed in the story that Katherine, sensing its importance to David as a man, destroys as a coupe de grace in her final attempt to spiritually annihilate David Bourne. Quite beautiful with the South Of France and Spain thrown in for good, scenic effect. And, oh! The drinking's there too!

Price was good. The book was in perfect condition. Packaging was good. I will buy from them again. The only thing I did not like was the time it to receive the product (book). Granted, I could have paid more and had it ship sooner.

A simply stunning read. Magnificently poignant and tragically left unfinished. From the pieced together scraps that we have here, we can see what may well have been Hemingway's finest novel. A daring and insightful look into love, romance, sex and gender that Hemingway spent over a decade researching - he even crashed his brand new car so that he was better able to describe the experience (the original ending had the character of Catherine dying in a car crash).

I like Amazon to give us opportunity for buying these types of books which is rare. Thank you.

I enjoy Hemingway and his writing style.His writing seems to carry me into the scene he is creating.It almost seems you are in the bar with the characters or on the beach etc. etc..

Hemingway est un de mes auteurs américains préférés, il était le sujet de mon mémoire de maitrise d'anglais! On est toujours envouté par les personnages et leur histoire et par ce lien si particulier de l'auteur avec la nature et les choses de la vie ainsi que par sa notion de bonheur... ou pas... Une histoire qui traverse les ages sans vieillir. Même s'il n'est vraisemblablement pas achevé, les derniers paragraphes du roman constituent une bonne conclusion. On sent néanmoins que le livre n'a pas été revu et corrigé par l'auteur, l'écriture manque de quelques ajustements. Mais j'ai eu le plaisir de découvrir cet ouvrage dans le texte, avec son authenticité, je ne voulais pas en lire une traduction,et j'ai vécu dans l'ombre des personnages encore un moment après l'avoir achevé... C'est ça Hemingway! A lire!

Excellent read