Despite how some of this didn't seem to age well (Sexism, privilege, etc), the meaning that comes across still stands at the end. After hearing a character in one of my favorite anime series reference this story and compare himself to the leopard I decided to give this a read, so by comparing the two I was able to enjoy the perspective even more. ( )

The title story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, is one of Hemingway’s most famous and no doubt garners such appeal because it deals with the essence of every man’s life...what he has accomplished before he dies. Some see it as a treatise on procrastination, but I do not. I believe it is every man’s lot to die with things undone, hopes unrealized, opportunities missed, and I think Hemingway is making that point as well. We are busy living our lives and these things slip by us, sometimes without a thought, but often with the idea that we will come back to them, do them later, and then life runs out, as life always does. We all die in the midst of living. A secondary, but important theme, would seem to me to be that of isolation. No matter who is there holding our hands, soothing our brows, we die alone. No one can take that journey with us, and those who will continue to live after we are gone do not truly understand our going as we understand it, as an end of second chances, a startling realization that whatever we might have done is lost to us now, forever.

A Day’s Wait is an amazing bit of literature, packed into three scant pages. It is about waiting for death, and the wonder of being spared. I found it very striking and all the more so because of the childish perspective from which it is told.

Fathers and Sons A Way You’ll Never Be and The Killers are Nick Adams stories. Nick is a recurring character for Hemingway, and every time I encounter him in Hemingway’s writing, I feel I have added a piece to a puzzle that I have been working on for decades. Someday I would like to read all the Nick Adams stories together and see if the entire puzzle comes into focus.

In the Fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. Thus begins In Another Country, which is about the unexpected nature of death and the elusiveness of bravery, and this line seemed to set up the story so perfectly for me. Another line I loved, The three with the metals were like hunting-hawks; and I was not a hawk, although I might have seemed a hawk to those who had never hunted; they, the three, knew better, and so we drifted apart.

Fifty Grand registered nothing with me. I do not like prize fighting and I was surprised to find my mind wandering even in the midst of the story.

Finally, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber is an astounding story about cowardice, sex and marriage, set against the backdrop of a safari. The descriptions of the hunting were difficult to read, they were so stark and from my view senseless, but they served to draw pictures of Macomber, his wife and the Great White Hunter, Wilson. The end was a shocker for me, and I loved the uncertainty surrounding what had happened.

Hemingway is a deceptive storyteller. His stories seem so straightforward and simple, but they are extremely complex and he mines the depths of a man’s soul and often makes you grimace at what you find there. He sometimes seems to be saying that we are all the same...just carrion headed for death...but there in the details you find the devil, we are all exceedingly individual and unique and alone in the journey from cradle to grave.


( )

287/19-Συλλογή διηγημάτων :

* "Τα χιόνια του Κιλιμάντζαρο "
* "Η πρωτεύουσα του κόσμου " ξεχωρίζει
* "Προσκύνημα στην Ελβετία "
* "Το βραχύ διάστημα ευτυχίας "
* "Το φως του κόσμου "
* "Το τέλος ενός πράγματος "
* "Εκεί ψηλά στο Μίτσιγκαν "
* " ΄Ενας γέρος στην γέφυρα "
* " Σαββατόβραδο στη πολιτεία " ( )

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