Book Review: Men Without Women was published the year following The Sun Also Rises. As with all such collections some entries are good and some weak. A few are among his most acclaimed and popular: "In Another Country," on the vulnerabilities of strong men; "The Killers," which was the basis for a notable film with Burt Lancaster; and "Fifty Grand," the story of an aging and damaged boxer. Hemingway's favorite themes are here, bullfighting, love, and war. There's even a story about homosexuality (presented not unsympathetically) and a short play about the first Good Friday. The best story in the book is "Hills Like White Elephants," an example of his iceberg theory. Others are too obvious ("A Canary for One") and "An Alpine Idyll" seems more like a barroom tale than the work of a craftsman. Men Without Women was published when Hemingway was 28, yet several of the stories involve the travails of aging and end of life. Whether he was trying to present as tough or simply representing his characters and the time, there's more than a fair share of racial epithets in these stories. Men Without Women is also the title of a book by Haruki Murakami, which is unlikely to be a coincidence. Despite the uneven nature of this collection, it's well worth reading for the work of someone who labored hard over his sentences. [3★]
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