NEW YORK (AP) — The themes and trappings are familiar for an
Ernest Hemingway narrative: Paris, wartime, talk of books and wine and the
scars of battle.
But the story itself has been little known beyond the scholarly community for decades: "A Room on the Garden Side," written in 1956, is being published for the first time. The brief, World War II-era fiction appears this week in the summer edition of The Strand Magazine, a literary quarterly which has released obscure works by Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck and others.
"Hemingway's deep love for his favorite city as it is just emerging from Nazi occupation is on full display, as are the hallmarks of his prose," Strand Managing Editor Andrew F. Gulli wrote in an editorial note.
Kirk Curnutt, a board member of The Hemingway Society, contributed an afterword for the Strand, saying that "the story contains all the trademark elements readers love in Hemingway."
But the story itself has been little known beyond the scholarly community for decades: "A Room on the Garden Side," written in 1956, is being published for the first time. The brief, World War II-era fiction appears this week in the summer edition of The Strand Magazine, a literary quarterly which has released obscure works by Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck and others.
"Hemingway's deep love for his favorite city as it is just emerging from Nazi occupation is on full display, as are the hallmarks of his prose," Strand Managing Editor Andrew F. Gulli wrote in an editorial note.
Kirk Curnutt, a board member of The Hemingway Society, contributed an afterword for the Strand, saying that "the story contains all the trademark elements readers love in Hemingway."
"Steeped in talk of Marcel Proust, Victor Hugo, and
Alexandre Dumas, and featuring a long excerpt in French from Charles
Baudelaire's 'Les Fleurs du Mal,' the story implicitly wonders whether the
heritage of Parisian culture can recover from the dark taint of fascism,"
Curnutt wrote.
War was a longtime muse for Hemingway. He served as an
ambulance driver during World War I, drawing upon his experiences for his
classic novel "A Farewell to Arms." The Spanish Civil War inspired
his novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls." He was both soldier and
correspondent during World War II and was on hand in Paris in August 1944 for
the liberation from Nazi occupation, described by the author in reports published
soon after by Collier's magazine.
"A Room on the Garden Side" takes place in the Ritz hotel (Hemingway liked to say that he liberated the Ritz bar) and is narrated by a Hemingway stand-in called Robert who shares the author's own nickname — Papa. Robert and his entourage drink wine, quote from Baudelaire and debate "the dirty trade of war."
"A Room on the Garden Side" takes place in the Ritz hotel (Hemingway liked to say that he liberated the Ritz bar) and is narrated by a Hemingway stand-in called Robert who shares the author's own nickname — Papa. Robert and his entourage drink wine, quote from Baudelaire and debate "the dirty trade of war."
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
You can also read my Washington Times review of Hemingway’s
short stories via the below link:
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