To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From Goodreads:  Harshly realistic, yet with one of the most subtle and moving relationships in the Hemingway oeuvre, To Have and Have Not is literary high adventure at its finest.To Have and Have Not is the dramatic story of Harry Morgan, an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair.


I usually enjoy Hemingway and I'm slowly working my way through his selections.  My favorites to date are The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

This book was reminiscent of Old Man and the Sea, in that our initial main character, Harry, makes a series of bad decisions that keep compounding his problems.  He's struggling to stay afloat in desperate times, but just can't seem to make things come together.  His situation goes from bad to worse.  The reader gets glimpses into Harry's soul and sees he is a decent guy under that sun-crusted exterior.  He loves the sea, his wife and girls, he works hard, and he tries to do good.

Halfway through the book Hemingway somewhat abruptly introduces new characters, the usual rich and wanna be rich, and as he trolls through their somewhat sordid lives we find that even when you have it all, sometimes you have nothing and that life is as substantial as the sand between your fingers.

I still found this worth reading - the dialog alone brought everything alive: I could totally envision standing there in the bar, with the fan thwupping softly overhead, the smell of salt blowing in the windows, the men tan and weathered as they spoke in their short choppy sentences, leaning against a dark brown wood bar stained with years of sweating bottles.


"Take it easy," said Harry. "Don't get plugged."

"I'm not plugged," replied Albert, "Bring me with."

"Take it easy."

"Why won't you take me?"

"Take it easy."


A fascinating glimpse into the world of the Florida Keys and Cuba in the 1920s/1930's.



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