Hemingway's early collection of short stories, paired with brief prose vignettes about war, bullfighting and violence. Many stories follow Nick Adams, a boy and young man in northern Michigan, as he meets birth, death, hardship and the aftermath of fighting. The pieces are short and plain, with little explanation, trusting the reader to feel what lies beneath. Published in the 1920s, it established the style that made Hemingway influential and introduced themes he would return to throughout his career.
Quotes
Nick sat against the wall of the church where they had dragged him to be clear of machine gun fire in the street.
Everybody was drunk. The whole battery was drunk going along the road in the dark. We were going to the Champagne. The lieutenant kept riding his horse out into the fields and saying to him, “I’m drunk, I tell you, mon vieux. Oh, I am so soused.”
The king was working in the garden. He seemed very glad to see me. We walked through the garden. This is the queen, he said. She was clipping a rose bush. Oh how do you do, she said. We sat down at a table under a big tree and the king ordered whiskey and soda. We have good whiskey anyway, he said.