To Have or Have Not review

Full disclosure: To Have and Have Not became a did not finish for me.

I was about 50 pages before the end of the book, pretty well on track, but story-wise I suddenly ran into a brick wall, and it couldn't be done. Have you ever had that happen?

I wasn't exactly enjoying the book before that, but it was readable enough, and I wanted to get it done in time for my review today for http://classics.rebeccareid.com/ but all of a sudden, it took a turn that I didn't understand. I don't mind unexpected turns in books. In fact, I like them a lot. But when it's a turn I don't understand, then I lose my way a  bit. Well, more than a bit, here.

Ever since I read A Moveable Feast - and loved it - http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2008/09/moveable-feast-by-ernest-hemingway.html I've been wanting to read Hemingway's novels.

Having battled my way through two thirds of To Have and Have Not, now I'm not so sure.

Anyway. Harry Morgan is a boat captain who runs smuggled goods between Cuba and the United States. As the book opens, he's just turned down a job of smuggling people rather than goods. As he finishes his meal in the cafe they met, the men who wanted to hire him are gunned down in the street.

From there ... okay, To Have and Have Not is probably one of the most disjointed novels I've read. Or two-thirds read. It jumps around points of view, from first person Harry, to third person Harry, to third person other characters, back to Harry ...

Apparently Hemingway revised the novel several times, and it's easy to see in its choppy narrative and barely-there plot.

The lost generation could, perhaps have not found this one again. ;)

1984 by George Orwell

My classic novel for May.
It’s a deceptively short novel, at less than 250 pages and it took me a lot longer to read than I would have expected. And it’s so bleak! I know that it’s not a particularly optimistic view of the future as Orwell envisioned it, but it’s much bleaker than I thought it was.

Not to say it was bad, in fact I enjoyed reading it very much. The subject matter was depressing, but the writing is so assured and the story so well-constructed that I didn’t mind the bleakness very much.

Winston Smith is one of thousands of Party workers, toiling away for the good of Big Brother. He works for the Ministry of Truth _ which means he doctors books and newspapers _ and he toils away, like everyone else. However, when he starts to question the Party and Big Brother, things start to happen. First good things, as he meets a girl and finds what he thinks is a safe house. Then very bad things, as they are both arrested by the Ministry of Love.

Orwell has packed so many ideas into 1984 about freedom, and politics and life that it’s impossible to detail them all. What impresses me so much, is that he’s done it in such a short book!
1984 will be on my re-read list for sure.