Ernest Hemingway: Winner Take Nothing

Hi again

Winner Take Nothing is a collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway. It has only 167 pages so it’s a tiny book.
You can find all my reviews on Hemingway’s work here.

“Ernest Hemingway's first new book of fiction since the publication of "A Farewell to Arms" in 1929 contains fourteen stories of varying length. Some of them have appeared in magazines but the majority have not been published before. The characters and backgrounds are widely varied. "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is about an old Spanish Beggar. "Homage to Switzerland" concerns various conversations at a Swiss railway-station restaurant. "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" is laid in the accident ward of a hospital in Western United States, and so on. Ernest Hemingway made his literary start as a short-story writer. He has always excelled in that medium, and this volume reveals him at his best.”

I must confess I’m not big on short stories. If I read them it’s mostly because I like the author’s other works. 

Time and time again I have the same problem. I like the story itself (most of the time) but it’s either spanning a too short time span. Or I can’t connect to the characters because of their limited lines and development.

Winner Take Nothing suffers from the first ailment. Which is the good one because that means I like (and even love) the stories. They’re just too short.

Hemingway is a genius and it definitely shows in his short stories too; but I think you need to read some of his full novels first to understand his setting and his characters. He has a very particular writing style, time- and place setting you need to get to know first.

See you tomorrow!

Helena