I had some high hopes here. I was planning to be moved, to be so deeply affected by the love story here. What I ended up with was a real sore spot where Ernest Hemingway is concerned. So, I suppose you could say I was affected, just not in the way I'd hoped.
The story follows Martha Gellhorn, a young, ambitious writer, and her journey through the years she spent with the one and only Ernest Hemingway, as well as a snippet of what came before, and taste of what came after.
The toxicity of the relationship these two had really floored me! Yes, there were some great moments tossed in, but the arguments, the control, there were few places where I felt any sort of warmth towards these two as a pair! There were even fewer places where I enjoyed Ernest on his own. He was arrogant, self centered, crazy controlling, and more than a little bit of a lush! Ernest seemed to have a really bad habit of thinking himself untouchable, that above all else he should play the part of the entertainer, regardless of where he was in the world, including the middle of a war! I ended up seeing him in a whole new light. It became very clear to me that Ernest was very self conscious, that he depended on the women around him to bring something to his life that he couldn't provide himself. His insecurity and unbalanced mind was quite shocking.
Martha, or Marty, was just as bad on the surface, but did bring a very different perspective to the War aspect of the story. Being a female war correspondent, she really brought to light a lot of the barriers that she, and so many like her, faced in 1937. As far as her career goes, Marty really was a woman that little girls could aspire to be like. She was the author of a few novels during the stories time frame, but what really stood out was her dedication to telling the real story of War. Marty got in there, she got her hands dirty. She wanted to relay the real story, to show the masses what the realities of these wars were. The emotion Marty could convey as a correspondent were so deeply moving, but they did greatly contrast her personality as a wife. She seemed almost a door mat when Ernest was involved, always bending to his needs and desires, and never really listening to her inner voice, and fighting for what she needed. Her inner dialogue read as a woman trapped in a relationship she knew could never truly make her happy, but stayed to please the man she loved. Love and marital happiness don't always fall in the same relationship, and these two are a perfect example.
My absolute favourite part were, hands down, the detailed descriptions of the settings. Describing a scene all the way down to the smell in the air, the feel of the breeze on the skin, it was just beautifully done. I could feel the reality of the location, close my eyes and imagine what it would have felt like to be there, at that moment in time and history. I just felt like there wasn't enough of that to balance out the pieces I didn't love.
Like all stories, perhaps someone else will come away with a feeling completely different than mine. It was a solid story, and I would always recommend to anyone that they read the book themselves, rather than take my word for it, but I can't say that I loved this one. I give it a 3/5*
Comments