RARA-AVIS: to have and have not

From: Robison Michael R CNIN ( Robison_M@crane.navy.mil)
Date: 15 Jan 2002


hi everybody,

so to be historical, does a novel just need to be set in the past, or should it deal with some specific real historical incident?

hemingway's _to have and have not_ is set in early 20th century cuba. jeffrey meyers, in his hemingway biography, criticized the book for being about thugs. i read this comment before i'd even heard the term hard- boiled, but even then i thought he was dead wrong. _to have and have not_ did an excellent job of carrying hemingway's recurrent theme of the struggle to get by in a tough world. of course, there's a lot of things that i disagree with the hemingway biographers and critics on... better not get started on that.

if you like hardboiled and don't mind if its not a detective story, i highly recommend this book. the action starts on page one with a machine gun battle. the scenes are painted vividly, and harry morgan is a bad ass guy, with an impressive array of other nasty characters. the ending is as good as jd mcdonald's _deep blue goodbye_, with the hardboiled philosophy up there in flashing las vegas lights.

have you seen the movie? its pathetic and deplorable. the story's not even close. the movie people were obviously trying to create another casa- blanca.

miker

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