The Garden of Eden

By: Ernest Hemingway

Narrated by: Patrick Wilson

The last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, published posthumously in 1986, charts the life of a young American writer and his glamorous wife who fall for the same woman.

A sensational bestseller when it appeared in 1986, The Garden of Eden is the last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, which he worked on intermittently from 1946 until his death in 1961. Set on the Côte d'Azur in the 1920s, it is the story of a young American writer, David Bourne, his glamorous wife, Catherine, and the dangerous, erotic game they play when they fall in love with the same woman. "A lean, sensuous narrative...taut, chic, and strangely contemporary," The Garden of Eden represents vintage Hemingway, the master "doing what nobody did better" (R. Z. Sheppard, Time).©1986 Mary Hemingway, John Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway, and Gregory Hemingway. All rights reserved; (P)2006 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Hemingway's farewell, mannered, thrilling, spoiled, pure, loyal to its monumental maker and itself and with no knowledge of coming darkness." -- James Salter, The Washington Post Book World

"Hemingway gives you the look and feel of places, the sensuous brilliance of the world's offerings, the excitement of complex relationships, the precision of a hunt or a breakfast, the tensions of sexual intrigue . . . In short, The Garden of Eden is a feast." -- Richard Stern, Chicago Tribune Books

"A miracle, a fresh slant on the old magic." -- John Updike, The New Yorker

Beautiful

I'm sorry to my younger self for not reading this sooner. Time to dive into more Hemmingway.

Oh, To Be Hemingway

If you ever wish you were Earnest, this book seals the deal! Just get past the haircut part.

Postumus and Edited but still quite Hemingway

Although this was published posthumously long after the author’s death, and reportedly ruined by drastic editing, it is still Hemingway. This is far from his best and far from his worst. It is semi-autobiographical, and is very simple and declarative. It has many of the aspects of Hemingway at his best, but I do have doubts about the truthfulness. I think this was the last published Hemingway I had not read, and I am glad I have read it. It covers some aspects of Hemingway that had only appeared in unauthorized biographies. I would like to read the source material – some say there are much longer unpublished drafts.

The narration was excellent handling all the characters very well.

Devolving into Idle-mindedness

It would be natural for the average working person not to empathize with the protagonists in the Garden of Eden, thinking that they are just a bunch of spoiled loiterers - two trust-fund babies and a writer - meandering through life with so much time on their hands that they have nothing better to do than play head-games, evoke conflict with one another and decide that they should dictate another's emotional responses. However, one does not have to be rich to experience this change in personality. It can happen to anyone on an extended vacation, of say, three or four months, with the right (or perhaps the wrong) combination of personalities.

Hemingway's skill as a writer becomes evident at various times in his novel as he skillfully metamorphoses how the writer in the story goes from real-time back to an earlier time, highlighting the book on which the writer is working.

I'm not sure if I can actually give an unbiased review of Hemingway's novel, The Garden of Eden, because it so similarly resembles my own experiences in the south of France, at least as far as the setting, the two women, the swimming, the time of the windy mistrals, the drinking, etc., and the devolving into idle-mindedness - as what invariably happens when one doesn't have to do anything or be anywhere. While my experiences in the south of France differed considerably from those in the novel, as I had relations with the two women at different times, I've concluded, from like life experiences, that this sort of ménage à trois never really works out, regardless of the other circumstances surrounding the event, as rivalries and jealousies invariably develop. If anyone is interested in my experiences in the south of France, here's my story: http://knightsfeather.blogspot.com/2011/10/eternal-summers.html

I very much liked Hemingway's novel, The Garden of Eden. I listened to it on Audible in lieu of reading it. The narration was excellent, as the narrator's voice changed with each change of the principles' turn at dialog.

~Manfred

Good, worth the read

A good read. A little racy, but it’s important to the story, and the story is a good one